BART to Hercules, Supervisor says yes (San Jose, Oakland: suite, trains, design)

[Obamadon1]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Silly article if you apply it to the suburban BART system. If you got rid of the parking garages in places like Walnut Creek and Lafayette, how many people live within a 20 minute walk of the station? How is the walk, across 8 lanes of traffic with no walk signal? How many live within a 20 minute bike ride of the station? How many of those people would be willing to ride their bikes home in the dark for 20 minutes in rainy January? How many of them would be willing to leave their bikes at the station all day? And how many people in the suburban East Bay can ride reliable and frequent local public transit from their homes to BART stations?

Anyway, in dense places like downtown Berkeley, most of SF, and downtown Oakland, there is no parking--so BART is already following the mantra of not putting in giant parking complexes in places that are walkable and that have local public transit that can get you from A to B so you can ride a long-distance train from B to C.

Maybe BART shouldn't be encouraging people to live in places that far removed from the city centers

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Obamadon1

Maybe BART shouldn't be encouraging people to live in places that far removed from the city centers

So should we just have all those commuters cram onto freeways instead? Where do you suggest they live?

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by Obamadon1

Maybe BART shouldn't be encouraging people to live in places that far removed from the city centers

A lot of people don't have a choice. Unless they want to live in West Oakland, East Oakland, Richmond, etc, where rents are relatively cheap, they are going to end up paying 40-50% of their income just to live under a roof.

[Obamadon1]

And maybe those towns and regions should invest more in quality bus service to stations. And allow higher density housing near stations so people don't have to live out in the sticks and drive to bart

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Obamadon1

And maybe those towns and regions should invest more in quality bus service to stations. And allow higher density housing near stations so people don't have to live out in the sticks and drive to bart

If only public money was unlimited.... Too bad bus agencies have these things called "budgets". These cities do allow higher density around stations btw.

[Obamadon1]

Originally Posted by sav858

If only public money was unlimited.... Too bad bus agencies have these things called "budgets". These cities do allow higher density around stations btw.

We do somehow find money to subsidize ferry service to the tune of $100+ per rider (South San Francisco ferry loaded with subsidies - SFGate). Not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars for bart extensions. And highway expansions. There's plenty of money for better bus service, we just decide to spend it on other things.

Things are slowly changing with regards to density around bart stations but there's still nothing remotely resembling actual population density around the suburban east bay bart stations. They're still mostly giant park and rides.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Obamadon1

We do somehow find money to subsidize ferry service to the tune of $100+ per rider (South San Francisco ferry loaded with subsidies - SFGate). Not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars for bart extensions. And highway expansions. There's plenty of money for better bus service, we just decide to spend it on other things.

And that ferry is a giant waste of money. It's not like public transit all draws from the same pot of money, funding is actually quite complicated and competitive. I've worked with numerous transit agencies over my career and it's far more complicated than you realize. You just can't keep expanding bus service everywhere either as it can become very inefficient and a waste of money.

Things are slowly changing with regards to density around bart stations but there's still nothing remotely resembling actual population density around the suburban east bay bart stations. They're still mostly giant park and rides.

Actually there is, particularly Pleasant Hill BART. Did you think this stuff happens over night? It takes time.

Still would rather have commuters drive and take BART than crowd onto the freeway.

[Obamadon1]

Originally Posted by sav858

And that ferry is a giant waste of money. It's not like public transit all draws from the same pot of money, funding is actually quite complicated and competitive. I've worked with numerous transit agencies over my career and it's far more complicated than you realize. You just can't keep expanding bus service everywhere as it can become very inefficient and a waste of money.
Actually there is, particularly Pleasant Hill BART. Did you think this stuff happens over night? It takes time.

Still would rather have commuters drive and take BART than crowd onto the freeway.

Of course things are complicated and take time, but development patterns respond to our transit funding priorities and vice versa. That doesn't mean things have to stay the way they've been forever. We can decide to reallocate funding from ferry boondoggles to improving bus service if we want. It's hard but it's not impossible

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Obamadon1

Maybe BART shouldn't be encouraging people to live in places that far removed from the city centers

I dont see how that is really the case at this time, it seems that BART rather expands to where people already live.

Not having BART would probably put hundreds of thousands more cars on the freeways and bridges during commute times.

[DocGoldstein]

The funny part is, even with BART, people still crowd onto the freeway in the Bay Area. I dread having to get onto I80 anytime between 6am and 8pm