Cities Need Walkability and Transit To Keep Millenials

[simms3]

Ok, so respondents from those 3 cities together answered 67% positively (good or excellent)...etc.  Ok, that makes sense.  Technically, for all we know, SF respondents could have answered "poor" or "just fair" the bulk of the time, but when lumped with respondents from NYC and Chicago it would have swung upwards, if that was the case.

What's interesting about this study is how few respondents from the 3 "mature system" cities answered "Excellent".  I think if you polled visitors to NYC from Jax or Atlanta or most cities, even SF, more people would say that the MTA is "excellent", however, New Yorkers who must rely on it don't seem to share that same opinion.  It's all relative.  Another poster from another thread who was having a side back and forth with me brought up that folks from Jax would probably be blown away by the awesome SF MUNI + BART system.  I can tell you, we as residents are not blown away 

[tufsu1]

Tufsu, I know this is your "area", per se (and normally I would defer), but I'm at least decently educated on the topic of transit and I'm a daily rider of SF's transit options, so just take it from me

I just wanted to make the point that there have been transit improvements in SF over the past 20+ years.   Now I agree that MUNI and BART aren't necessarily keeping up with demand, but that's a problem of transit systems all over the country....and yes, that even includes JTA.

[simms3]

^^^Well if you want to get technical. 

If you really examine the top cities with the highest transit ridership and lowest car ownership in this country (NYC, DC, Boston, SF, Chicago, Philly), I think you'd see that while SF is the 2nd most dense city of these and the Bay Area in general is the 1st or 2nd most dense metro area in the country (and growing like DC's), the transit systems are dismally inadequate.

There is going to be a ballot measure that we vote on this year brought forth by someone (we have governance by referendum here) called "Restore SF's Transportation Balance" that calls for the city to focus on making driving easier and more convenient and restoring parking.

Some quotes to consider from advanced transit users here, as we plan our own transit in Jax:

My partner and I own a car for good reason. Transit sucks in this city. Regardless, I have a monthly MUNI pass to ride to and from work every weekday while he takes the car to commute from the Sunset to the Marina (15 min drive versus 45+ min on MUNI).

What we need is more investment in real transit. Hell, I never gave owning a car a thought when I lived in NYC or Washington, DC. Here, it's different. Let's see..should I take MUNI all the way from the west side of town to 4th/King (requiring a transfer along the way) to hop on Caltrain to head to SJ for a delightful 2 hour minimum trip OR drive 50 min.

The truth of the matter is that transit is miserable here, and is extremely difficult for most locations. I own a car and so does my GF. We will continue to pay through the nose for the privilege, not because we are out to kill the environment or are bad urbanites or whatever, but because for our commute needs, public transit (both in the city and in the greater area) is not adequate. In fact, not even close.

And I do use MUNI, but to say it is so comprehensive that driving is unnecessary is completely untrue. Case in point? It took me 40 minutes on the 22 last week to get to Fillmore/Chestnut from 16th/Valencia. The drive time on Google Maps? 9 minutes. As long as it is more efficient and easier to drive from place to place in the city than it is to take MUNI, people will continue to buy and use cars.

You want to eliminate cars from SF? Do something about transport. Stop trying to legislate away demand for cars. It will happen, and quite naturally, when people don't need them.

Not to mention that just because your lifestyle allows you to live car free does not mean it is a valid lifestyle for others. At large here is a healthy does of ableism, agism, anti-family policies, and a complete disregard for tradespeople as varied as plumbers, architects, realtors, contractors, property managers, inspectors, etc that need to get from place to place quickly. Sort of funny that the proponents are progressiveness who theoretically take the underserved needs of the community into account...SF is not just a city of single-people who are healthy, relatively young, and live close enough to work to eliminate car ridership.

If you want people to choose to abandon car ownership, come up with a transit system that works.

As someone above said, removing parking while building 10 muni lines would be a good idea, otherwise, removing parking spaces while doing nothing else useful is a self centered and entitled move by a very privileged segment of the population.

This is what happens when you REFUSE to allow off street private parking to be built, remove street parking spaces, spend all your time and money on bike lanes, and then wonder why the majority of San Franciscans are fed up.

Imagine if the SFMTA had spent all their time and money on improving MUNI, instead of punishing drivers and basically acted as a a better paying alternative for SFBC staffers, many of whom move on to MTA managment six figure jobs after "putting in their time" at the bike coalition. The MTA needs to concentrate on MUNI, not on making part time resident Leah Shahum happy.

It all started back a few years ago when a bunch of bike activists and some city officials went to Amsterdam, saw the bikes and said "lets be just like them".

Without.

Any.

Thought.

What's crazy is that it's frequently heard here and elsewhere that "people don't have a right to live in San Francisco if they can't afford it. If the rent on a 300 square foot studio is $2000 a month, so be it."

Yet the idea that anyone should have to pay $2000 a month for a 300 square foot parking space-- or $200 a month, or $20 a month-- seems to drive the same people bananas. I mean, upthread you have someone saying "I do think RPP are over priced." They cost $8 a month. $8.

How about a competing ballot measure titled
"Fix Muni First"

That actually funds muni improvements, breaks the muni union which is strangling it, removes 1/2 of all muni stops (so muni moves twice as fast), and dramatically expands BRT network through the city, as the quickest and cheapest way to improve service. (we can start underground more things too, but that is slower and costs a lot).

Question: would you give up some space on streets for cars (to make room for BRT) if it came with vastly improved and efficient public transit system?

Who wants to write the ballot measure?

Which is an excellent point, because most MUNI lines stop at every single block (which I think has to do with the hills and serving old people), however, it's painful.  Not enough express buses.

As progressive as the people are here, you'd think you'd never hear such an overwhelming response, but this is what you get when you have our transit in our situation.


And some comments from the peanut gallery when the Warriors moved to Mission Bay:

Thats the worst news today. Transit to this site is worse than pier 30. I was hoping something interesting will happen on the salesforce site

this is why we can't have nice things. now it's even farther from BART! the idiots who banded together to try and block this are killing this city's growth. i would loved to have this on those decrepit piers. They should have at least let it go up for a vote (which is sad that that's even a possibility).

Hopefully it will put pressure on the city to underground Caltrain and improve the T-Third.

Transit concerns are very real here. Should be hilarious people trying to use the 2 car T line trains. Maybe that will point out to citizens how silly light rail is in a city this dense? I mean it makes sense in Portland, Salt Lake City, but spending money to have 'transit' in a city that outgrew that form of transportation in literally the early 20th century, doesn't make sense. I picture people walking from Caltrain, bart...well only the T will go there.

That said, great decision to move the stadium.

Good god, this new location is TWO MILES from BART. Wow, this is actually going to be a congestion apocalypse.

Transit first my ass. This is FAR from regional transit.

T-line can only support two car trains which is woefully inadequate. Someone commented on the E line which is even lower capacity.

This is not a great location for regional transit.

Perhaps the best the city can do is to start running redundant modern LRT all along the water front but I am not hopeful they will do anything

When people say the T line will be "ramped up" not sure what they mean. Being near BART is way better. GSW is a regional team and I am not sure how the fans from the East Bay will get to this location

T-Third's frequency will be more than double once central subway is completed. The peak frequency should be about once every 4 minute if I remember right. The increase is due to expected increase in ridership in the new segment that it serves. Not sure how Warrior game will affect this.

Caltrain is also accessible to Pier 30. The Salesforce site is only a little bit closer to Caltrain.

I think the main loser will be people who could have walk to Pier 30, including all the workers in SF downtown and everyone who could have arrive in Embarcadero station.

Yeah, I can see the "4-minute headways" on the T-line happening. Not. Also, if you think MUNI hoarding trains for Giants games is bad, imagine the T during Warriors games. 1-car trains, BTW. MUNI doesn't have enough in its fleet to run 2-car trains on the line.

Granted, the transit option sucks here for regional connections (BART, Caltrain), but the Fremont A's proposal would build a stadium not even remotely close to public transit.

It's not just the 41 Warriors home games - it's the other 150 nights a year they're hoping for events.

That's what makes this location extremely frightening. A cleanly run T can still only handle two cars full every 4-5 minutes (the stations being dug out now only have a capacity of two cars), which is the absolute best case. Muni is more likely to only be able to handle two cars every 8-10 minutes.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to the capacity of BART. It's a travesty that we're allowing this to be built so far from BART.

I'll be out in force to try to kill this as a location - it would be much better to have them stay in Oakland, where at least there's decent transit access.

Spending public money to build a new caltrain station specifically for this arena? No way.

Caltrain is already overburdened on workdays when Giants game days are not happening. The whole bay area arena/stadium thing is a mess, unless billions are spent on public transit....which will never happen. Therefore, I say no new arenas (and their minimum wage spillover jobs) anywhere. Zone for high density housing instead. (Yeah, I know I'm dreaming.)

It was actually even interesting for me to read people's comments...SF could actually be a good case study for Jax transit.