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  #8201  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2017, 11:36 PM
ChargerCarl ChargerCarl is offline
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Originally Posted by tech12 View Post
Except it's undoubtedly where it's the strongest, overall. SF city-proper has some of the most impressive transit coverage of any American city, and Oakland is no slouch either, though it's not in the same league as SF.

Though if you never ride the bus, and only consider trains to be "proper" public transit, i could see how you might come to the conclusion that coverage in the core sucks (i agree that for trains it does kinda suck, though it still is good by US standards).



Yeah, there should be more BART/Muni metro coverage in the core. Geary needs a subway yesterday, as does Van Ness and maybe 19th ave.

But dude...San Jose is one of the three major cities in the Bay Area, and BART is going to be serving the densest part of the city. BART to SJ is a good thing, and I'm not sure why you're throwing SJ into the same bucket as the suburbs.
I mean San Diego is one of the biggest cities in Southern California, but it doesn't make sense to extend LA's metro system all the way to it. It's not cost effective given the low density areas between SJ and SF that are unlikely to be up zoned any time soon. This is what commuter rail is for.

BART's untenable scope is is why it loses so much money and it's core services suffer for it.

Last edited by ChargerCarl; Feb 1, 2017 at 2:13 AM.
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  #8202  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 2:45 AM
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Originally Posted by ChargerCarl View Post
I mean San Diego is one of the biggest cities in Southern California, but it doesn't make sense to extend LA's metro system all the way to it. It's not cost effective given the low density areas between SJ and SF that are unlikely to be up zoned any time soon. This is what commuter rail is for.

BART's untenable scope is is why it loses so much money and it's core services suffer for it.
Except San Jose is in the Bay Area. BART stands for BAY AREA Rapid Transit. We're not talking about BART to Sacramento here, so i'm not sure what your San Diego comparison is all about. Nice false equivalence, I guess.

Also, you seem to have missed the fact that BART has always been a hybrid commuter/metro system. BART to SJ is the commuter rail. Well, in addition to the other commuter rail system that already serves SJ (CalTrain)
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  #8203  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 2:55 AM
ChargerCarl ChargerCarl is offline
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Except San Jose is in the Bay Area. BART stands for BAY AREA Rapid Transit. We're not talking about BART to Sacramento here, so i'm not sure what your San Diego comparison is all about. Nice false equivalence, I guess.
The point is it's not an efficient use of resources. Whats so difficult to understand about that? My house is in the bay area, should BART run a train right to my front door? Obviously not.

Quote:
Also, you seem to have missed the fact that BART has always been a hybrid commuter/metro system. BART to SJ is the commuter rail. Well, in addition to the other commuter rail system that already serves SJ (CalTrain)
The point is using BART as commuter rail isn't a good idea and the money BART hemorrhages servicing low density communities is evidence of this. It's currently one of the worst performing systems in the world in terms of ridership/km of rail and its service quality has suffered because of it.

Since BART is going to continue to keep expanding outward we desperately need more TOD, which will increase ridership and help towards solving the housing crisis.

Last edited by ChargerCarl; Feb 1, 2017 at 3:31 AM.
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  #8204  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 4:14 AM
mt_climber13 mt_climber13 is offline
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I agree that BART and even CalTrain stops are located in some of the most silly places surrounded by single family homes, or in the case of the South SF CalTrain station, underneath a freeway overpass with a Lowe's store as the nearest building about ¼ mile away. If SF and the Bay Area are going to take away freeways, I wouldn't have a problem with that if they replace it with some sort of mass transit options, but right now, they are not building any new freeways nor any new mass transit stations or rail lines to handle the density. Every time I think of going to SF now I think "traffic" and I end up changing my plans. If I could drive to a BART station and take that into SF and get around the city reasonably by light rail or subway then I wouldn't care. But it's just not efficient to take public transit in the Bay Area.

Regardless, hopefully self driving buses and cars come sooner rather than later and that will be the answer to traffic nightmares, since the politicians have no initiative to do anything about it. Leave it to the businessmen like Elon Musk, Google, Uber, and Lyft.
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  #8205  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 5:27 AM
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Originally Posted by ChargerCarl View Post
I mean San Diego is one of the biggest cities in Southern California, but it doesn't make sense to extend LA's metro system all the way to it. It's not cost effective given the low density areas between SJ and SF that are unlikely to be up zoned any time soon. This is what commuter rail is for.

BART's untenable scope is is why it loses so much money and it's core services suffer for it.
I question how many people live in either LA or San Diego and work in the other or have business interests that involve both such as the Silicon Valley companies who use San Francisco law firms and/or Silican Valley executives who either have second homes in San Francisco or use San Francisco dining and cultural facilities and so on. SF and SJ are functionally one metro much more so, I think, than LA and San Diego--SF's football team plays much nearer to SJ after all--and needs public transit options that connect the two city centers.

And you call BART's "scope" untenable without even much of an explanation much less evidence to support such a judgement. BART was initially conceived as circumnavigating the Bay and uniting the cities surrounding the Bay, which it is now coming close to doing for the first time, and many people use segments of it to go from one suburb to another as well as to a city center. Basically, it runs full. If it loses money, it's not for lack of ridership but I also question whether it loses more money than most rail transit systems. I believe they all require subsidies.

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Originally Posted by wakamesalad View Post
I agree that BART and even CalTrain stops are located in some of the most silly places surrounded by single family homes, or in the case of the South SF CalTrain station, underneath a freeway overpass with a Lowe's store as the nearest building about ¼ mile away. If SF and the Bay Area are going to take away freeways, I wouldn't have a problem with that if they replace it with some sort of mass transit options, but right now, they are not building any new freeways nor any new mass transit stations or rail lines to handle the density. Every time I think of going to SF now I think "traffic" and I end up changing my plans. If I could drive to a BART station and take that into SF and get around the city reasonably by light rail or subway then I wouldn't care. But it's just not efficient to take public transit in the Bay Area.
I live in SF without a car but I am a member of Zipcar as well as using BART/Muni regularly. Even those of us who choose not to keep cars in the city still need to drive on freeways if we want to head to the wine country, for example, or Santa Cruz or skiing in the Sierra or anywhere outside the city. And the traffic has gotten so bad, I feel inhibited even from doing that and I don't like it. Public transit will never allow us to escape the city but the beautiful surrounding countryside and coast is one of the main attractions of the Bay Area . . . if you could get there without sitting in traffic for hours. With fewer routes in and out of town, it would be even less feasible to do the enjoyable things outside the city so I am opposed to removing the residual freeway system we have now even though I would oppose building any new freeways in SF neighborhoods.
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  #8206  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 5:39 AM
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Originally Posted by ChargerCarl View Post
using BART as commuter rail isn't a good idea and the money BART hemorrhages servicing low density communities is evidence of this.
Why? Have you been in many empty BART trains lately? If the trains are full or nearly full, you can't blame the density of the communities served for BART's financial troubles whatever they are.
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  #8207  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 5:41 AM
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Today.











Look for the trees on Transbay Center!
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  #8208  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 6:33 AM
ChargerCarl ChargerCarl is offline
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
Why? Have you been in many empty BART trains lately? If the trains are full or nearly full, you can't blame the density of the communities served for BART's financial troubles whatever they are.
BART trains are packed in SF and Oakland. Not so much outside of there.
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  #8209  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 6:50 AM
ChargerCarl ChargerCarl is offline
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I question how many people live in either LA or San Diego and work in the other or have business interests that involve both such as the Silicon Valley companies who use San Francisco law firms and/or Silican Valley executives who either have second homes in San Francisco or use San Francisco dining and cultural facilities and so on. SF and SJ are functionally one metro much more so, I think, than LA and San Diego--SF's football team plays much nearer to SJ after all--and needs public transit options that connect the two city centers.
Thats all well and good, but does it justify spending subway costs to extend a commuter rail service out to serve them? Probably not. Just electrify Caltrain.

Quote:
And you call BART's "scope" untenable without even much of an explanation much less evidence to support such a judgement. BART was initially conceived as circumnavigating the Bay and uniting the cities surrounding the Bay, which it is now coming close to doing for the first time, and many people use segments of it to go from one suburb to another as well as to a city center. Basically, it runs full.
BART's ridership is at something like 0.7m per km of track. Thats pretty low.

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If it loses money, it's not for lack of ridership
Uhh, yes it is?

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but I also question whether it loses more money than most rail transit systems. I believe they all require subsidies.
Nope

Quote:
I live in SF without a car but I am a member of Zipcar as well as using BART/Muni regularly. Even those of us who choose not to keep cars in the city still need to drive on freeways if we want to head to the wine country, for example, or Santa Cruz or skiing in the Sierra or anywhere outside the city. And the traffic has gotten so bad, I feel inhibited even from doing that and I don't like it. Public transit will never allow us to escape the city but the beautiful surrounding countryside and coast is one of the main attractions of the Bay Area . . . if you could get there without sitting in traffic for hours. With fewer routes in and out of town, it would be even less feasible to do the enjoyable things outside the city so I am opposed to removing the residual freeway system we have now even though I would oppose building any new freeways in SF neighborhoods.
Taking BART outside of SF/Oak isn't even an option for most people. It just doesn't serve many dense communities outside of those areas (because there really isn't any). You get dumped out into a massive, empty surface parking lot in a low rises suburb. Might as well just drive.

And this is what I mean by it's scope being untenable. Yes, it was designed as a commuter rail service to bring suburbanites to their offices in downtown SF, but the city isn't a strong enough CBD for the region to generate high enough ridership and yet its being extended even further at massive costs. The model that BART was built on is flawed.

This would be fine if we were also permitting a ton of TODs like Vancouver, but we all know Bay Area NIMBYs won't allow that.
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  #8210  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 3:42 PM
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It's driving me crazy that the spire on 181 Fremont looks like it's tilted outward from the center of the tower axis. It's an optical illusion because of the shape of the thing but it still looks that way.
I think the illusion is increased because the cladding on the spine below the spire is not yet in place, so it's kinda just hanging up there.
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  #8211  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 5:30 PM
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Taking BART outside of SF/Oak isn't even an option for most people.
You live in some kind of alternate universe (called LA I guess). Over 2 decades ago I worked in Concord and reverse commuted on BART (when Concord was the end of the line). Even going in the opposite direction of the commute on the far reaches of the system, most seats were full (but admittedly, you could get a seat). And the parking lots were always full in Concord by 7:30 AM when I arrived--I read now you have to get there before the sun comes up to get a space in the suburban lots.

Although I no longer do that commute, everything I read about the BART system is that it is quite crowded. If the ridership per mile is not impressive, it must be because you can't pack more people into the cars (the new cars have fewer seats and more standing room apparently to remedy that somewhat), more suburban commuters into the lots at suburban stations or more trains on the tracks (I have read that is, indeed, an issue due to the capacity of the Bay tunnel).

Anyway, I'm done.
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  #8212  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 7:26 PM
mt_climber13 mt_climber13 is offline
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Those pics of the new Transbay terminal got me thinking, does anyone know if the "mini- tower" on the Millennium site is also tilting and sinking, or just the large 60 story tower? Because if the other tower isn't sinking, wouldn't that put a hole in Millennium Partners' claim that the sinking is caused by the excavation of the Transbay Terminal?
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  #8213  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 8:12 PM
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^^^I believe it is just the tall heavy tower that is sinking.
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  #8214  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2017, 8:28 PM
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Trump Hotels wants to expand to San Francisco

Source: http://sf.curbed.com/2017/1/26/14401514/trump-hotels-wants-toeexpand-to-san-francisco
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City leaders guffawed after catching wind that Trump Hotels, one of the many private business entities conceived by our current Commander-in-Chief, wants to expand to San Francisco...

"You know on the same day that Donald Trump is on the national media on television talking about penalizing and taking money away from cities such as San Francisco — actually highlighting San Francisco — is the same day that his company comes out and says they want to build a hotel here? Good luck with that."

Quite fabulously, Supervisor Farrell goes on to note, “His hotels are incredibly ugly and gaudy. Why would we want that in the city of San Francisco?”

And seeing as how city projects are chronically killed due to the most benign of infractions (e.g., too colorful, too bold, too tall, too anything), Trump Hotels, no matter how tenuous a business connection to POTUS, would barely make it through our city’s impenetrable approval process...
Perhaps they should consider picking up were Palace Hotel left off with their tower proposal instead. Keep it known as the Palace Hotel Tower, since anything with Trump's name on it would likely not be welcomed in San Francisco.

If found another link to an related article here:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...san-francisco/
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  #8215  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 12:30 AM
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Nice shot of 6x6 on Market Street:

6x6 - Market Street, San Francisco
by Sergio Ruiz, on Flickr

http://6x6sf.com/

Anyone heard of potential tenants? Leased space?
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  #8216  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 3:28 AM
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Originally Posted by SFView View Post
Trump Hotels wants to expand to San Francisco

Source: http://sf.curbed.com/2017/1/26/14401514/trump-hotels-wants-toeexpand-to-san-francisco


Perhaps they should consider picking up were Palace Hotel left off with their tower proposal instead. Keep it known as the Palace Hotel Tower, since anything with Trump's name on it would likely not be welcomed in San Francisco.

If found another link to an related article here:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...san-francisco/
Or how about we don't allow trump to build anything in SF, whether his name is on it or not.
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  #8217  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 3:40 AM
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Or how about we don't allow trump to build anything in SF, whether his name is on it or not.
First of all, most "Trump" labelled properties just license his name and it's hard to figure why a hotel owner would consider the "Trump" brand worth paying for right now in a place like SF.

Second, it's quite possible--I would say even probable--that any Trump expansion to SF wouldn't involve new construction by the Trump organization but rather either renovation of an existing hotel (and rebranding) or a lease of space in an entitled project as Waldorf Astoria is doing in the Oceanwide Center. I don't see how the city could block either of those routes into the SF market (again, if anyone really sees "Trump" as a brand with value in our market).
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  #8218  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 3:48 AM
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Originally Posted by 1977 View Post
6x6 on Market Street

Anyone heard of potential tenants? Leased space?
All I've read is they have NO tenants which is very depressing considering I actually attended the Planning Commission hearings on this one and testified for it. But that was when Target was still looking for space and said to be interested in this project.

Their problem, of course, is they delayed too long and now every bricks/mortar retailer is in trouble and shrinking, not expanding. Just today the Wall Street Journal carried a story about H & M cutting way back on new stores they had planned.

I am afraid the problem is much bigger than 6 x 6 and we could see empty storefronts and retail space all over every big city in America.
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  #8219  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 3:55 AM
mt_climber13 mt_climber13 is offline
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^True that, I would say 80% of my purchases outside of groceries come from Amazon or Overstock. Sad reality that retail is shrinking but we go where the savings (and convenience) are. If the church next to Dolores Park can be renovated to residential use, I'm sure that they could do the same for this project and other retail spaces if there was a sudden huge glut of empty commercial space.
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  #8220  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2017, 4:25 AM
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...if anyone really sees "Trump" as a brand with value in our market).
...Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Trump’s Hotel Expansion Not Welcome In Cities That Voted Against Him
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b02772c4ea07d9

Quote:
...“Donald Trump and the Trump Organization do not share San Francisco values, and I don’t believe San Francisco will ever allow a Trump Hotel in our city,” Farrell added.

London Breed, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, didn’t mince words in a statement rejecting the notion of a Trump hotel in the city, “Maybe we can set him up with a nice room in Alcatraz.”

In Austin, the city’s human rights commission voted, 8 to 2, in support of a nonbinding resolution calling on city officials to boycott Trump hotels and products. Austin Mayor Steve Adler has joined in protests against the president’s executive order temporarily halting refugee resettlements and banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries.

In a statement to HuffPost about a possible Trump hotel expansion in Austin, Adler said, “This isn’t surprising because Austin is the best city in America to start a business, but I’m not sure the way we do things in Austin is aligned with the Trump brand.”

Seattle’s socialist City Council member, Kshama Sawant, told HuffPost that the movement fighting Trump has declared a “ban on Donald Trump and the odious billionaires he is associated with.”

“Not only do we not welcome a Trump hotel, we will have a mass movement of resistance and civil disobedience if there’s any suggestion Trump, himself or the billionaires on his Cabinet visit Seattle,” she added.

Elected officials in other cities where the Trump Organization is planning its expansion have denounced the president and vowed to protect their constituents from his actions while not sharing specific opinions about the Trump Organization’s business plans.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has denounced the “authoritarian message” coming from the Trump administration on immigration. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock told a local news station that the country is better “than what we are showing right now.” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings appeared before protesters at Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport to voice his displeasure with the president’s order that led to immigrants being detained at that airport and many others...

The most likely way that the Trump Organization will expand its hotel business is through licensing deals with other real estate developers. These deals would provide the Trump or Scion brand to other real estate developers who would in turn provide the capital and take on the debt to build and operate the hotel.

Trump’s unpopular standing in most cities where the company hopes to expand could create political problems for the developers they partner with. Many cities and municipalities offer preferential tax treatment through reduced hospitality taxes or tax-increment financing for new real estate developments. There are always other hotel companies and brands that won’t build a protest site in the middle of a city...
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