Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
unitedslate.samaltman.com
Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
1–10 of 79 posts
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#2The reason that there is a housing crisis in the Bay Area is that there is a lack of housing in the Bay Area. We don't need to make it so you don't need to live in SF to work in SF, we need to make it so that there are enough homes for the people that want to live there. And this means one thing, ZONING. The reason that more housing isn't built in the Bay is that the people living there don't want developers to build it, not that it can't be built. This is much easier and cheaper to change than public transit infrastructure (or maybe, the fact that it isn't is a sign that SF is screwed?).
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#3>We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing and have a better quality of life.
Bad idea. More roads does not mean less traffic, More roads = more cars. And more infrastructure begets more infrastructure - You build more roads and buses and light rail lines, now you need all the staff to maintain these things, now you need somewhere for these staff to live, now you need more infrastructure to get the staff to work to maintain the infrastructure...
Stop the madness! The answer is not to transit at all. Live near your job, walk or bike to work. Build more housing dammit! Why the fuck does a software company need to be in the middle of big city? All you need is electricity and internet, move out to the country!
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#4>We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing and have a better quality of life. Bad idea. More roads does not mean less traffic, More roads = more cars. And more i…
Okay. And without boiling the ocean, what have you got that's better?
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#5The reason that there is a housing crisis in the Bay Area is that there is a lack of housing in the Bay Area. We don't need to make it so you don't need to live in SF to work in SF, we need to make it so that there are enough homes for the people that want to live there. And this means one thing, ZONING. The reason that more housing isn't built in the Bay is that the people living there don't want developers to build…
It's going to require all of those things. The densest cities on the planet still have far-flung transportation systems. That's out of necessity, even when you're building up dozens of stories at a time, there just isn't enough space for everyone.
You need sensible building policies coupled with aggressive transit expansion to get us out of the mess we're in. Not just in San Francisco, but across the whole country.
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#6> If we make it easier to quickly travel longer distances in/out of work hubs, the intense demand for housing can be diffused to communities that can handle it.
Wow, just wow. Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Cupertino et al can all "handle it" they just don't want to. There is plenty of space for transit oriented housing and office space along the cal-train corridor. If Cupertino can "handle" an office space for 14k workers, they can "handle" building housing for 14k workers too.
There is absolutely no reason the peninsula and south bay should remain majority single family home cities, especially wiht the crazy jobs/housing imbalance they have willingly created for themselves.
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#7The reason that there is a housing crisis in the Bay Area is that there is a lack of housing in the Bay Area. We don't need to make it so you don't need to live in SF to work in SF, we need to make it so that there are enough homes for the people that want to live there. And this means one thing, ZONING. The reason that more housing isn't built in the Bay is that the people living there don't want developers to build…
There's a separate policy statement supporting by-right housing development: http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/by-right-housing.html
Evaluating this proposal by itself, I agree that local infrastructure spending would likely be more useful, sooner, to more people than a high speed rail corridor. I don't think anyone believes or claims it will single-handedly solve the housing crisis.
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#8>We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing and have a better quality of life. Bad idea. More roads does not mean less traffic, More roads = more cars. And more i…
Okay. And without boiling the ocean, what have you got that's better?
denser, 10 - 20 story tall transit oriented development in caltrain and bart station parking lots.
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#9>We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing and have a better quality of life. Bad idea. More roads does not mean less traffic, More roads = more cars. And more i…
> Stop the madness! The answer is not to transit at all. Live near your job, walk or bike to work. Build more housing dammit! Why the fuck does a software company need to be in the middle of big city? All you need is electricity and internet, move out to the country!
I don't want to commute out to the country.
Re: Petition for Smarter Infrastructure
#10So build more roads because we will use more cars? Not sure i get it.
Instead of a high speed rail between 2 cities how about a higher speed rail running in all directions around the major hubs and suburbs. I'm not in SF or CA by that matter, but trains work good if the rails are designed with specifics in mind. SF to LA high speed doesn't solve much of a problem, nor is more car lanes/highways.