San Francisco

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » July 28th, 2015, 4:38 pm

Nice... I hope someone captures before, during, and after videos all over.

LakeCharles
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Re: San Francisco

Postby LakeCharles » March 8th, 2016, 1:31 pm

Debate continuing to rage over housing supply and tech money in San Francisco.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/techn ... wdown.html

I couldn't easily find an answer to this, so I thought I'd ask here. Is there much building going on in SF? I know the anecdotes that say supply isn't going up while demand is surging, but is that true?

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FISHMANPET
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Re: San Francisco

Postby FISHMANPET » March 8th, 2016, 1:34 pm

San Francisco does build a pitifully small amount of housing. Every project is opposed for every possible reason. I'm sure people here like to think we have crazy opposition to development, but this is nothing compared to SF.

widin007
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Re: San Francisco

Postby widin007 » March 8th, 2016, 1:45 pm

There's a lot going up in SoMa, but that is probably the ONLY neighborhood where such things can happen with the Transbay rezoning that was done, but the problem with the new Transbay district is that it is almost all office, something like 3 million sq. ft. with a few thousand ultra luxury units, which will only create more problems for housing. A new residential mid rise off the Embarcadero would have went on a parking lot and tennis court and they just gave up after years of fighting endless lawsuits from neighbors, its pretty rough going there for developers.

http://hoodline.com/2016/03/8-washingto ... eawall-lot

MSPtoMKE
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Re: San Francisco

Postby MSPtoMKE » March 9th, 2016, 7:14 pm

And a relevant reply to the New York Times article:
http://gawker.com/san-francisco-build-m ... 1763752356
My flickr photos.

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Re: San Francisco

Postby seanrichardryan » May 17th, 2016, 10:49 am

This could fit several places, but it's about SanFRAN.

https://medium.com/@andersem/a-guy-just ... .25b5pzcz3
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: San Francisco

Postby RailBaronYarr » May 19th, 2016, 8:14 am

This is a good overview/discussion: http://cityobservatory.org/the-long-roa ... francisco/

I don't necessarily agree 100% with Hertz's take at the end of full-on economic crisis. There is more than enough capital across the country, both public and private, that would be more than willing to jump at the opportunity to grab (even highly depressed) foreclosed rental properties. And given the state's role in CA property prices (Prop 13, etc), it's also not crazy to suggest they could pay every underwater homeowner the difference and call it a day. I'm exaggerating here, but that's also a scenario where SF's housing stock magically grew by 50% or more overnight, so, you know.

ord2msp
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Re: San Francisco

Postby ord2msp » October 31st, 2016, 9:49 pm

Brief update on the housing shortage and recent development activity in SF.

Quick summary of projects underway in SF. Over $50 billion in new development currently underway.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco ... jects.html

The San Francisco Bay Area: A Modern Housing and Transportation Crisis
Presentation by TechCrunch contributor Kim-Mai Cutler given at the 2016 Rail~Volution Conference, which was held in the Bay Area.
She does an amazing job summarizing how the Bay Area arrived at its current housing crisis, complete with a healthy mix of data and anecdote. It's 13 minutes long, but well worth the watch if you have the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHgLWGQtn0o

Some highlights from the above presentation:
  • *Today's 25-year-olds in California spend more than 50% of their income on housing
    *Private tech shuttles would be the 7th largest provider in the Bay Area if they were a transit agency (impressive for a region with 25+ transit providers)
    *There are roughly 50 privately-held companies worth at least $1 billion in the Bay Area
    *From 2011-2015, the Bay Area produced 65,000 housing units compared to an increase of 501,000 jobs. This amounts to only 1 house built for every 8 jobs created in the region.

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » October 31st, 2016, 10:01 pm

It seems at times the Bay Area is unwittingly practicing a disguised extreme income apartheid.

matthew5080
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Re: San Francisco

Postby matthew5080 » November 29th, 2016, 1:07 pm

The leaning tower of San Fran can be seen sinking from space :lol:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/arti ... item-44548

RailBaronYarr
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Re: San Francisco

Postby RailBaronYarr » February 12th, 2017, 9:17 am

I took a trip with the family to SF over the last week. We stayed in Cole Valley and got around by Muni the whole week (save for a day renting a car to go see my wife's short-time childhood home in Alameda). It wasn't my first time in the city, but it was the first time I really paid attention to some of the details. I documented a few thoughts here: https://twitter.com/alexcecchini/status ... 2353401856

One thing that really struck out to me, as others have pointed out about CA cities generally, is how respectful of pedestrians drivers are. The infrastructure obviously helps, but the patience they have for giving peds the ROW was really, really obvious, and cars seemed to generally travel slower on streets with a similar design as our neighborhood streets. Not sure how we can get there tbh.

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » February 12th, 2017, 9:34 am

I remember reading there were heavy fines and a period of a couple years of heavy enforcement.

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » April 22nd, 2017, 10:41 pm

Washington Post of the Caltrain electrification upgrade delays by the new administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ge%2Fstory

mattaudio
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Re: San Francisco

Postby mattaudio » May 2nd, 2017, 8:42 am

Bummer. Electrifying and upgrading commuter rail that actually functions as regional rail (not farm field park & ride BS) is probably one of the best transit investments we could make. Caltrain, Metra, some Metrolink lines, MBTA, etc.

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » November 3rd, 2017, 7:13 pm

Excellent story about the Bay Area’s growing RV-living workforce.

https://www.topic.com/life-inside-the-r ... con-valley

tmart
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Re: San Francisco

Postby tmart » January 4th, 2019, 1:15 pm

It looks like the BART extension to San Jose will be using a Barcelona-style single-bore tunnel. I think this is the first time it will be attempted in North America, which is super cool. More proven options in the playbook for addressing some of the typical concerns around subways would be a great thing.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/30/ ... ykpI4NcjSY

Anondson
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Re: San Francisco

Postby Anondson » January 4th, 2019, 1:34 pm

What’s special about “Barcelona-style” tunneling?

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VacantLuxuries
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Re: San Francisco

Postby VacantLuxuries » January 4th, 2019, 1:40 pm

Single tube, with the two tracks stacked vertically instead of laid out side by site with the station platform in the center.

mattaudio
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Re: San Francisco

Postby mattaudio » January 4th, 2019, 1:46 pm

Speaking of rail transit in SFO... Is there any reason why they can't rework some of the 10+ lanes of the Bay Bridge for rail? It originally had an interurban network that funneled through Oakland then across the bridge to the Transbay Terminal. Instead of a second BART Transbay Tube, why not put rails onto the Bay Bridge once again?

Take the idea even further and route Marin County's SMART commuter rail across the Golden Gate where it could interline into CalTrain or something.

tmart
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Re: San Francisco

Postby tmart » January 4th, 2019, 4:01 pm

Single tube, with the two tracks stacked vertically instead of laid out side by site with the station platform in the center.
Yup. In particular, building the platforms inside the bore significantly reduces costs and disruption from excavation for stations, and gives the option of building deeper stations.
Speaking of rail transit in SFO... Is there any reason why they can't rework some of the 10+ lanes of the Bay Bridge for rail? It originally had an interurban network that funneled through Oakland then across the bridge to the Transbay Terminal. Instead of a second BART Transbay Tube, why not put rails onto the Bay Bridge once again?

Take the idea even further and route Marin County's SMART commuter rail across the Golden Gate where it could interline into CalTrain or something.
No reason I know of. It is a different bridge now and I don't know if the new one would support rail, but if it does that could be a sensible alternative. I know the BART folks have not committed to a second tube--they go out of their way to refer to it as a second crossing--because they want to do fairly open-ended studies before committing to a particular configuration, and it's just the public that have assumed it'll be a second tube. I'm pretty sure they have said they want to support conventional rail, though, so whatever it is will interline with Caltrain/HSR/etc. instead of (or in addition to) the existing weirdo BART tracks and trains.

I'm guessing that the huge reduction in vehicle capacity on a critical bottleneck like the Bay Bridge would be seen as a political non-starter, though.

Rail on the Golden Gate has been politically dead since Marin killed their inclusion in the original BART plan back in like the 60s. (The plan called for a second deck on the GGB!) I don't know if the Bridge would support heavy rail (that was one of the concerns that killed BART, but it's not obvious anymore how justified those fears were). But I totally agree that extending SMART to at least the eventual Transbay Station would be a (massive) project worth doing.


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