3 ms·

You totally missed the point. It’s not that Miami designed some great alternative to get to Miami Beach and I am mad they didn’t use heavy rail. There is no goo

You totally missed the point. It’s not that Miami designed some great alternative to get to Miami Beach and I am mad they didn’t use heavy rail. There is no good way to get around without a personal vehicle. Going from the airport to Miami Beach is the most common trip for visitors and they haven’t even done basic planning for it. It’s completely a local issue. In fact, even if you want to talk about heavy rail, it’s been a local or at least state issue. The voters of the state passed a referendum for a bullet train nearly two decades ago and then the state government went to great lengths to avoid building it anyway. The Obama Administration even offered federal funds for it since it was the project that could be completed most quickly. But the state refused. And yes California is proceeding with a high speed train despite the anti-train hit pieces from the LA Times. Sure rent is lower but the incomes are so much lower and the minimum wage is so low that the average worker is worse off. There has not been a Democratic governor in Florida since the 1990s and we have had a member of the Bush family and one of the biggest Medicare fraudsters in history since so I would say it’s been a relatively red state other than occasionally swinging blue in the presidential race. Thanks for telling me I shouldn’t diss people who live in Florida. I live in Florida so I don’t really need the advice. After several decades here I am well versed in the many issues here including finding any neighborhood larger than two blocks that is walkable. Or finding a public park since the land was all sold to private developers. That’s not how urban planning works in functioning cities like San Francisco. Maybe you should take your own advice and not diss people in California since you don’t live there.

manigandham 6y ago
Cars are the de facto American transportation and what most cities are designed around. LAX is the 2nd biggest airport in the USA and has no direct rail connection either.
- asdff 6y ago
  LAX was supposed to have a direct rail connection 20 years ago from the green line, but you can thank private parking lot owners for trenching up local opposition and the FAA for driving in the death knell on that effort. It does have a shuttle connection to the green line, and in the near future that shuttle will be replaced with a people mover.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    We have subways in LA. It's not like there were no other options. It's just a failure of local governance to actually plan and build for citizens.
kortilla 6y ago
> And yes California is proceeding with a high speed train despite the anti-train hit pieces from the LA Times. So far the high speed train has been a boondoggle, not a good example of a success. It will be decades before it goes anywhere useful. > Or finding a public park since the land was all sold to private developers. That’s not how urban planning works in functioning cities like San Francisco. Have you ever actually lived in San Francisco? A significant chunk of it (and 95% of the rest of the bay) is not walkable. And there is no functional urban planning in San Francisco. A policy of rejecting every new substantial proposal is not “planning”. When was the last time they agreed to allow dense housing to replace single/multi-family homes? When was the last new BART line added? When were new commuter rail lines added in? I lived in the Bay Area for over a decade now and this fantasy you have of a functioning local government doesn’t exist. The only people that make good enough money to be worth it are senior software folks. Everyone else is better at their slightly reduced equivalent wage anywhere else in the US (aside from maybe NYC). Tax money is absolutely being pissed away at an alarming rate based on what citizens get here. The schools are frequently garbage, the public transit is useful for maybe 5% of the population, and the homeless problem is as bad as ever. All of this for the low price of one of the highest income tax states + sales tax. I chose the bay because of the tech economy and nice weather in spite of the blisteringly incompetent government. I don’t think any of my friends or coworkers are in SF or the wider bay because they think it’s a good governance model. The thought is likely pretty laughable to most residents.
- mrgordon 6y ago
  You don't need to replace historic Victorian and Edwardian houses necessarily, although its one option. Instead you can extend zoning in areas like SOMA to allow much larger buildings there where there aren't as many people already living there and most of the structures aren't nice historic houses. This is exactly what they've done. San Francisco has a whole area of very tall residential skyscrapers in various stages of completion as well as the tallest building on the west coast (the Salesforce Tower) as part of a new transit hub. Many of the schools are great. Sorry if your school district is bad. There are excellent schools in many areas. Cupertino, most of the Peninsula, Berkeley have some really great ones. My coworkers for a decade took public transit more often than not. You live in the suburbs if you think 5% of the population takes BART or Muni to work. Plus many people walk or bike. I've walked all over San Francisco so if you don't find it walkable its on you. Grab an electric scooter, a bike share, an electric skateboard, some rollerblades, or one of those uniwheel things and the hills won't be so bad if you can't handle walking them. The Mission has more streets of great walkability with restaurants and small businesses everywhere than almost anywhere in America. Perhaps the fact that you don't even know about the BART expansion should be the warning sign that you don't really follow Bay Area transit very closely. Ironic that you ask if I have ever actually lived in San Francisco. Yes I have. Trying to act like the government is so incompetent that they can't open a station when they just opened Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose stations on June 13 says more about your lack of attention to local issues than it does about their urban planning. They also built 7,000 nearby housing units. Its actual transit-first development as they've been doing in SF for years. I've met more people in junior roles get rich in the Bay Area from equity than would ever be possible by trying to live in the cheapest possible place with minimal opportunities such that your expenses are a slightly lower percentage of your take-home pay as a new graduate. If you did an entry level job at Twilio you're probably a millionaire now. People get promoted significantly faster in the Bay Area due to the number of fast growing companies and the pay, which started out higher, grows that much more every year due to promotions, larger cost of living increases, etc. So sure make your money and leave. Don't try to improve things you don't like, just complain about them. Go somewhere new and find out all the issues there that you didn't realize including several of the ones I brought up here. Learn what a truly unwalkable place is like.

manigandham 6y ago

Cars are the de facto American transportation and what most cities are designed around. LAX is the 2nd biggest airport in the USA and has no direct rail connection either.

asdff 6y ago
LAX was supposed to have a direct rail connection 20 years ago from the green line, but you can thank private parking lot owners for trenching up local opposition and the FAA for driving in the death knell on that effort. It does have a shuttle connection to the green line, and in the near future that shuttle will be replaced with a people mover.
- manigandham 6y ago
  We have subways in LA. It's not like there were no other options. It's just a failure of local governance to actually plan and build for citizens.

kortilla 6y ago

> And yes California is proceeding with a high speed train despite the anti-train hit pieces from the LA Times. So far the high speed train has been a boondoggle, not a good example of a success. It will be decades before it goes anywhere useful. > Or finding a public park since the land was all sold to private developers. That’s not how urban planning works in functioning cities like San Francisco. Have you ever actually lived in San Francisco? A significant chunk of it (and 95% of the rest of the bay) is not walkable. And there is no functional urban planning in San Francisco. A policy of rejecting every new substantial proposal is not “planning”. When was the last time they agreed to allow dense housing to replace single/multi-family homes? When was the last new BART line added? When were new commuter rail lines added in? I lived in the Bay Area for over a decade now and this fantasy you have of a functioning local government doesn’t exist. The only people that make good enough money to be worth it are senior software folks. Everyone else is better at their slightly reduced equivalent wage anywhere else in the US (aside from maybe NYC). Tax money is absolutely being pissed away at an alarming rate based on what citizens get here. The schools are frequently garbage, the public transit is useful for maybe 5% of the population, and the homeless problem is as bad as ever. All of this for the low price of one of the highest income tax states + sales tax. I chose the bay because of the tech economy and nice weather in spite of the blisteringly incompetent government. I don’t think any of my friends or coworkers are in SF or the wider bay because they think it’s a good governance model. The thought is likely pretty laughable to most residents.

mrgordon 6y ago
You don't need to replace historic Victorian and Edwardian houses necessarily, although its one option. Instead you can extend zoning in areas like SOMA to allow much larger buildings there where there aren't as many people already living there and most of the structures aren't nice historic houses. This is exactly what they've done. San Francisco has a whole area of very tall residential skyscrapers in various stages of completion as well as the tallest building on the west coast (the Salesforce Tower) as part of a new transit hub. Many of the schools are great. Sorry if your school district is bad. There are excellent schools in many areas. Cupertino, most of the Peninsula, Berkeley have some really great ones. My coworkers for a decade took public transit more often than not. You live in the suburbs if you think 5% of the population takes BART or Muni to work. Plus many people walk or bike. I've walked all over San Francisco so if you don't find it walkable its on you. Grab an electric scooter, a bike share, an electric skateboard, some rollerblades, or one of those uniwheel things and the hills won't be so bad if you can't handle walking them. The Mission has more streets of great walkability with restaurants and small businesses everywhere than almost anywhere in America. Perhaps the fact that you don't even know about the BART expansion should be the warning sign that you don't really follow Bay Area transit very closely. Ironic that you ask if I have ever actually lived in San Francisco. Yes I have. Trying to act like the government is so incompetent that they can't open a station when they just opened Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose stations on June 13 says more about your lack of attention to local issues than it does about their urban planning. They also built 7,000 nearby housing units. Its actual transit-first development as they've been doing in SF for years. I've met more people in junior roles get rich in the Bay Area from equity than would ever be possible by trying to live in the cheapest possible place with minimal opportunities such that your expenses are a slightly lower percentage of your take-home pay as a new graduate. If you did an entry level job at Twilio you're probably a millionaire now. People get promoted significantly faster in the Bay Area due to the number of fast growing companies and the pay, which started out higher, grows that much more every year due to promotions, larger cost of living increases, etc. So sure make your money and leave. Don't try to improve things you don't like, just complain about them. Go somewhere new and find out all the issues there that you didn't realize including several of the ones I brought up here. Learn what a truly unwalkable place is like.