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Shifting blame on to other offenders doesn't take away from the problems created by the buses. Given an Apple bus picks up at one of my corners, and a Google bu

Shifting blame on to other offenders doesn't take away from the problems created by the buses. Given an Apple bus picks up at one of my corners, and a Google bus at the other, I often encounter the buses and their employees. Sometimes, the two buses need to be in the same place at the same time, this means either us MUNI riders have to wait for the corporate bus riders to get on and get moving or that the corporate bus blocks traffic while it waits for the MUNI bus to move. As for the Google Campus, I have taken public transit to it, it's not hard, can take either SamTrans or CalTrain + a walk. That's not to say it's a solution though. The only real solution to the real problem (increased rent prices causing gentrification) is to increase the housing supply and reduce demand on that supply. Google has some levers it can pull to do that (build dorms, invest in real estate projects, etc.)

jrockway 13y ago
I think the problem lies with Northern California's chronic NIMBY-ism, which makes it impossible to build infrastructure other than roads. (Let me know when BART gets extended down the peninsula.) The deeper issue is that people choose San Francisco because of the relatively low density, which does make for rather pleasant neighborhoods. High-density low-income housing projects have been proven a failure in every other major city, so I'm not sure that's a solution either. Most cities have already town them down, settling on San Francisco levels of density. As an occasional visitor, I certainly find it nice. (Though taking the bus to the Richmond District from downtown is quite an ordeal. 30 minutes to go like two miles!?) There really is no easy answer; I don't think anyone knows what to do, and I don't think NorCal has the risk appetite to try something experimental. That's the problem. (My solution would be to make San Jose more appealing to the tech-worker demographic. It doesn't have the charming hills or coastal location that San Francisco does, but it is pretty close to a lot of jobs. I would consider living there if I moved to the Bay Area. It's even biking-distance to Google, and it's not quite the suburban wasteland that Mountain View is.)

jrockway 13y ago

I think the problem lies with Northern California's chronic NIMBY-ism, which makes it impossible to build infrastructure other than roads. (Let me know when BART gets extended down the peninsula.) The deeper issue is that people choose San Francisco because of the relatively low density, which does make for rather pleasant neighborhoods. High-density low-income housing projects have been proven a failure in every other major city, so I'm not sure that's a solution either. Most cities have already town them down, settling on San Francisco levels of density. As an occasional visitor, I certainly find it nice. (Though taking the bus to the Richmond District from downtown is quite an ordeal. 30 minutes to go like two miles!?) There really is no easy answer; I don't think anyone knows what to do, and I don't think NorCal has the risk appetite to try something experimental. That's the problem. (My solution would be to make San Jose more appealing to the tech-worker demographic. It doesn't have the charming hills or coastal location that San Francisco does, but it is pretty close to a lot of jobs. I would consider living there if I moved to the Bay Area. It's even biking-distance to Google, and it's not quite the suburban wasteland that Mountain View is.)