5 ms·

How do we get around? To get downtown I have to take two busses and then bart (or two busses but it takes longer because there are a lot more stops). The kicke

by taatof 2y ago

How do we get around? To get downtown I have to take two busses and then bart (or two busses but it takes longer because there are a lot more stops). The kicker: I'm not even in a suburb, I live in SF! All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good enough train system. I end up WFH anyway, largely because it's annoying to get to an office downtown every day.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. Same happening here in my smallish (~300k peeople) capital of a small eu country... Too many cars? More expensive parking! Less parking! More expensive parking! Less parking! More pedestrian-only streets, and even more cars around that... And the buses? They suck. The city is roughly star-shaped.. want to go from one leg to another? Well, you have to cross the city center. Sunday? Half of the buses don't drive then. Something happening in the city center? Good luck with getting on the last bus after the event is over, and no extra buses added. Dog? Not during "rush hours" (6.30-9:30 and 13-17h). AC? Barely any. Two buses needed? No time sinchronization at all. Train-bus time sychronization? haha good luck. Need to go just a stop or two? It's expensive. Need to go across the whole town? It's slow, even with empty streets. But hey, parking will be made even more expensive! edit: also, a student? You get cheaper transport! Here's a line for you to wait to get the transport card: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/pred-okenci-prevoznikov-pricakujte-gneco-237166 https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/pred-okenci-prevoznikov-pr...
- taatof 2y ago
  Sounds right. Here in SF, instead of police pulling over people who speed and run stop signs, we're getting rid of parking spots within 20ft of intersections so people speeding and running stop signs can see if they're about to kill a pedestrian. Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced traffic laws and used that money.
  - milch 2y ago
    Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once, and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities. They could add cameras, but I bet you that people would fight tooth and nail against that as well... not being able to park within 20ft of an intersection doesn't cause any privacy issues, or funnel money into the city councilman's cousin's company that just so happens to be in the business of installing red light and stop sign photo enforcement cameras, or need ongoing maintenance to keep working
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once They don't have to be everywhere. They have to be at least _somewhere_ and start visible enforcing. People need to know that they might get away with running a red light a couple of times, but they WILL be caught eventually, and there WILL be consequences. > and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities. I read a lot of the urbanist propaganda research, and most of it is pure crap. Bad statistical methods, poor significance, P-hacking, biased tests, you name it.
    - taatof 2y ago
      > Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once Can we compromise at some number greater than 0? I've lived here for more than a decade and don't remember seeing anyone getting pulled over by SFPD.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - fragmede 2y ago
    SF put in 33 speed cameras in known locations, and are aiming to install 900 more by the end of this year. As a bonus to speeders, speeds in excess of 100 mph will incur a $500 speeding ticket, though that may have unintended consequences.
maxwellg 2y ago
> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. In the last half decade we've seen the opening of the Salesforce transit center, the Chinatown subway station, the Van Ness BRT, the Caltrain Electrification Project, BART expansion to Berryessa, 800 new BART cars, and hundreds of smaller projects. You can see a full list of SFMTA projects at https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects
- taatof 2y ago
  While I'm obviously exaggerating by saying "never", the list is much smaller than it needs to be, and you have some misleading things on that list. Chinatown subway station is great. Better connects SF residents and it's exactly what I want to see more of in SF. - Van Ness BRT? That project started in 2003. It took 20 years to complete. Not exactly the poster child of solid transit improvements in SF, except if you ignore how it got there. - The Caltrain electrification project is great for the environment, but doesn't help SF much as far as improving transit availability. It's slightly faster, at least. - BART expansion to Berryessa is a bit separate from SF transit improvements, which is what I'm talking about. - Salesforce transit center is fine and has good vision, like expanding caltrain downtown. But doesn't add a massive amount of transit availability that wasn't already nearby (yet).
  - maxwellg 2y ago
    I provided a list of the biggest ticket items from the past few years. If you want to only look at projects that increase transit availability, reliability, or speed within SF County, check out the Muni Forward projects. Usually half a dozen lines are prioritized each year. https://www.sfmta.com/projects/muni-forward https://www.sfmta.com/projects/muni-forward I live in the Richmond, so I've been positively affected by the improvements to the 38/38R (although I still would strongly prefer a BRT system) and the new-ish-but-not-really 1X. In the next year I can expect transit improvements to the 1 and the 5/5R. Pretty much every bus I take on a weekly basis has seen transit improvements since I've first moved here.
    - 2y ago
tshaddox 2y ago
Congestion pricing makes driving better, not worse.
- cj 2y ago
  Of course it does, if you remove price from the equation!
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    Sure, but that’s a dismissive interpretation. It’s a bit like saying “sure, a cinema that refuses to sell more tickets than it has seats leads to a better cinema viewing experience, but only if you remove price from the equation!”
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      There are two ways to not sell more tickets than you have seats. One is to jack up the price of seats, the other is to add more seats. The latter in this context would be to e.g. build higher density housing so more people can feasibly take mass transit, as opposed to congestion pricing which is just a tax on people who can't afford the artificially scarce housing in the areas where mass transit use is feasible already.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      It boggles my mind (by which I mean "you should feel dirty for employing a dishonest rhetorical trick like that") that you can call his take dismissive when you simply ignored the area that is regressing (cost) in order to facilitate the tradeoff. Cost is explicitly being traded away here to facilitate improvement in other areas. That's the whole point of implementing the toll/tax!!!!!
      - tshaddox 2y ago
        Phrases like “toll” and “congestion pricing” clearly imply that there will be a cost to driving, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to say anyone in the conversation is ignoring cost. But again, dismissing the improvements because costs go up is like dismissing the reduction of water pollution because “now only people who can afford chemical disposal can operate a tannery next to the river.”
tlogan 2y ago
The goal is straightforward: make driving more pleasant for wealthy people. Rich Democrats will claim it’s beneficial for the environment, while rich Republicans will call it capitalism at work. In the end, improving public transit isn’t really on their radar. And they rule the world.
- leetcrew 2y ago
  buses and cars compete for the same right of way. improving one mode necessarily comes at the cost of the other, but many more people can be moved with a bus. trains would be even better, but people don't like to see the price tag. almost not worth discussing honestly. this has become yet another factionalized holy war over the last decade.
  - tlogan 2y ago
    One challenge with your 100% logical reasoning is that it assumes wealthy and powerful people share the same priorities you do. Unfortunately, this is rarely true, and it often takes time to realize just how different those priorities can be. I’m all for public transit myself, but after 25 years in San Francisco, I’ve only seen it decline. That sentiment isn’t just mine—many longtime SF residents share this cynicism.
    - leetcrew 2y ago
      I don't live in SF, so could definitely be some local nuances I'm missing. in NYC, there is a pretty clear partisan split on the new congestion tax. the (relatively) red leaning areas are the loudest opponents. I guess having so many high earners already taking public transit might change the discussion.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Those areas are the poor areas. The rich areas in NYC are the most democratic.
    - nine_k 2y ago
whimsicalism 2y ago
for a bus-centric system like SF, congestion pricing intrinsically makes public transit better
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Here in San Francisco? On my insured Stromers, with my family, that I bought for less than the cost of a year of auto insurance. Door to door, I am everywhere I want to be in about 10m. My longest typical journey is 45m across Golden Gate Bridge from the Mission, which is faster than any car, simply because I park my bike at the door of my destinations. The better question is, have you ever seen a kid crying in the back of a bike?
- CalRobert 2y ago
  Hear hear! Though I admit my own kid has cried once or twice in the front of an urban arrow, toddler rage is a powerful thing….
- taatof 2y ago
  Everyone I know who bikes in the city has been hit by a car at some point (see: my complaints about enforcement of traffic laws in this thread if you want my opinion on that). I cringe when I see parents with their kids on the back of their bikes. Super dangerous.
CalRobert 2y ago
For what it’s worth a folding bike and BART is a great combo
forrestthewoods 2y ago
> how do we get around By moving out of crappy overpriced cities?
- walthamstow 2y ago
  If it was so crap, it wouldn't be overpriced.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    How do you explain Comcast?
    - walthamstow 2y ago
      It's difficult because I've never had Comcast (I pay my £10/month BBC fee that hasn't gone up in years with pleasure) but I'd probably start by saying that Comcast is not a scarce good.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        If it wasn't scarce then it would be cheaper. The problem is that it is scarce, artificially, as a result of regulatory capture etc. Which is the same reason housing in places like SF is so expensive. Artificial scarcity as a result of zoning rules that make construction prohibitively expensive or otherwise inhibit it from increasing the housing supply. Houston metro has more people than SF metro, so why does housing cost more in SF? Because there is less of it.
        walthamstow 2y ago
        To bring us back onto the topic, Manhattan is a scarce resource, and there's nothing artificial about that fact.
        fragmede 2y ago
wkat4242 2y ago
Yeah that's the key. Not disincentivising cars but to make public transport the obvious answer by making it really good. They do that really well here in Barcelona. 21€ a month and you can use all the transport you want in the city, all modes. Why would i want a car what's expensive to own, park and maintain and I can only just it when I've not been drinking? Problem is, making transport good costs money and a lot of effort. Taxing cars is easy and brings money in.
whakim 2y ago
> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good enough train system. Except that SF public transit is actually pretty good. East-West transit works extremely well via buses and MUNI depending on whether you live in the northern or southern part of the city. Bay Wheels is extremely affordable and makes a lot of sense for short trips in a city of SF’s size. BART has its limitations but it also generally pretty good. Sure, SF public transit could be better, but I’d actually argue the problem is that driving in SF isn’t hard enough - many people have great public transit options but refuse to use them because we haven’t forced them to reprogram their car-brains.
eru 2y ago
> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. Well, congestion pricing would make driving better. (And perhaps make busses better, too, since they use the same roads.)

by taatof 2y ago

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. Same happening here in my smallish (~300k peeople) capital of a small eu country... Too many cars? More expensive parking! Less parking! More expensive parking! Less parking! More pedestrian-only streets, and even more cars around that... And the buses? They suck. The city is roughly star-shaped.. want to go from one leg to another? Well, you have to cross the city center. Sunday? Half of the buses don't drive then. Something happening in the city center? Good luck with getting on the last bus after the event is over, and no extra buses added. Dog? Not during "rush hours" (6.30-9:30 and 13-17h). AC? Barely any. Two buses needed? No time sinchronization at all. Train-bus time sychronization? haha good luck. Need to go just a stop or two? It's expensive. Need to go across the whole town? It's slow, even with empty streets. But hey, parking will be made even more expensive! edit: also, a student? You get cheaper transport! Here's a line for you to wait to get the transport card: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/pred-okenci-prevoznikov-pricakujte-gneco-237166 https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/pred-okenci-prevoznikov-pr...

taatof 2y ago
Sounds right. Here in SF, instead of police pulling over people who speed and run stop signs, we're getting rid of parking spots within 20ft of intersections so people speeding and running stop signs can see if they're about to kill a pedestrian. Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced traffic laws and used that money.
- milch 2y ago
  Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once, and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities. They could add cameras, but I bet you that people would fight tooth and nail against that as well... not being able to park within 20ft of an intersection doesn't cause any privacy issues, or funnel money into the city councilman's cousin's company that just so happens to be in the business of installing red light and stop sign photo enforcement cameras, or need ongoing maintenance to keep working
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once They don't have to be everywhere. They have to be at least _somewhere_ and start visible enforcing. People need to know that they might get away with running a red light a couple of times, but they WILL be caught eventually, and there WILL be consequences. > and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities. I read a lot of the urbanist propaganda research, and most of it is pure crap. Bad statistical methods, poor significance, P-hacking, biased tests, you name it.
  - taatof 2y ago
    > Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once Can we compromise at some number greater than 0? I've lived here for more than a decade and don't remember seeing anyone getting pulled over by SFPD.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- fragmede 2y ago
  SF put in 33 speed cameras in known locations, and are aiming to install 900 more by the end of this year. As a bonus to speeders, speeds in excess of 100 mph will incur a $500 speeding ticket, though that may have unintended consequences.

maxwellg 2y ago

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. In the last half decade we've seen the opening of the Salesforce transit center, the Chinatown subway station, the Van Ness BRT, the Caltrain Electrification Project, BART expansion to Berryessa, 800 new BART cars, and hundreds of smaller projects. You can see a full list of SFMTA projects at https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects

taatof 2y ago
While I'm obviously exaggerating by saying "never", the list is much smaller than it needs to be, and you have some misleading things on that list. Chinatown subway station is great. Better connects SF residents and it's exactly what I want to see more of in SF. - Van Ness BRT? That project started in 2003. It took 20 years to complete. Not exactly the poster child of solid transit improvements in SF, except if you ignore how it got there. - The Caltrain electrification project is great for the environment, but doesn't help SF much as far as improving transit availability. It's slightly faster, at least. - BART expansion to Berryessa is a bit separate from SF transit improvements, which is what I'm talking about. - Salesforce transit center is fine and has good vision, like expanding caltrain downtown. But doesn't add a massive amount of transit availability that wasn't already nearby (yet).
- maxwellg 2y ago
  I provided a list of the biggest ticket items from the past few years. If you want to only look at projects that increase transit availability, reliability, or speed within SF County, check out the Muni Forward projects. Usually half a dozen lines are prioritized each year. https://www.sfmta.com/projects/muni-forward https://www.sfmta.com/projects/muni-forward I live in the Richmond, so I've been positively affected by the improvements to the 38/38R (although I still would strongly prefer a BRT system) and the new-ish-but-not-really 1X. In the next year I can expect transit improvements to the 1 and the 5/5R. Pretty much every bus I take on a weekly basis has seen transit improvements since I've first moved here.
  - 2y ago

tshaddox 2y ago

Congestion pricing makes driving better, not worse.

cj 2y ago
Of course it does, if you remove price from the equation!
- tshaddox 2y ago
  Sure, but that’s a dismissive interpretation. It’s a bit like saying “sure, a cinema that refuses to sell more tickets than it has seats leads to a better cinema viewing experience, but only if you remove price from the equation!”
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    There are two ways to not sell more tickets than you have seats. One is to jack up the price of seats, the other is to add more seats. The latter in this context would be to e.g. build higher density housing so more people can feasibly take mass transit, as opposed to congestion pricing which is just a tax on people who can't afford the artificially scarce housing in the areas where mass transit use is feasible already.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    It boggles my mind (by which I mean "you should feel dirty for employing a dishonest rhetorical trick like that") that you can call his take dismissive when you simply ignored the area that is regressing (cost) in order to facilitate the tradeoff. Cost is explicitly being traded away here to facilitate improvement in other areas. That's the whole point of implementing the toll/tax!!!!!
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      Phrases like “toll” and “congestion pricing” clearly imply that there will be a cost to driving, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to say anyone in the conversation is ignoring cost. But again, dismissing the improvements because costs go up is like dismissing the reduction of water pollution because “now only people who can afford chemical disposal can operate a tannery next to the river.”

tlogan 2y ago

The goal is straightforward: make driving more pleasant for wealthy people. Rich Democrats will claim it’s beneficial for the environment, while rich Republicans will call it capitalism at work. In the end, improving public transit isn’t really on their radar. And they rule the world.

leetcrew 2y ago
buses and cars compete for the same right of way. improving one mode necessarily comes at the cost of the other, but many more people can be moved with a bus. trains would be even better, but people don't like to see the price tag. almost not worth discussing honestly. this has become yet another factionalized holy war over the last decade.
- tlogan 2y ago
  One challenge with your 100% logical reasoning is that it assumes wealthy and powerful people share the same priorities you do. Unfortunately, this is rarely true, and it often takes time to realize just how different those priorities can be. I’m all for public transit myself, but after 25 years in San Francisco, I’ve only seen it decline. That sentiment isn’t just mine—many longtime SF residents share this cynicism.
  - leetcrew 2y ago
    I don't live in SF, so could definitely be some local nuances I'm missing. in NYC, there is a pretty clear partisan split on the new congestion tax. the (relatively) red leaning areas are the loudest opponents. I guess having so many high earners already taking public transit might change the discussion.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Those areas are the poor areas. The rich areas in NYC are the most democratic.
  - nine_k 2y ago

whimsicalism 2y ago

for a bus-centric system like SF, congestion pricing intrinsically makes public transit better

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Here in San Francisco? On my insured Stromers, with my family, that I bought for less than the cost of a year of auto insurance. Door to door, I am everywhere I want to be in about 10m. My longest typical journey is 45m across Golden Gate Bridge from the Mission, which is faster than any car, simply because I park my bike at the door of my destinations. The better question is, have you ever seen a kid crying in the back of a bike?

CalRobert 2y ago
Hear hear! Though I admit my own kid has cried once or twice in the front of an urban arrow, toddler rage is a powerful thing….
taatof 2y ago
Everyone I know who bikes in the city has been hit by a car at some point (see: my complaints about enforcement of traffic laws in this thread if you want my opinion on that). I cringe when I see parents with their kids on the back of their bikes. Super dangerous.

CalRobert 2y ago

For what it’s worth a folding bike and BART is a great combo

forrestthewoods 2y ago

> how do we get around By moving out of crappy overpriced cities?

walthamstow 2y ago
If it was so crap, it wouldn't be overpriced.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  How do you explain Comcast?
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    It's difficult because I've never had Comcast (I pay my £10/month BBC fee that hasn't gone up in years with pleasure) but I'd probably start by saying that Comcast is not a scarce good.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      If it wasn't scarce then it would be cheaper. The problem is that it is scarce, artificially, as a result of regulatory capture etc. Which is the same reason housing in places like SF is so expensive. Artificial scarcity as a result of zoning rules that make construction prohibitively expensive or otherwise inhibit it from increasing the housing supply. Houston metro has more people than SF metro, so why does housing cost more in SF? Because there is less of it.
      - walthamstow 2y ago
        To bring us back onto the topic, Manhattan is a scarce resource, and there's nothing artificial about that fact.
        fragmede 2y ago

wkat4242 2y ago

Yeah that's the key. Not disincentivising cars but to make public transport the obvious answer by making it really good. They do that really well here in Barcelona. 21€ a month and you can use all the transport you want in the city, all modes. Why would i want a car what's expensive to own, park and maintain and I can only just it when I've not been drinking? Problem is, making transport good costs money and a lot of effort. Taxing cars is easy and brings money in.

whakim 2y ago

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good enough train system. Except that SF public transit is actually pretty good. East-West transit works extremely well via buses and MUNI depending on whether you live in the northern or southern part of the city. Bay Wheels is extremely affordable and makes a lot of sense for short trips in a city of SF’s size. BART has its limitations but it also generally pretty good. Sure, SF public transit could be better, but I’d actually argue the problem is that driving in SF isn’t hard enough - many people have great public transit options but refuse to use them because we haven’t forced them to reprogram their car-brains.

eru 2y ago

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. Well, congestion pricing would make driving better. (And perhaps make busses better, too, since they use the same roads.)