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I don't know. Maybe I'm just a fast paced guy, but I love the urban, transit oriented life, the crowds on a city street, and still don't see how any of that is more fast paced than a Bay Area rush hour car commute.
Fast-paced is usually a reference to street life within the city, not highways going in and out of the city.
And if the Bay Area actually has a fast-paced rush hour commute, then that means traffic is actually moving. I-95 through NoVA is a parking lot during rush hour and and even beyond many times.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11
NoVA is not slow paced in any way. But it's an odd mix of high education and low innovation. So this turns into a bit of a wannabe situation because all the gov't contractors aspire to be innovative, but ask someone at Mitre or Lockheed Martin what they think about people who change jobs every 2-3 years.
Again we've gone over this before, but I think you sell NOVA short on it's potential based on where things have progressed, not even today, but 3-4, maybe 7-8 years ago. You like to point out dot-com bubble and AOL leaving 20 years ago. You continue to say that NOVA's lacking in innovation, but then do not acknowledge what is being done or has been done the last few years and upcoming years with regards to NOVA becoming a bigger place for innovation. Do you think that leaders in NOVA, some of the smartest in the world, are oblivious to the stereotypes (many warranted) about the region needing to diversify it's economy beyond defense contracting? They absolutely are cognizant of this, and are putting their feet into action on changing this, and rapidly.
As I've pointed out before, Amazon didn't just slip up on accident and relocate their 2nd headquarters of all major cities in North America in NOVA for peanuts. There are countless projects and seeds being planet to create the proper innovation ecosystem that will be sustainable for decades to come, right now as we speak. These are either planned or underway in NOVA:
Even since the last time I pointed things out on this topic before, more advancements have been made on major projects supporting development for innovation campuses, even in the midst of COVID-19. The 26 acre CIT site out by Dulles was just bought too, with major plans:
NOVA is increasing it's innovation profile constantly, it's not even halfway to it's potential. Innovation is coming to NOVA, not leaving it. Things are ascending there into a new level that will be sustained for the foreseeable future.
NoVA is not slow paced in any way. But it's an odd mix of high education and low innovation. So this turns into a bit of a wannabe situation because all the gov't contractors aspire to be innovative, but ask someone at Mitre or Lockheed Martin what they think about people who change jobs every 2-3 years.
Basically, people there are risk averse and value job stability more than innovation, right?
It's certainly understandable to have preferences, but it would be good if you actually had the facts right in the first place. I don't particularly like SV either because the housing prices are ridiculous and I prefer much more urban places.
There are plenty of jobs in SV that are not with startups. You don't have to work for startups and plenty of people in SV do not. There's also a question of whether you're hirable in the first place.
BART actually isn't yet in Santa Clara County, though it's about to open its first extension into SV this summer (pretty terrible timing!). Supposedly there's another phase where they actually tunnel down and get into downtown San Jose, though I'll believe it when I see it. One thing that is underway is the electrification of Caltrain which should improve trip times and allow for greater frequency. Of course, none of this is as good as what NOVA has, though obviously still better transit than what the vast majority of US cities provide.
I know all of those facts previously. I know BART isn't in Silicon Valley yet, what I meant is that if I lived in Silicon Valley I'd be going to SF on weekends all the time and therefore would take BART. And BART is a total fiasco compared to the DC Metro. Less frequent trains, older trains overall, dirtier, a violent crime rate that is almost quadruple that of the DC Metro, very little Transit Oriented Development compared to DC, noisier trains, etcetera.
DC Metro is the cleanest rail transit system I've ridden on in the U.S.
I know all of those facts previously. I know BART isn't in Silicon Valley yet, what I meant is that if I lived in Silicon Valley I'd be going to SF on weekends all the time and therefore would take BART. And BART is a total fiasco compared to the DC Metro. Less frequent trains, older trains overall, dirtier, a violent crime rate that is almost quadruple that of the DC Metro, very little Transit Oriented Development compared to DC, noisier trains, etcetera.
DC Metro is the cleanest rail transit system I've ridden on in the U.S.
That's nice that you knew such previously; I think it's often good to take known facts and put them into consideration when saying things. Why are you going into SF from Silicon Valley and then taking BART? The going into SF for occasional fun makes sense, but I'd think that you'd be much more likely to take Muni Metro for the most part if you're taking Caltrain in, and if you're using rideshare or driving the whole way, you'd just go to your destination. I think if I were also making trips in the Bay Area needlessly more difficult, then I'd also come out with a worse impression so that part makes sense.
BART should definitely do better, but having that is still a step up from most US metropolitan areas. The trains did get a new wheel design recently and that's greatly reduced the noise. The biggest issue with BART is that they decided to go with broad gauge for a very specific reason that later turned out to be silly. Had BART gone with standard gauge, then they could have easily integrated existing rail paths and could have tagged on to larger orders with other systems or at least not have had to do costly adaptations of existing rolling stock models. TOD is being partially improved at this moment due to state legislation, though it took a really long time to really actually make an impact. I'm not that familiar with Bay Area developments as Southern California developments, but I'm assuming there are still some pretty bad parking minimum issues.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-22-2020 at 04:52 PM..
That's nice that you knew such previously; I think it's often good to take known facts and put them into consideration when saying things. Why are you going into SF from Silicon Valley and then taking BART? The going into SF for occasional fun makes sense, but I'd think that you'd be much more likely to take Muni Metro for the most part if you're taking Caltrain in, and if you're using rideshare or driving the whole way, you'd just go to your destination. I think if I were also making trips in the Bay Area needlessly more difficult, then I'd also come out with a worse impression so that part makes sense.
BART should definitely do better, but having that is still a step up from most US metropolitan areas. The trains did get a new wheel design recently and that's greatly reduced the noise. The biggest issue with BART is that they decided to go with broad gauge for a very specific reason that later turned out to be silly. Had BART gone with standard gauge, then they could have easily integrated existing rail paths and could have tagged on to larger orders with other systems or at least not have had to do costly adaptations of existing rolling stock models. TOD is being partially improved at this moment due to state legislation, though it took a really long time to really actually make an impact. I'm not that familiar with Bay Area developments as Southern California developments, but I'm assuming there are still some pretty bad parking minimum issues.
I should have said, I'd not only go to Downtown SF, I'd also go to East Bay, and Caltrain doesn't go to East Bay, but BART does.
I realize that BART is still much more extensive and well ridden than most other American urban rail transit. But, it still doesn't change the fact that on weekends, Bart's headways are as high as 24 minutes, which is a pain. Maybe 12 minutes if that station is served by two lines going in the same direction.
And yes, I know the non standard gauge is an issue for BART, but the DC Metro also has a non standard gauge, and yet has more stations than BART and offers better overall coverage. Maybe it's because the DC Metro is not as mountainous or splintered by enormous bodies of water like the Bay Area is. The Potomac is narrower than the SF Bay. DC is simply better suited for rail transit due to its geography.
I should have said, I'd not only go to Downtown SF, I'd also go to East Bay, and Caltrain doesn't go to East Bay, but BART does.
I realize that BART is still much more extensive and well ridden than most other American urban rail transit. But, it still doesn't change the fact that on weekends, Bart's headways are as high as 24 minutes, which is a pain. Maybe 12 minutes if that station is served by two lines going in the same direction.
And yes, I know the non standard gauge is an issue for BART, but the DC Metro also has a non standard gauge, and yet has more stations than BART and offers better overall coverage. Maybe it's because the DC Metro is not as mountainous or splintered by enormous bodies of water like the Bay Area is. The Potomac is narrower than the SF Bay. DC is simply better suited for rail transit due to its geography.
I see, though I'm not sure going up the peninsula and then crossing the bay is the dominant choice for going to the East Bay though it depends on where in the county you are.
BART covers a lot of area and BART is more like a commuter rail / rapid transit hybrid. Where it's interlined the frequency is okay, but where it's not interlined can be very far out in what would generally be commuter rail territory for US cities and its headways are great for US commuter rail. Is it better than Washington Metro? No, Washington Metro is certainly better. It just makes it much better than what you can find in the majority of major US metropolitan areas.
Washington Metro's gauge is slightly different from standard gauge, but it's nowhere near the difference that BART's broad gauge has and is a much easier adaptation. It also has had a lot more funding for various reasons. DC isn't really particularly better-suited for rapid transit than the Bay Area geographically given how development is concentrated in a ring which the bay should ostensibly make rail work pretty well with a couple of crossings. Unfortunately, various issues like proposition 13, parking minimums, and local opposition from established local communities makes it difficult to build great TOD even if the geography forces development in fairly small areas while the low open space of NOVA should make it easy to sprawl. Geographic constraints often favors mass transit development when it constrains development to specific areas, but it's simply not the case with SV versus NOVA.
SV will have to deal with its myriad incompatible systems and that's not a death knell at all, and it's still much better than that of most US metropolitan systems. However, it sure would have been great if BART, especially as it's a hybrid commuter / rapid transit system in the vein of S-Bahn or RER systems, were built via standard gauge.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-22-2020 at 06:29 PM..
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