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Majin Sacramento will never look like that. I love city lights and skylines myself and that is why I visit S.F. and mostly Chicago. Sacramento is what it is and that is why most people like it.
Kim Racer biking to work will never work here. It is a great idea because I personally love to ride bikes. It will never work for many reasons. Too many thieves is probably the start. The underlying problem is peoples mind state towards thieves and homeless people hanging around (it's acceptable). If you have only workers riding their bikes and going into their work I doubt your bike would be dismanteled and in pieces upon the end of your work day. I dare you to leave a bike downtown now.
Curmudgeon I know the feeling.
I've just about stopped riding my bike to use light rail. I don't have a particularly expensive bike, but I get tired of the people "hanging around" staring at it like they are trying to decide if they could get away with snatching it before the yellow-shirt could see what was going on.
It's an uncomfortable feeling and after awhile, you just start thinking "Why am I putting up with this?" and you stop biking to the rail. I've learned that if you are uncomfortable in a situation, your instincts are probably right.
So far as leaving your bike at light rail station while you take the train, no way. That would be clearly stupid.
Until this situation is taken care of, the bike/rail thing is going to be underutilized.
kim why are you so into bikes? Never appealed to me...
They resolve problems better than the available options. Transit advocates in Sacramento are seeking Manhattan levels of transit access in a region with a population density similiar to Fresno. Financially, I think its a non-starter in my lifetime for Sacramento.
While it would be great to run light rail and street cars everywhere in the region, running frequently day and night the costs of doing so in an area this spread out are so high, that you end up at best creating a few pockets with acceptable transit access amid huge transit deserts.
I am sympathetic to the arguments for creating mixed income communities (if you spread out the poor people, they are less likely to form slums). But I am troubled how as RT has built out the light rail system, the bus lines are the first to get cut during the frequent funding problems. You have people who are dependent on the government for housing assistance and transportation assistance and the system is so thoroughly not working for them, that they can't work there way out of government assistance.
When I didn't have a car, the thing I hated most about transit was how my life revolved around the bus schedule. What I figured out was that I could just about always get where I needed to go faster on bike than on transit. Buses makes lots of stops to pick up and drop off passengers, bikes don't so even though a bus can drive faster than a bike, my average speed on the bike was faster than the bus. More importantly, I no longer had to wait for a bus or wait for a bus transfer. That killed a tremendous amount of time. Lastly when I got the bike, I didn't have to buy a bus pass. I spent less buying the bike than I did on the monthly bus pass.
When I spent some time in Davis, I got interested in bike infrastructure. Biking in Davis was really convenient. It felt safe to bike anywhere anytime. The bike paths were lit at night. CSUS and UC Davis both have lots of college students, but people in Davis bike everywhere, people at CSUS mostly drive. I attributed the difference mostly to infrastructure.
I am not sure, that very many parts of the Sacramento region will ever turn into another Manhattan, but I think its pretty possible to turn most of it into another Davis.
Bikes solved a couple of problems. First bike infrastructure can be built during funding booms, but during tight budget years the infrastructure remains, that means the people dependent on it don't get there lives screwed up the way someone in Foothills Farms gets screwed over when RT cuts there bus line.
Second the effective cost of bike infrastructure is really cheap. In urban areas it mostly involves just taking a traffic lane away from cars and giving it to bikes. The cost is of the infrastructure is repainting a road. That is cheap. Maybe redoing traffic light signals. That is cheap.
In the new suburban areas like Lincoln the reason developers are including bike paths in the new developments is that proximity to presence of bike paths going through the neighborhood and connecting the homes to the schools raises property values enough to mostly cover the cost of building the new bike paths through the neighborhood. So while an exclusive bike path is more expensive than repainting a street, the increase in land values mostly covers the cost of doing so. So again the effective cost of adding bike infrastructure again is really cheap which again means that its financially possible to get it built in new developments.
Because bike infrastructure is both a transportation and recreational amenity, you find people in a lot of different economic backgrounds willing to back it. The wealthy might initially view it as high end recreational amenity, and the poor a means of getting around, but once the infrastructure is built its available to everyone.
Lastly there are huge public health benefits. Most people in this country don't get enough exercise. The more people exercise, the less heatlh care they need. One of the reasons the Dutch are so willing to build bike infrastructure is that what they save on medical bills pays for the cost of the bike infrastructure many times over.
Well, Kim, that's all well and good and the health aspects can't be argued. Just think of how many will have very long, healthy walks after their bike is stolen!
They resolve problems better than the available options. Transit advocates in Sacramento are seeking Manhattan levels of transit access in a region with a population density similiar to Fresno. Financially, I think its a non-starter in my lifetime for Sacramento.
Yes our density (currently) is fairly weak for such large city but other cities with similar density and similar populations have better transits system. While it's (currently) not possible to have manhattan level transit we can do a lot better. Kudos for you wanting better bike access, I'm neutral either way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kim racer
I am not sure, that very many parts of the Sacramento region will ever turn into another Manhattan, but I think its pretty possible to turn most of it into another Davis.
Within the next 20-30 years downtown/railyards can turn into Manhattan if we play our cards right. I'd be satisfied if the rest of the region turned into what midtown is today. The whole region turning into Tokyo would be ideal.
I find it amusing that European examples are constantly being pushed as "how the US should be."
So do I, especially because my examples aren't based on European prototypes--they are based on what American cities used to look like--cities like Sacramento, as the photos I posted hopefully make clear.
I would argue that if you really want to reduce the demand on the transportation system, vastly increasing telecommuting is the biggest bang for your buck vs. trying to remake a land use pattern and commuting habits that is approaching 100 years old in some cases.
And all we have to do to increase telecommuting is retrofit existing dwellings with fiber optic and lay the cables from the streets (where it already is) to the houses.
I agree with this - there are plenty of occupations where telecommuting is possible. If we focused more on how to make it more professionally acceptable, we'd make much bigger gains in decreasing traffic and pollution. A lot of the infrastructure is already in place. I think it's a matter of employers finding policies and safeguards to increase their comfort levels and ensure their telecommuting employees remain productive when working from home.
There's also an opportunity for employers to take advantage of virtual offices - office spaces that are popping up in the suburbs where professionals can rent space and pay a monthly fee. These locations might be closer to home for some employees and have all the necessary communications infrastructure needed. This would be a good alternative for those who don't have high speed connections or don't have quiet home office spaces.
Instead of looking only at cleaner ways to commute, why not focus on reducing or eliminating the commute where/when appropriate? With all of the technology advancements in the field of communications, I can't see why telecommuting is not being embraced more. I think this is a bit more realistic than trying to get people to bike to work, spending billions on more public transportation that may or may not get used, or eliminating suburbs.
Well, Kim, that's all well and good and the health aspects can't be argued. Just think of how many will have very long, healthy walks after their bike is stolen!
I see your point, but I also think a lot of it just has to do with getting a good bike lock. to.
What a lot of cities are doing is building combination bike rentals, bike shops, bike storage facilities. Some of these are bigger and some are smaller than Sacramento. Some are adjacent to rail, some are not.
and in the category of things that I thought were cool, but I doubt we will see in Sacramento, this automated underground bike storage facility in Tokyo.
I find it amusing that European examples are constantly being pushed as "how the US should be."
Most of the US is not at a density to support bicycling as a primary mode of transportation for all ages. Bikes have their place, and the niche is growing, but... in most of the US, cycling is not a realistic form of transportation outside of university towns and flat places with mild climes (like Sacramento) where cycling is practical year round.
We have trillions - perhaps quadrillions - invested in existing infrastructure - roads and housing, etc. Its highly likely the American of 30-40 years from now will look like - gasp - the America of today, except with more people, with gasp - cars - although more efficient and powered by alternatives to fossil fuels - and - gasp - suburbs.
Will there be more density? Probably. Will all of America be living in highly dense urban villages? Probably not. I would argue that if you really want to reduce the demand on the transportation system, vastly increasing telecommuting is the biggest bang for your buck vs. trying to remake a land use pattern and commuting habits that is approaching 100 years old in some cases.
And all we have to do to increase telecommuting is retrofit existing dwellings with fiber optic and lay the cables from the streets (where it already is) to the houses.
Totally agree...and esp. about both the telecommuting and the constant comparing of the US to Europe. annoying on part two of that equation, for sure...though also amusing as you said.
I agree with this - there are plenty of occupations where telecommuting is possible. If we focused more on how to make it more professionally acceptable, we'd make much bigger gains in decreasing traffic and pollution. A lot of the infrastructure is already in place. I think it's a matter of employers finding policies and safeguards to increase their comfort levels and ensure their telecommuting employees remain productive when working from home.
There's also an opportunity for employers to take advantage of virtual offices - office spaces that are popping up in the suburbs where professionals can rent space and pay a monthly fee. These locations might be closer to home for some employees and have all the necessary communications infrastructure needed. This would be a good alternative for those who don't have high speed connections or don't have quiet home office spaces.
Instead of looking only at cleaner ways to commute, why not focus on reducing or eliminating the commute where/when appropriate? With all of the technology advancements in the field of communications, I can't see why telecommuting is not being embraced more. I think this is a bit more realistic than trying to get people to bike to work, spending billions on more public transportation that may or may not get used, or eliminating suburbs.
I used to be more excited about the entire telecommuting option. But the argument that I found more persuasive over time was that any job that could be done by telecommuting is a job that probably could be done much more cheaply overseas.
Now I could be wrong and I hope I am wrong. I'd like to believe that there is substantial fraction of these jobs that can be handled electronically that don't require face to face interaction that still will be done domestically, but I really don't have any idea how large that potential market is. I agree the infrastructure savings are huge if your economy can create lots of them. But how many of these jobs are going to stay in the US vs creating jobs in abroad? I have no idea.
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