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Your first article attributes those quotes reasoning about the lack of construction to speculation by “neighbors”. There is also a traffic problem created in pa

Your first article attributes those quotes reasoning about the lack of construction to speculation by “neighbors”. There is also a traffic problem created in part by construction of a bus line that is 18 months overdue. It seems a bit quick to be using that as justification for SF housing policies, especially as they don’t seem to be working. Your other article is paywalled, but I imagine that tightly planned cities introducing only new luxery housing is the same general situation and would be similarly vulnerable to the very arguments you’re responding to.

Aloha 7y ago
How much construction does a 'bus line' take exactly?
- BrandonM 7y ago
  I live a couple blocks away from Van Ness. Here's the project: https://www.sfcta.org/projects/van-ness-improvement-project https://www.sfcta.org/projects/van-ness-improvement-project. They're moving to dedicated bus lanes, allowing the buses to load and unload safely without blocking other traffic. As with all significant projects, they've lumped in a bunch of other maintenance that has been put off for too long, like upgrading utility lines. Construction generally blocks a lane of traffic on one side of the street, rerouting the other lanes and pedestrians, for several weeks at a time. Then they move on to the next block or to the other side of the street. Just from a layman's perspective, it seems incredibly tricky to try to construct a housing development with that going on around it. The "bus line" construction has already put additional pressure on traffic up and down Van Ness, and it's got to be very tricky to get permits for parking spots, dumpsters, and other necessities with everything else that's going on. And anyway the city could probably just come through and close everything down for weeks or months so that they can perform another stage of "bus line" construction. (I'm putting "bus line" in quotes because they haven't even really started on that part. This whole project is a pretty incredibly yak shave that's taking 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars for a bus line.)

Aloha 7y ago

How much construction does a 'bus line' take exactly?

BrandonM 7y ago
I live a couple blocks away from Van Ness. Here's the project: https://www.sfcta.org/projects/van-ness-improvement-project https://www.sfcta.org/projects/van-ness-improvement-project. They're moving to dedicated bus lanes, allowing the buses to load and unload safely without blocking other traffic. As with all significant projects, they've lumped in a bunch of other maintenance that has been put off for too long, like upgrading utility lines. Construction generally blocks a lane of traffic on one side of the street, rerouting the other lanes and pedestrians, for several weeks at a time. Then they move on to the next block or to the other side of the street. Just from a layman's perspective, it seems incredibly tricky to try to construct a housing development with that going on around it. The "bus line" construction has already put additional pressure on traffic up and down Van Ness, and it's got to be very tricky to get permits for parking spots, dumpsters, and other necessities with everything else that's going on. And anyway the city could probably just come through and close everything down for weeks or months so that they can perform another stage of "bus line" construction. (I'm putting "bus line" in quotes because they haven't even really started on that part. This whole project is a pretty incredibly yak shave that's taking 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars for a bus line.)