This new tunnel being built would either by built for BART or Regional rail. The first and only trans-bay tube is at capacity so upping frequency would be extremely difficult without a new tunnel. A Regional rail tunnel will be more beneficial to San Francisco and the region by allowing Amtrak services to enter San Francisco.This tunnel will likely be used by California high speed rail in the future to reach Sacramento from San Francisco. They cant use the current tube because one the current tube is at capacity, two BART uses wide gauge and that means Regional Rail cant use BART tracks, and three the current tube does not extend to the new Salesforce transportation center which Caltrain, CHSRA and likely Amtrak if the regional rail tunnel is built. Either one of these options will happen. I agree with a lot of your points, however this will help with the backbones of BART. Sorry about the Yap.
Always love to see infrastructure advocates. Curious to hear your thoughts CAHSR. Approved in 2008 and initially estimated to complete in 2030. If we go at the current pace, completion will actually be in 2083. From 1950 to 2022, EU completed 7000 miles, China 24000 miles, Japan 2700 miles of high speed rail. The US made (but not completed) 100 miles. We did have Metroliner but that was barely high speed and then discontinued.
Oh boy. Your message about worker power being eroded hits hard after some of the work experiences I've had. But that all of us have had, being exploited and poor.
The first part of your video was pretty solid but I have to quibble with later parts. While I'm all for land value tax, we don't need land tax and height minimums so much as we need to _allow_ taller buildings with less parking. Under current zoning: you talk about filling in empty parking lots; that's illegal. Various mixed use along the transit line? Possibly also illegal, at least for parts of it. And the problem isn't car company lobbies so much as NIMBY homeowners. The same communities that blocked freeways also fight to block apartments and businesses (especially in San Francisco). The relevant "car lobby" is people worried about 'traffic', especially but not just people who are car owners themselves.
Here in Toronto we are so skilled at building transit that its taken 21 years to build a 15.9 km LRT line and it is still not open and its a billion dollars over budget. When it dopes open it will be over capacity by a factor of three. They are now looking at replacing the LRT with a subway at an approximate cost of 100 billion dollars based on the 13 billion it has so far cost to build the Eglington LRT and projecting it on the same timeline and cost scaled for inflation of ten percent a year. Our conservative provincial government has no problem spending huge amounts on unaccountable corporations that basically control the government. Its a perfect model of pure fascism where corporations own the government and decide what the governments priorities are and how they get implemented while ensuring the maximum amount of money gets given to them for their own corroborate profits.
The only people that deserve to be on transit are the morbidly obese and those on welfare and disability. No one else should be on transit. Oh wait that is already the case and that is how the average American views transit and where it fits in the American culture..
I hate this argument same thing with associated cost. Like people will say that its to expense to buy a 3$ ticket everytime will be to expenseive but the entire idea of car ownership is to distract you from the true cost ie. insurance, gas, tires, maintmence, financing a car.
No wonder why everyone is so depressed, constantly driving down 4 lane stroads everyday and sitting in traffic on a highway is not how to live. Whenever people go to their towns mainstreet or outdoor shopping mall they always enjoy it. I've never hard anyone say that they enjoy 4 way stroad intersection with 2 gas stations, a bank, and what seems like 20 fast food resturants. People need to wake up and realize that our towns and communities aren't just places we drive through on a commute and are places we live in and should care about. Also I tend to notice that the only places that produce culture say Brooklyn or Bourbon street in New Orleans are always full of people walking around feeling proud to be there. People enjoy places that are unique to where they live and not just that but also interact with on a daily bases in person. Nobody think that culture and the enjoyment of life comes from driving to the grocery store and then parking your car in a sea of faceless cars. Its seeing the people that you live with and interact with. Make cities people friendly already!!! Sorry for the rant Enjoy the content very much.
It's not "America" that is too big (though that might be true in isolation, not specifically relating to the context of public transport), but it's _the US._
Car dependency advocates are insane. They do not listen, they do not think, they do not care. You can tell them to their face that their driving experience will get better when more other people who aren't them are able to use other modes of transport more, and they will completely ignore you and keep preaching about their holy car dependency and how everything else is anti-freedom evil.
Rent controls are counterintuitively not great for the most vulnerable. It’s great for the middle class and lower middle class to the slight cost of the landlord upper class but is decimating for the lower working class. I agree with most of your stuff but economics is a real thing. You can’t just ignore it. I’m a social progressive and ideas with so holes in them like rent control hurt the cause.
The fuck are you talking about. You really think that having a lower cost of living would negatively affect the “lower working class”? Also don’t fucking patronize me saying shit like economics is a real thing. Let me guess you think oh well then developers won’t wanna build, so fucking what we don’t need them to build. cities, states and the federal government can build housing themselves. Then you’ll say another brain dead thing like the government isn’t good at running things, not realizing that socialized housing, was a major thing a few decades ago that started after World War II, and it was amazing Also, literally China’s infrastructure is basically all state ran & operated. You’re not a progressive you’re just a fucking liberal id call you a parrot but that’d be an insult to parrots, you my friend are an insect that only only goes off of instinct, whenever the status quo is questioned your instinctual reactions are just the brain dead talking points you hear
A big thing you should look into is the political nature of car dependency. Most moderates and Democrats drive as a matter of survival (it's usually the only safe option). Republicans are much more likely to use vehicles as status symbols. Many of them own 3 or more vehicles, and those vehicles are typically as big and/or powerful as possible. That's why infrastructure and policy changes away from car dependency are almost only seen in major cities or blue states. There's just a large percentage of the country that would rather sit in traffic for 2 hours a day than breathe the same air as someone else. I think you'll see a big uptake in public transit and cycling in the next few decades, but small cities and rural America will always be car dependent for reasons beyond logic.
Too big? Americans build interstate highways, but they can't build railways. Stop this Car dependency nonsense. This ain't your own silent generation no more.
Those "neighborhoods" of one mile by one mile with avenues surrounding them are the perfect locations for better development for everyone: more density along the avenues, with three or four floors of residences with commercial and social spaces on the ground floors, leaving the current detached houses in the middle (maybe a transition between them with row houses?). More density means more commercial activity, more housing means housing prices are not as high, and people can still live in their detached houses with ammenities and destinations near them, without having to rely on their cars.
OTOH, forcing density along the avenues means putting more people (and poorer people who can't afford houses) closest to the noise and pollution of all the cars on the avenues, while rich people live in their quiet interior blocks. If we're going to have height caps at all, I'd prefer Japanese style ones based on the width of the street. I don't know Japan's exact rules, but let's say that you can build as tall as the width of the right of way, plus any front setback you use. So if the right of way (not just curb to curb) is 60 feet, and you're 6 feet back from the sidewalk, you can build up to 66 feet. This provide a 1:1 height:width ratio, which Jeff Speck proposed was close to 'ideal' to most human sensibilities.
The biggest problem for American mass transit is that it has been stigmatized. This is an unknown phenomenon in the rest of the world and is impossible to solve without draconian measures.
Russia also has passenger rail lines across its territory and good public transport infrastructure on their cities literally the largest country on earth, never understood that argument seems like such a dumb excuse, specially for Americans given rail was the way the entire country was built lol
@@Kanadabalsam Russia does have good transportation system inside the city but i doubt its decent to use railway accross siberia. Though i get what you mean by that USA has every good reason to revitalise its railways
@@astro3666 "....but I doubt its decent to use railway across Siberia." At this moment, literally THOUSANDS of people are using the Trans-Siberian Railroad to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok.
@@Trainton235 ? but theres no one to ride it. The US population is basically in five clusters: West Coast, Gulf Coast, Midwest, Northeast. BUild bullet trains there. Theres not much in between but there are cities scattered veryyyyyyyy widely (think salt lake city to denver to kansas city) so night trains will do. Random towns with population 200 can get thruway buses
@@Trainton235 Conventional twin-rail systems work better, since the technology is not only well proven, but other technical issues allow for the use of conventional rail than maglev; for example, maglev trains cannot easily be switched from one track to another, and there'll always be the possibility of the dreaded LOLA (Loss Of Levity Accident).
3:12 - It's that anti-socialism bs talking point going haywire in those people. I guess they think city planners don't decide how the city will look, I guess they think restaurants they frequent don't inherently control what choices they have for their meals. I guess they don't think what they can buy at the supermarket is not dictated by what that supermarket is carrying. 3:54 - Ugh. How many cities have ripped up their trolley and tram tracks in favor of automobiles only to later install subways and light rail. San Francisco was the only city I am aware of that _didn't_ lose all their trolley tracks, but rather started featuring trolleys from other cities to run on them for both functionality _and_ display. However, the Bay Area _DID_ have a key system (trams) that they got rid of only to put in BART later on down the line. 5:19 - NOW I know why they are so against _socialism_ in our country. They want it for themselves so that _they_ can benefit from it. These wealthy elites and big corporations complain about how they would have to pay for _OTHERS'_ healthcare, education, housing etc. but think nothing about how _they_ get "handouts" in the form of tax-breaks and "corporate welfare".... that the tax-payers who are making far less, paying the lion's share of the taxes and still are on a treadmill of getting any kind of improvements in the quality of life, let alone improvements for their cities, neighborhoods and communities.
One thing I noticed from the anti car movement is the level of conspiracism, believing that cities became car centric because the auto lobby's money, not that people actually y'know... wanted personal transport. It basically argues that human beings the world over, the entire world over, THE ENTIRE WHOLE WORLD INCLUDING CHINA before this very moment had no agency and it wasw all corporate power. Yes including China, a country built on public transport because of the poverty of decades past but as soon as people could afford it? They got moped instead of riding a bus, anything other than riding the bus. Not addressing why individuals even in China would make that decision is why the anti car movement is having such trouble. You're not addressing the voting public as people with concerns and desires, you're addressing them as puppets who have been dancing to the wrong puppeteer.
@@Trainton235 fair enough if you don't hold that opinion even though you say word for word all the talking points from videos promoting the reduction and possible eventual elimination of cars. Including the conspiracy beliefs that lobbyists alone created the push for cars which wouldn't explain China as a great example.
2 hours per day when I lived in Amsterdam and worked in Apeldoorn. That's 10 hours per week for a full working week. So the figures at the start of the video sound very, very low to me for the US.
There's absolutely NOTHING WRONG WITH STREETCARS; they assist in removing hundreds of rubber tired/steering wheeled vehicles from our streets in crowded urban areas, making them noticeably safer.
A car costs ~6k - 10k per year. With 20 EUR / hour net that would be ~300 h that people need to work to earn enough for their car = 2 month or about 1/6h of their time working. I pay 365 EUR per year for a ~50km radius for all public transport.
In Russia it's about 200$ a year for public transport within your city and suburban villages. Can be a bit more in different regions. Even in Moscow public transport will cost you not more than 400-500$ a year. Not to mention, that traveling by metro (which in Moscow is absolutely amazing) is much safer and calmly than driving a car standing in the traffic jams about half of the time.
It costs the same to build 40 miles of highway as it does to fund the Essential Air Service program, which provides ~180 small communities with public air service to their nearest city.
