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How come every time I look at Van Ness and Geary on Google they are three lanes in each direction with little curbside parking?
For the most part SM Blvd, Hollywood, Sunset and Wilshire Blvds are two lanes of traffic in each direction with one center turn lane and curbside parking is there more often then it is not.
I don't know where on Geary you're looking, but like Wilshire it crosses practically the entire city, which includes a mile through neighborhoods of 80K-160K ppsm with more density and urbanity than anywhere else west of the Mississippi, and about four miles through the Richmond where there's curbside parking the whole way down, surrounded by various walkable ethnic neighborhoods. There is about a mile long gap in there from Van Ness to Masonic through Japantown and near the Kaiser campus that is an utter disaster, about 1/6 the length of the road. But sure, focus on that area I guess. Nobody will argue with you that that section is an utter disaster, and nobody will argue with you that much of Geary is "unattractive", but that isn't the point being made.
Also, I purposely compared Van Ness and Market St to Wilshire (not Geary - that was an LA poster bringing that one up), as they are the main "drags" through town that connect major commercial areas (which admittedly in SF are far more centralized than down in LA). Geary maybe can be argued as such, but it mostly touches residential neighborhoods and is a primary route into and out of downtown to the western neighborhoods - I believe the 38 Geary Bus is one of the top 3 or top 5 busiest bus routes in the country, and there is a reason people are clamoring for a BART line under Geary.
Nobody ever denied Van Ness having three lanes in each direction, but note that that is only for the ~3 miles between the highway and the northern waterfront (it's 1-2 lanes heading south from there). There's a reason for the comparison to Wilshire - Van Ness is about the widest and most commercialized street in all of SF. But Van Ness is still a more walkable street than Wilshire. It's a heavily commercialized strip, even containing auto dealers (which of course are not to be confused with dealerships in most of America as these are indoor dealerships in old retrofitted buildings from the 20s built right to the street). But relative to Wilshire, it still does a superior job catering to the pedestrian, and it must. This is an area in SF with possibly a majority of residents living carless, and an area where people walk to run errands, to transit stops, or even to work.
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Originally Posted by Mentallect
Only on City-Data do people continuously put San Francisco ahead of Los Angeles in so many different categories...
Oh? I guess LA is ahead of SF/Bay Area on all fronts.
You claim to be looking at things holistically, but it seems you're focusing almost exclusively on transit share using arbitrary city limits and ignoring everything else
Did you seriously just compare the transit share of Daly City (pop: 100k) to Los Angeles (3.9 million)?
Daly City still has more transit share than Central LA, which has already been compared graphically in this thread and contains similar population/density as SF. Daly City has less walk share, understandably, as it has very little commercial and is a commuter edge city (whereas Central LA has an abundance of commercial along strips surrounded by residential and yet still has fewer walkers than SF, which concentrates its commercial in one small part of the city).
Transit/Walk/Bike share are quite telling, in my opinion. Do you not agree?
Also, you begged the question by pointing out that I had compared Daly City to LA. Didn't want to put myself in that hole.
If you want to look at other things, we can compare the infill development styles of the two cities. How would you compare some of the stuff rising in DTLA and along the Wilshire corridor in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire and around Little Tokyo to what is going up around SF? From my perspective, it would seem that parking structures are more visible in Central LA (almost all parking in any new building in SF if it is being offered is subterranean) and that parking ratios are higher in LA (more car-free stuff going up in SF). More type 3 construction in LA, versus more concrete/steel mid-rise stuff in SF.
I digress...people don't seem to dispute SF in the top 5, or the other ones listed. How does LA compare to DC or Seattle in what's getting built, transit/walk/bike share, etc etc?
Really interesting read! Thanks. I'm taking a trip to LA in early July, as well as hopefully pursuing urban planning after college, so reading this kind of stuff about LA has become an intense interest of mine
I actually did my grad degree in urban planning. LA is a fun place to be if you're interested in such issues because its undergoing so much change at the moment. Good luck with your academic pursuits!
Enjoy your trip in July, and feel free to DM me if you have any questions about the city. Also, I run a blog called Urbanize LA that you might find interesting, given your interests.
Transit/Walk/Bike share are quite telling, in my opinion. Do you not agree?
They're interesting numbers, but not as all-important as you're making them out to be.
The argument is almost nonsensical. Let me get this straight--I could live in this building, on that apartment unit, with that view, in a neighborhood of 42,000ppsm, surrounded by other apartment and office buildings... but if I own a car and drive to work, I'm not living in an urban environment? That's the gist of your argument, is it not?
If you want to look at other things, we can compare the infill development styles of the two cities. How would you compare some of the stuff rising in DTLA and along the Wilshire corridor in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire and around Little Tokyo to what is going up around SF? From my perspective, it would seem that parking structures are more visible in Central LA (almost all parking in any new building in SF if it is being offered is subterranean) and that parking ratios are higher in LA (more car-free stuff going up in SF).
From my perspective, Los Angeles (Central LA) has pulled ahead of San Francisco in housing construction.
San Francisco has around 7000 units under construction. Los Angeles has 9000 units/uc...in DTLA. Throw in the projects/uc in Koreatown, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc, and I'd wager there are over 13,000 units under construction in Central LA. Keep in mind that SF is white hot and Los Angeles is just barely getting over a low point in its history. I would hate to see how these numbers look when LA starts to heat up economically.
What were you saying about parking lots again?
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More type 3 construction in LA, versus more concrete/steel mid-rise stuff in SF.
Read: Steel is more urban than wood!!! This board
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How does LA compare to DC or Seattle in what's getting built, transit/walk/bike share, etc etc?
More transit share stats.
Population, housing, job density = not that important
How many residents ride bikes to work = extremely important
Did you seriously just compare the transit share of Daly City (pop: 100k) to Los Angeles (3.9 million)?
How about compare it to Beverly Hills? A close-in affluent suburb of San Francisco, Chicago or Boston, let alone New York City would be much higher.
Brookline, MA; median household income $96k; per capita $65k; transit share 27%
Newton, MA; median household income $119k; per capita $64k; transit share 12%
Scarsdale, NY: median household income $233k; per capita $109k; transit share 40%
Beverly Hills, CA: median household income $86k; per capita $76k; transit share 5%
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