Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at the front of the bus; you can see some towing cables attached to it.
That's just the MUNI track.
No, it's actually stuck. http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2012/06/10/noe-valleys-23rd-street...
Diary: Google Invades
51–60 of 118 posts
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a tiny piece of the puzzle. To have a really usable public transit network ala Chicago or New York, you have to coordinate zoning with transit. 1) The terminal transit station should be built so as to exit right into the central business district. The Caltrain station is too far from SOMA and lacks decent public transit. Meanwhile, Chicago's three transit stations exit right at the perimeter of the Loop (within…
They are in the process of building the Transbay Center [1] which would bring Caltrain closer to the heart of SOMA. Slated for completion in 2017. You can see the construction of it on google maps: http://goo.gl/maps/iMfZx [1]: http://transbaycenter.org/
The TransBay development looks awesome. Reminds me a lot of Ogilvie in Chicago (exiting into the base of a skyscraper with integrated retail). It looks like the future--I'm sure San Franciscans hate it.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#53I was wondering what these " gleaming white, with dark-tinted windows, like limousines, and some days I think of them as the spaceships on which our alien overlords have landed to rule over us. " actually looked like: [0] http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ip2ku-c... [1] http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/IMG_003... [2] http://missionlocal.org/wp-content/themes/calpress/library/e..…
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Re: Diary: Google Invades
#54The article mentions ways the gold rush was bad. The article mentions ways the tech boom is like the gold rush. But the first set of ways does not intersect the second set. I also found it ironic that the old "Yankee Go Home" sentiment was being expressed by an expat.
How exactly is Solnit an expat? She grew up in Novato and lives in SF and has since well before the '89 earthquake, at least. I suppose she is if you interpret expat as "moved into SF from outside the city limits of SF," but that's an odd usage.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#55Someone doesn't like young people who work in tech.
I'm a young person who works in tech in Oakland, and I don't like the young people who work in tech in SF and ride the comfortable google bus every day to their jobs in the valley.
Ride public transit. Get out of your tech bubble and experience a sliver of the lives of other people who live in your adopted city. Not everyone owns an iPhone 5 and is downloading the latest app.
Work on something that will actually "change the world", not just disrupt a market and make you rich.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#56This kind of journalism really bugs me. There are too many ways in which the author strains logic and reason. I think the companies of Silicon Valley are very interested in improving public transportation, but held back by an ineffective transit governance system. I think the comparison to the gold rush is ridiculous, as is the statement that "technology is just another boom" (what?). I think being a technology hub h…
I'm not sure it's right to call this "journalism." It's an individual opinion that doesn't seem to be supported by much actual investigation, or reporting. It's how she sees the world through her eyes and imagines things to be, based on her experience and anecdote, much of which is grossly inaccurate. Would she be happier if Google didn't offer buses, folks were forced to either drive individual cars or live outside…
Instead, the Bay Area benefits from rising real estate values, tax revenues and an international profile.
I think that's sort of the central point of the article, though--as this gentrification and displacement of established community members continues, what exactly is "The Bay Area" that is benefiting?
Is it the real estate holding companies (many of them likely international)? Is the current batch of fresh faces for the tech grinder, until they make enough money and burn out enough to move elsewhere? Is it the visiting people who want to see what SF is like?
The author seems to suggest--rightly or wrongly--that the true Bay Area is the established communities, the hobos, the homeless, the old, the artists, and that none of these groups are actually getting anything out of this deal.
(disclaimer: I live in Houston, so I have no idea what the day-to-day of the Bay Area is like. We've got very low cost of living here, terrible public transit, poor bikability, and no zoning...and I don't think I'd trade it for anywhere else in the States.)
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the Caltrain connected to any other public transit system in a reasonable way, I don't think the Google busses would exist. Riding trains is much more pleasant than riding busses, but not if it adds an extra hour to your commute each way. Furthermore, if you want cheaper housing, build more of it. I don't think there's an easier way around it.
I thought the Central Subway (4th and King to Chinatown) could improve this, if you could go from Powell to Caltrain without taking that long loop around the Bay (or walking, which can sometimes be quicker). But that probably won't be there for a while (anyone know the date?). What I'd most like to see from Caltrain is more frequent trains. It's annoying to arrive only a few seconds late (due to a Muni delay) and the…
An hour between trains is ridiculous. On Metro North I've got 8 trains between 7 am and 9 am from my town into NYC. Weekends are on the half hour.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a tiny piece of the puzzle. To have a really usable public transit network ala Chicago or New York, you have to coordinate zoning with transit. 1) The terminal transit station should be built so as to exit right into the central business district. The Caltrain station is too far from SOMA and lacks decent public transit. Meanwhile, Chicago's three transit stations exit right at the perimeter of the Loop (within…
It's worth noting that they're in the process of extending BART to the Caltrain (which is relatively recent itself.) There's a ton of cut-and-cover work going on down 4th street to do this. Why would you see big residential buildings in Menlo Park or Palo Alto? SF, unlike most cities, has a lot of people commuting outwards towards the suburbs from the city each day. It's SF where you need the extra housing, not SV.
That's MUNI to Caltrain, IIRC (central subway project). But that's probably better anyhow, since BaRT only serves a single corridor thru SF.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#59Want cheaper housing? Make it possible to build more. The fact that quaint New England towns have taller apartment buildings than most of the city of SF pretty much tells the entire story. The busses are basically the opposite of government intervention in a free market; instead of the government stepping in to correct for a market failure, private companies are stepping in to correct a public sector failure (to prov…
This is a classic urban problem: the people who are already in SF and own places don't want more housing built, because the shortage drives up the value of their own homes (and anything that blocked their view would reduce it.) The best solution (which SF is kind of pursuing) is to add more high-density housing in post-industrial areas being converted to residential, where developers have big incentives to construct larger buildings.
SF always does a ton of hand-wringing about how white collar workers are driving moderate-income renters out of the city, but it also doesn't make it easy to construct the new housing stock that those white-collar residents would prefer anyway.
Re: Diary: Google Invades
#60What a truly terrible article, how on earth did it get published? This is the type of small minded, stereotyping, garbage that should never make it past some hack's crappy blog. I looked up the author on Wikipedia and I find it rather ironic that there are quotes of her priding herself on her critical thinking abilities. Reading the article, I saw very little evidence of critical thinking or thinking of any kind for…
The London Review of Books is not "some hack's crappy blog". Check your critical thinking skills again; you might actually need a Master of Journalism to get published there.