Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 323 posts

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#311

Post by KekDemaga »

overcast wrote: post #309
KekDemaga wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When choosing between jobs I try to calculate the true hourly wage I'd receive. I include transportation costs, travel time, expected unpaid overtime etc and pick not the highest salary but the highest hourly rate all things considered.

Do you calculate life lost as well? I'm being serious. There is a MASSIVE difference between a five minute commute, and an hour commute when you add it up over a lifetime. That's a stupid amount of your life wasted doing nothing.

I do, a job with an hour one way commute will have ten hours weekly of additional work time as opposed to 50 minutes for the 5 minute example. Thus if salaried at the same rate the 5 minute commute is the better deal (and that's before calculation of travel costs)

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#312

Post by madcaptenor »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #289
madcaptenor wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are required to work from home 5 days out of 10? I'm for encouraging working from home, but that policy assumes that everyone can spare the space in their home to have some sort of home office. (And since it's not a fully remote job, you still have to live near DC.)

Mandatory minimum allowed remote-work days. It's a quality-of-life measure for the employees - not some way to save money/office space on the employer's part.

Thanks for the clarification.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#313

Post by no-s »

komali2 wrote: post #106
greyfox wrote: post #58

this woman needs a car drive it as far into the city as possible then park it and use transit

And sit in traffic for an hour instead of relax on a train for 2? Ew. What this lady needs is a sweet GSXR-1000 to split all the way to paradise. I don't know why more people don't take advantage of the fact that lane splitting is legal here, it's a fantastic way to cut commute time in half. Plus you get free or super cheap parking pretty much wherever you want.

I hear getting a superbike after you hit 30 pretty much guarantees you'll be dead within 18 months...if we required this for older commuters think of the pension costs that could be saved...seriously these discussions all seem to revolve around "how can we penalize someone to incentivize some solution?"

I'm happy this lady found a solution she was happy with. It's not like she's commuting to the salt mines in death race 2000...living in the Bay Area is a tangled web for anyone who doesn't have high 6 figures in disposable income. I gave up in disgust and voted with my feet.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#314

Post by ucaetano »

jacinda wrote: post #305
ucaetano wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no need to become Manhattan or Hong Kong. Just invest in infrastructure. You're not getting the basic point with transit infrastructure: it requires density. Transit systems are only viable with enough people living and working at walking distance from the stations. Increasing density decreases traffic, increases transit effectiveness, and reduces environmental impact. It's simple geometry.

If that's the point, why does Switzerland have a lower density than the SF Bay Area but a transit system that is orders of magnitude better? I lived in Switzerland for 9 months last year. They have arguably the best transit infrastructure in the world, with a passenger rail system that is 100% electric. According to Wikipedia, the density of Zurich is ~4600 people/km^2. The density of San Francisco is ~7170 people/km…

First, there's just the willingness to invest in infrastructure, which is nearly non-existent in the US. Swiss people LOVE infrastructure, they are proud of their tunnels, railroads, bridges, dams, etc.

Take a look at the referendums over the past few years: universal basic income? No. More vacation days? No. Forbid speculation on food products? No. Define marriage as man/woman? No. Build a new tunnel across the Alps? Hell yeah!

But it isn't just about density. You can have mid to low average density, but still have a viable transit system.

Public transit doesn't just depend on the overall average density, but on the density of the area surrounding the transit stops.

Switzerland has reasonably dense cities and towns, with very-low-density areas in between. The SFBA has evenly-distributed low density (except for a few areas).

Increasing the distance between dense cores doesn't have as much negative impact on transit viability as spreading people out has.

The SFBA could easily solve this by changing the zoning laws around Bart, Caltrain, VTA and Muni stations.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#315

Post by ucaetano »

jacinda wrote: post #304
pc86 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the density of SFBA (or even SF proper) compare to the density of the Swiss cities that actually have the transit you're talking about?

Basically every Swiss city has the transit I'm talking about. I lived in Switzerland for 9 months last year. Zurich is less dense than SF. Geneva is more dense but the density of the country as a whole is less than the SF Bay area. I had some Swiss friends and we were on a train once that was delayed by 15-20 minutes. They were all complaining because this happens once in a blue moon. They mentioned that if the train…

This is a good example:

https://qz.com/166186/the-swiss-are-scandalized-by-trains-th...

Swiss media are abuzz with the news of the country’s faltering rail system. Last year, the state-run rail operator missed its target for punctuality; only 87.5% of trains arrived within three minutes of their scheduled arrival.

A national transit system runs like clockwork, every single gear must be turning in sync for the system to work.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#316

Post by dionidium »

quesera wrote: post #302
dionidium wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but no. If you have a million-dollar gold statue of a pig that you're unwilling to sell, your unwillingness doesn't even enter into it. You still have the million-dollar statue and it's still worth a million dollars. It doesn't matter what rationale you provide for not selling it. It just doesn't matter. Those reasons seem important to you . But they aren't important in assessing the value of the statue.

You can't live in a statue of a pig. Value of primary residence isn't even considered part of your net worth. It exists, but it's not fungible like other assets.

This response is why you should never use analogies.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#317

Post by jacinda »

ucaetano wrote: post #314
jacinda wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the point, why does Switzerland have a lower density than the SF Bay Area but a transit system that is orders of magnitude better? I lived in Switzerland for 9 months last year. They have arguably the best transit infrastructure in the world, with a passenger rail system that is 100% electric. According to Wikipedia, the density of Zurich is ~4600 people/km^2. The density of San Francisco is ~7170 people/km…

First, there's just the willingness to invest in infrastructure, which is nearly non-existent in the US. Swiss people LOVE infrastructure, they are proud of their tunnels, railroads, bridges, dams, etc. Take a look at the referendums over the past few years: universal basic income? No. More vacation days? No. Forbid speculation on food products? No. Define marriage as man/woman? No. Build a new tunnel across the Alps…

> First, there's just the willingness to invest in infrastructure, which is nearly non-existent in the US. Swiss people LOVE infrastructure, they are proud of their tunnels, railroads, bridges, dams, etc.

I totally agree with you here. This is the crux of my argument.

Your statement about Switzerland having reasonably dense cities and towns compared with the Bay Area I'm interested in learning more about - can you cite your source? Having lived in Switzerland for almost a year and in the Bay Area for almost 4, this doesn't ring true to me, but I don't have a heat map of population density to check against; if I get more time at some point I'll try to find more data.

Regardless, we do have some areas of sufficient population density that it would make sense to connect efficiently and we don't. That's the choice I'm talking about. At the very least, it should be easy to get between Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose without needing a car. Within San Francisco, you should be able to go from the east side to the west side without using a system that suffers from being delayed at least 50% of the time.

Also - regarding more vacation days? The government already mandates 4 weeks of vacation (5 if you're under 20) and you are supposed to take at least two of those weeks in a row.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#318

Post by overcast »

KekDemaga wrote: post #311
overcast wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you calculate life lost as well? I'm being serious. There is a MASSIVE difference between a five minute commute, and an hour commute when you add it up over a lifetime. That's a stupid amount of your life wasted doing nothing.

I do, a job with an hour one way commute will have ten hours weekly of additional work time as opposed to 50 minutes for the 5 minute example. Thus if salaried at the same rate the 5 minute commute is the better deal (and that's before calculation of travel costs)

I was referring to literal life time lost. If you're salaried better with a 3 hour commute, it's still not worth it in my opinion. There is a definite maximum commute time, no matter the price.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#319

Post by andrewjl »

mahyarm wrote: post #271
scriptkiddy wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I've always been in favor of Hybrid zoning. Hybrid structures are even better in my opinion. You can have a building where the bottom floors are commercial space and the upper floors are residential space. Or you can zone an area where both commercial and residential development are permitted. Sure, living right next to a metal shop or something isn't the most pleasant thing, but it's really nice if you w…

For CA, those housing units are negatives on the budget because of prop 13. It doesn't really matter where they are built.

Yes prop 13 is basically the reason behind the differential. And because it is a political non-starter it's misplaced incentives are baked into the CA real estate market.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#320

Post by andrewjl »

curun1r wrote: post #137
andrewjl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue of tech companies forcing anyone out. Bay area municipalities and NIMBY property owners have created a hostile regulatory environment for property developers, leading to a lack of new housing coming onto the market and driving rents upward.

Keep going up the chain of causality. Property Owners are so NIMBY because there's an economic incentive to behave that way. This is only the case because Prop 13 caps their property taxes. If California had property taxes that, like other states, could increase as the assessed value of your home increases, the incentive to oppose new building would be significantly lessened and it would then be in everyone's best in…

The Texas approach does sound like a good compromise. I'd be curious to know if this was proposed during the Prop 13 debate and what the public reaction was.
Post reply on HN