7 ms·

The thing that makes mass transit work is walkability. There are 3 million people in NYC who use the subway every day. They can do that because the walkability

The thing that makes mass transit work is walkability. There are 3 million people in NYC who use the subway every day. They can do that because the walkability of the neighborhoods complements the mass transit. In some European cities, the bicycle is its own form of transit, and it can likewise be that because separate bike paths exist that complement the walkable structure of those cities. If we want to actually beat the East Coast on transportation we have to do one or both of those things. Otherwise we can build all we like and no one will ride. Problem is that the same homeowners who brought you Prop 13 also want to keep getting places by car and you’re not going to get reasonable walkability until you de-prioritize the car.

cmiller1 8y ago
>If we want to actually beat the East Coast on transportation Why does it have to be a competition? I'd like to see both coasts have great systems for transportation!
- staplers 8y ago
  Competition is the easiest path to refinement. See the space race.
  - naravara 8y ago
    Competition also drove the Soviets to get lots of their people killed because they cared more about hitting arbitrary deadlines to win the geopolitical dick-measuring contest than they did about safety or even accomplishing their goals. (And before I get called out: Yes, I realize NASA got people killed for the same reason but the difference is seriously orders of magnitude. NASA's failures were publicized while the USSR's were covered up. Many cosmonauts perished and all records of them were removed, they were airbrushed out of photos, erased from official documents, etc. The world will never know their names.)
    - staplers 8y ago
      I wouldn't attribute bad practices to "competition"
hannasanarion 8y ago
That's just the thing though: Western cities are increasingly de-prioritizing cars, and Eastern cities are falling behind. There are parts of Phoenix that are more bikable than much of New York. LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle have started pouring money into their new transit systems, while MTA and NJ Transit and Port Authority keep having their budgets cut, leading to reliability so low that it's driving people into cars. The East Coast used to be the star of American transportation, not much anymore.
- libraryatnight 8y ago
  Phoenix's Light Rail is also a nice improvement - I hope it expands. I know they're trying, some neighborhoods are resisting though - they argue it brings in riff-raff lol
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Genuine question - what has SF poured money into? What we need here is expanded BART service and electrified Caltrain, unfortunately NIMBYs in Atherton/Palo Alto block that at every move.
  - popcorn49 8y ago
    Totally agree. In fact, the BART board recently rejected an extension into Livermore, which would have brought down a lot of car trips from the East Bay Area into San Francisco. And a BART train through the South Bay would be great, as would extension to Santa Cruz, Marin, and Napa.
  - joshAg 8y ago
    $3.5 Billion into BART in 2016: https://www.bart.gov/better-bart https://www.bart.gov/better-bart ~$2.0 Billion into caltrain electrification: http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Caltrain+Modernization+Program/Documents/PCEP+Quarter+4+2016+Report.pdf http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Caltrain+Modernization+Progra... (page 13)
  - vechagup 8y ago
    - $1.5B: https://www.sfmta.com/projects/central-subway-project https://www.sfmta.com/projects/central-subway-project - $0.5B: https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/ecc https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/ecc - $3.1B (thus far): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension - $2M (each): https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars - $1.2B: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Muni-s-new-light-rail-cars-are-different-12750729.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Muni-s-new-light-r... - $1.9B: https://calmod.org/ https://calmod.org/ So stuff happens, and I'm grateful when it does -- the new BART cars are nice -- but generally at a snail's pace. It's hard to tell whether NIMBY obstruction (https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-atherton-cant-reach-a-deal-on-electrification-poles https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-ath...) or contractor incompetence and mismanagement (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-subway-stalled-after-contractor-lays-down-12905429.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-subway-stalle...) is more to blame.
magduf 8y ago
>Problem is that the same homeowners who brought you Prop 13 also want to keep getting places by car As I've said said so many times before, every nation gets the government it deserves. Americans don't want bikeable or walkable cities, so we don't have them. Europeans do want them, so they have them. >In some European cities, the bicycle is its own form of transit, and it can likewise be that because separate bike paths exist that complement the walkable structure of those cities. Yep, I was in Germany recently, and the large cities I visited all had excellent subway/train systems, as well as bike paths on all the major roads. And unlike bike lanes in US cities, the bike lanes were on the same level as the sidewalk, physically separated from the cars. The cities themselves were far more dense too: not as dense as Manhattan, but still far more dense than your typical American suburban "city", so it was very feasible to get around by bike and subway and also tram (electric streetcar). We're not going to de-prioritize the car because Americans just can't think that way; they can't stand the thought of having to share space with strangers. So we're going to continue building more roads, and getting worse and worse congestion. It's not ever going to get better, because generally, when you look at the history of human societies, things rarely get fixed before there's a total collapse or disaster of some kind. Humans in groups just aren't smart enough to avoid disasters even when they're plainly obvious.

cmiller1 8y ago

>If we want to actually beat the East Coast on transportation Why does it have to be a competition? I'd like to see both coasts have great systems for transportation!

staplers 8y ago
Competition is the easiest path to refinement. See the space race.
- naravara 8y ago
  Competition also drove the Soviets to get lots of their people killed because they cared more about hitting arbitrary deadlines to win the geopolitical dick-measuring contest than they did about safety or even accomplishing their goals. (And before I get called out: Yes, I realize NASA got people killed for the same reason but the difference is seriously orders of magnitude. NASA's failures were publicized while the USSR's were covered up. Many cosmonauts perished and all records of them were removed, they were airbrushed out of photos, erased from official documents, etc. The world will never know their names.)
  - staplers 8y ago
    I wouldn't attribute bad practices to "competition"

hannasanarion 8y ago

That's just the thing though: Western cities are increasingly de-prioritizing cars, and Eastern cities are falling behind. There are parts of Phoenix that are more bikable than much of New York. LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle have started pouring money into their new transit systems, while MTA and NJ Transit and Port Authority keep having their budgets cut, leading to reliability so low that it's driving people into cars. The East Coast used to be the star of American transportation, not much anymore.

libraryatnight 8y ago
Phoenix's Light Rail is also a nice improvement - I hope it expands. I know they're trying, some neighborhoods are resisting though - they argue it brings in riff-raff lol
crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Genuine question - what has SF poured money into? What we need here is expanded BART service and electrified Caltrain, unfortunately NIMBYs in Atherton/Palo Alto block that at every move.
- popcorn49 8y ago
  Totally agree. In fact, the BART board recently rejected an extension into Livermore, which would have brought down a lot of car trips from the East Bay Area into San Francisco. And a BART train through the South Bay would be great, as would extension to Santa Cruz, Marin, and Napa.
- joshAg 8y ago
  $3.5 Billion into BART in 2016: https://www.bart.gov/better-bart https://www.bart.gov/better-bart ~$2.0 Billion into caltrain electrification: http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Caltrain+Modernization+Program/Documents/PCEP+Quarter+4+2016+Report.pdf http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Caltrain+Modernization+Progra... (page 13)
- vechagup 8y ago
  - $1.5B: https://www.sfmta.com/projects/central-subway-project https://www.sfmta.com/projects/central-subway-project - $0.5B: https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/ecc https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/ecc - $3.1B (thus far): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension - $2M (each): https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars - $1.2B: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Muni-s-new-light-rail-cars-are-different-12750729.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Muni-s-new-light-r... - $1.9B: https://calmod.org/ https://calmod.org/ So stuff happens, and I'm grateful when it does -- the new BART cars are nice -- but generally at a snail's pace. It's hard to tell whether NIMBY obstruction (https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-atherton-cant-reach-a-deal-on-electrification-poles https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-ath...) or contractor incompetence and mismanagement (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-subway-stalled-after-contractor-lays-down-12905429.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-subway-stalle...) is more to blame.

magduf 8y ago

>Problem is that the same homeowners who brought you Prop 13 also want to keep getting places by car As I've said said so many times before, every nation gets the government it deserves. Americans don't want bikeable or walkable cities, so we don't have them. Europeans do want them, so they have them. >In some European cities, the bicycle is its own form of transit, and it can likewise be that because separate bike paths exist that complement the walkable structure of those cities. Yep, I was in Germany recently, and the large cities I visited all had excellent subway/train systems, as well as bike paths on all the major roads. And unlike bike lanes in US cities, the bike lanes were on the same level as the sidewalk, physically separated from the cars. The cities themselves were far more dense too: not as dense as Manhattan, but still far more dense than your typical American suburban "city", so it was very feasible to get around by bike and subway and also tram (electric streetcar). We're not going to de-prioritize the car because Americans just can't think that way; they can't stand the thought of having to share space with strangers. So we're going to continue building more roads, and getting worse and worse congestion. It's not ever going to get better, because generally, when you look at the history of human societies, things rarely get fixed before there's a total collapse or disaster of some kind. Humans in groups just aren't smart enough to avoid disasters even when they're plainly obvious.