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If you’re talking in the US: no high-cost city has had long term public policy that favors walking/public transport over driving, to my knowledge. Even in Manha

If you’re talking in the US: no high-cost city has had long term public policy that favors walking/public transport over driving, to my knowledge. Even in Manhattan, cars are given free parking in numerous places, despite a single parking space being worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you’re thinking of San Francisco: how has public transit grown in the past 20 years? What new lines have been built? Sure, the cost of living has gone up, but has the total area well serviced by public transit increased? That indicates to me SF does not favor public transit as policy.

wahern 7y ago
It's well known in SF that public transit is worse now than it ever has been. In particular, the trains and buses are slower than ever. It's been a long-term, multi-decade trend, but more recently ride sharing significantly increased the amount of traffic, disrupting SF's mostly surface public transit.
- dannyobrien 7y ago
  I was curious whether this was true, so went looking for studies. Here’s a pretty good recent one which concluded that ride-sharing increased congestion in SF: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/05/20190509-tnc.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/05/20190509-tnc.html
- cortesoft 7y ago
  It makes sense, because in SF it was really parking that made public transport more attractive than driving... it was always faster to get somewhere driving than public transport, but once you got where you were going parking was impossible. This meant the slower public transport was a better option. Ride sharing services give you the speed of driving without having to park, so lots of people will use them until they cause enough congestion to make them as slow as public transport.
mc32 7y ago
The third street LRV has been added and the central subway LRV line is being added. The F line was added too, though mostly for tourists.
- wahern 7y ago
  Third street LRV doesn't really improve the situation. It was added in anticipation of and simultaneous to the redevelopment of the Mission Bay area. I don't live in that part of the city, but as far as I know folks living in the southeast took the express buses downtown as it jumps on the freeway for most of the way; they probably mostly still do because the LRV is ridiculously slow. I can walk from downtown to AT&T Park almost as fast as the LRV can get there, and the LRV is either underground or has the right-of-way most of the way there. I haven't taken it past Mission Bay into, say, Bayview, but it's still slow getting anywhere in Mission Bay as it loses right-of-way. The central subway LRV is mostly for tourists, and while the third street and central subway lines were, together, partly intended to help shuttle people from the SE to Chinatown, as of now the Chinese community still oppose it. Everybody knows why they oppose (it just can't be said aloud[1]), but personal convenience usually trumps anti-social community sentiments. Once it opens I guess we'll see. If opposition quickly goes away then that would suggest it's more convenient than the existing heavily trafficked express buses, but somehow I doubt that will happen. What would be a meaningful addition to the network is if they finally extended the E-Embarcadero (sister to the F line that opened in 2016) to the Marina, using the Fort Mason tunnel. But crime in Fisherman's Wharf is way up, so I suspect it's being quietly stalled by Marina activists. In any event, LRVs suck, the F- and E-lines notwithstanding. They're slower than buses and 10x as expensive, in SF and most every other American city.[2] Oppose LRVs! All they do is give public transit a bad name. It's right-of-way or no way, but preferably grade separated. [1] It's the same reason the North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf communities successfully stopped its extension past Chinatown. [2] I think the only LRV I've been on outside the U.S. is Vienna, but it was mostly historic. Somehow it seems historic routes see less competing traffic, perhaps because they were built in a time and place that doesn't permit much car traffic to begin with. I've been on BRTs in Guadalajara and Quito--if you can't grade separate but can acquire a right-of-way, LRVs seem like a waste of money. They're even a worse waste of money if they don't get unimpeded right-of-way.
PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
There are a few that are selling out to developers while using this very idea as an excuse. Santa Monica, CA, being a prime example. Santa Monica's kangaroo council (ruled illegal by state law, but wasting millions more taxpayer dollars in a futile appeal), has started deleting parking requirements from building codes. This is a massive giveaway to developers and a long-term theft from taxpayers, which will destroy the standard of living in neighborhoods around these developments. The public excuse is that this will somehow cause public transportation to magically appear, or promote walking or biking. BWAHAHAHA! Yes, when I buy groceries for my family, BIKING is a totally viable option. Leave it to corrupt U.S. politicians to take foreign ideas and use them as cover for taxpayer rip-offs.

wahern 7y ago

It's well known in SF that public transit is worse now than it ever has been. In particular, the trains and buses are slower than ever. It's been a long-term, multi-decade trend, but more recently ride sharing significantly increased the amount of traffic, disrupting SF's mostly surface public transit.

dannyobrien 7y ago
I was curious whether this was true, so went looking for studies. Here’s a pretty good recent one which concluded that ride-sharing increased congestion in SF: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/05/20190509-tnc.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/05/20190509-tnc.html
cortesoft 7y ago
It makes sense, because in SF it was really parking that made public transport more attractive than driving... it was always faster to get somewhere driving than public transport, but once you got where you were going parking was impossible. This meant the slower public transport was a better option. Ride sharing services give you the speed of driving without having to park, so lots of people will use them until they cause enough congestion to make them as slow as public transport.

mc32 7y ago

The third street LRV has been added and the central subway LRV line is being added. The F line was added too, though mostly for tourists.

wahern 7y ago
Third street LRV doesn't really improve the situation. It was added in anticipation of and simultaneous to the redevelopment of the Mission Bay area. I don't live in that part of the city, but as far as I know folks living in the southeast took the express buses downtown as it jumps on the freeway for most of the way; they probably mostly still do because the LRV is ridiculously slow. I can walk from downtown to AT&T Park almost as fast as the LRV can get there, and the LRV is either underground or has the right-of-way most of the way there. I haven't taken it past Mission Bay into, say, Bayview, but it's still slow getting anywhere in Mission Bay as it loses right-of-way. The central subway LRV is mostly for tourists, and while the third street and central subway lines were, together, partly intended to help shuttle people from the SE to Chinatown, as of now the Chinese community still oppose it. Everybody knows why they oppose (it just can't be said aloud[1]), but personal convenience usually trumps anti-social community sentiments. Once it opens I guess we'll see. If opposition quickly goes away then that would suggest it's more convenient than the existing heavily trafficked express buses, but somehow I doubt that will happen. What would be a meaningful addition to the network is if they finally extended the E-Embarcadero (sister to the F line that opened in 2016) to the Marina, using the Fort Mason tunnel. But crime in Fisherman's Wharf is way up, so I suspect it's being quietly stalled by Marina activists. In any event, LRVs suck, the F- and E-lines notwithstanding. They're slower than buses and 10x as expensive, in SF and most every other American city.[2] Oppose LRVs! All they do is give public transit a bad name. It's right-of-way or no way, but preferably grade separated. [1] It's the same reason the North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf communities successfully stopped its extension past Chinatown. [2] I think the only LRV I've been on outside the U.S. is Vienna, but it was mostly historic. Somehow it seems historic routes see less competing traffic, perhaps because they were built in a time and place that doesn't permit much car traffic to begin with. I've been on BRTs in Guadalajara and Quito--if you can't grade separate but can acquire a right-of-way, LRVs seem like a waste of money. They're even a worse waste of money if they don't get unimpeded right-of-way.

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago

There are a few that are selling out to developers while using this very idea as an excuse. Santa Monica, CA, being a prime example. Santa Monica's kangaroo council (ruled illegal by state law, but wasting millions more taxpayer dollars in a futile appeal), has started deleting parking requirements from building codes. This is a massive giveaway to developers and a long-term theft from taxpayers, which will destroy the standard of living in neighborhoods around these developments. The public excuse is that this will somehow cause public transportation to magically appear, or promote walking or biking. BWAHAHAHA! Yes, when I buy groceries for my family, BIKING is a totally viable option. Leave it to corrupt U.S. politicians to take foreign ideas and use them as cover for taxpayer rip-offs.