Bay Area traffic getting much worse - article (Los Angeles, Oakland: 2015, quality of life)

[Chuck5000]

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...g-commute.html

I love living here, but this is a slow-motion disaster unfolding that is already hurting quality of life. All the planned improvements to Caltrain and BART are insufficient to cope with this level of volume.

It's difficult to say this, but I want the job growth to stop. We're beyond carrying capacity already - unless, that is, we want to have traffic get even worse, and become as restricted as Los Angeles.

[capoeira]

Originally Posted by Chuck5000

[url] We're beyond carrying capacity already - unless, that is, we want to have traffic get even worse, and become as restricted as Los Angeles.

It is already worse than Los Angeles since there are almost no alternate routes. If the Bay Bridge is jammed the San Mateo bridge is too far out of the way to be a good alternate route for most drivers.

LA has many alternate routes and people who really know the roads can avoid many major traffic jams. For example in the LA area even if the 210 and 10 are gridlocked one could always take the 60 as an alternate route. One could even take Foothill Blvd for many miles since going 35 mph on a surface street beats 5 mph on a sigalert level stuck freeway.

Another example, take Telegraph Ave. to avoid the slow moving 5 freeway approaching LA from the southeast.

LA is also greatly improving public rail transport. In the last 12 years 3 new light rail lines, the Expo,Purple and Gold lines, have opened. Compare that to nothing in the bay area except for maybe a few new VTA stations.

[sav858]

LA's job centers are more spread out I believe as well. Either way I think they Bay Area only spends a few less hours in traffic A YEAR according to a recent report so the difference now is pretty insignificant between the two regions at this point.


As long as they keep trying to cram most of the jobs along the Peninsula and Silicon Valley it's going to stay terrible. The Bay Area has some terrible planning overall.

[shooting4life]

I am so glad I got out of my car for a job where I can take Bart. I have certainly adjusted to the lack of personal space, I told my wife the other day that I was probably touching 4-5 different people at the same time while on Bart because it was so crowded.

[04kL4nD]

Yep, the Bay Area is just as bad as LA now during rush hour. I still think that LA gets worse jams at random times (like the middle of the night), but weekends and evenings, which both used to be safe bets, in the Bay Area are now plagued with traffic. It sucks big time and I think it's only going to get worse.

[hsw]

Doesn't alleged tech/Net/email, etc etc enable telecommuting?

Don't allegedly highly productive (wealthy) folks work from a computer from anywhere/anytime?

And if all else fails and stock prices drop, won't AAPL, GOOGL, etc etc just ship more nonessential jobs (~90% of their SV workers) out to suburban TX, etc (at least the parasites they don't fire in interim stress)?

Mythical traffic/housing cost problems solved....

[mini_cute]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

Yep, the Bay Area is just as bad as LA now during rush hour. I still think that LA gets worse jams at random times (like the middle of the night), but weekends and evenings, which both used to be safe bets, in the Bay Area are now plagued with traffic. It sucks big time and I think it's only going to get worse.

Not sure if I agree Bay Area traffic is as bad as LA now. I think it's bad... but I still remember how horrible it was when I was living and working in LA. Also, every time I visit LA, it is horrible. The whole alternate routes thing doesn't really fly in my book- taking surface streets results in just as much stop and go traffic at the lights and just about every freeway is bad in LA. LA is a much bigger metro area too and bad from one end to the other.

[04kL4nD]

During rush hour? I'd call them a draw at this point. It took me 2.5 hours to get to work in Fremont on Monday and I live in Oakland. That's an LA type traffic jam. I semi-regularly commute near RWC/ Palo Alto during rush hour and it takes a good 1.5 hours on average during rush hour.

[sav858]

People in the SF Metro spend a whopping two hours less a year in traffic than LA now:

http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net...-table-all.pdf

[04kL4nD]

I guess if you're not actually dealing with long commutes during rush hour, you might not notice as much, but over the last three years, traffic has gotten crazy bad. I used to be able to make it to Fremont in 35-45 mins if I left around 7:30-8:00, but now it takes at least 45 mins and often an hour plus. Luckily, I won't have to make the RWC/PA commute next year, but when I started it, it only took about an hour, not 90+ mins. Traffic just doesn't move the way it used to anymore. There's ALWAYS some sort of slowdown, and it's mostly just volume- not accidents.