91–100 of 305 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you copy Japan policies you can get something much closer to Japan, it's not magic. (Transit oriented upzoning, no parking minimums, and businesses in the station building.)
If it's not magic why isn't it being done? That's the point. This news is rather pathetic strictly because a better scenario is NOT magic.
The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before. Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
Agreed largely, though IMO BART is holding the bay area back. Unlike Caltrain and Muni, BART management is completely incompetent and more focused on spending their money on random things than actually running their transit system. Fun fact: BART police has a large fleet of SUVs, with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area (if only there were some other way for them to get around!) Fun exercise: compare…
I also agree that the governance structure for BART is weird and overly complex. Why do I elect a BART director? Why are they in their own special BART districts completely discontinuous from the 10 other ways we have sliced up the Bay Area?
All that being said, BART has done some good stuff too. The new cars really are way better, and they were not easy to procure since BART has its own weird, non-standard rail gauge. They have increased frequency and shortened trains on weekends to respond to the ridership changes.
Most of all, BART remains the only form of Bay Area transit genuinely faster than driving in real-world circumstances: it averages above 60mph in parts of the east bay, and goes from downtown Oakland to downtown SF in 11min, which is often 2-3x faster than driving. It's the primary transit system that can compete head-to-head with driving. For that reason, I do hope they keep increasing frequency (shortening trains if necessary).
19 million annually. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here. They should focus on making Caltrain run reliably timely, and safely for the passengers. Once we get the ridership numbers up we can easily make up for the electricity efficiency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple. Most people don’t want it.
They do. You're not being realistic. Almost everyone would like to have a choice between getting on a subway for super cheap or driving through traffic. You're saying they would rather have no choice between the two options? Come on. The Bay area (people) want top of the line transit, all of California wants it. It's similar to how Ethiopia wants to get out of poverty. Both places can't get what they want for similar…
Sure, everyone wants an easy commute where the train picks them up in front of their house and drops them off at the office, but they also want their house with yard in Walnut Creek. Or lacking that, their single family house in the Sunset.
Sure some people would be happy in a high density city, but do enough people want it to make it worth building? As dense as downtown San Francisco is, it's still a long commute to the Easy Bay or Peninsula from the Sunset or Richmond. Driving is usually faster and more convenient.
19 million annually. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here. They should focus on making Caltrain run reliably timely, and safely for the passengers. Once we get the ridership numbers up we can easily make up for the electricity efficiency.
Considering the anti transit attitude of most suburban dwelling Americans I am personally glad they are touting this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking of BART, this story is priceless: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bart-seat-slasher-hur... The firm that reupholstered damaged BART seats in the ‘80s paid people to slash them so they’d get more business.
My "favorite" story: BART Withholding Surveillance Videos Of Crime To Avoid 'Stereotypes' https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07/09/bart-withholdin... >
The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before. Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
If they can electrify the San Jose to Gilroy segment that will be even better.
It's great, but it took more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews and shaky funding. ...and this was just re-fitting an existing, relatively short stretch of track! We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this! There are huge infrastructure projects that we need to undertake in the coming years. We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects.
Completely agree! The hard parts seems to be figuring out (1) how to cut red tape for only certain projects and (2) figuring out what red tape to keep. Chesterton's fence and all that.
edit: for instance, if you have e.g. an environmental regulation that is so onerous that exemptions must be doled out for something as sensible as train electrification, then you don't have an environmental review regulation, you have a 'build nothing except what the exemptor decrees' regulation. Which is rather antithetical to the rule of law and good governance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Just build more trains any train infrastructure is so much better than cars, they barely need improvement, they just need to be built
But for example if they used PMM squirrel cage motors etc, they would be nice and smooth, cheaper to build, more energy efficient. On the battery front, using car-style or truck-style EV battery modules would be more robust and would reduce cost by somewhere in the order of 50%. Instead, most trains still use induction motors (this is the high pitch whine you hear) and many train battery designs use industrial style…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My "favorite" story: BART Withholding Surveillance Videos Of Crime To Avoid 'Stereotypes' https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07/09/bart-withholdin... >
[flagged]