
New analysis of the impact of tech buses in San Francisco - robotcookies
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/10/tech-buses-are-not-to-blame-for-san-franciscos-housing-crisis/409141/?utm_source=SFFB
======
hoorayimhelping
The bus is a symptom of the problem: people don't want new people joining
their group. This isn't specific to San Francisco or even housing. Get rid of
the buses (which by their nature cut down on pollution and traffic congestion)
and people would find some other topical to complain about.

You see this all the time in New York. After living here a few years, I'm
pretty sure the only way to deal with this is to ignore it. People are going
to complain loudly about new people moving into their neighborhood. They can't
stop inevitable (people are going to continue to move to urban centers) any
more than I can.

The article hits it - it's easier to complain about the buses and tech
gentrification than it is to fix the actual problems - high rents brought upon
by the same anti-new-development, nimby attitudes trying to keep the tech
buses out.

~~~
pjlegato
The other issue this is a symptom of is the terrible public transportation in
San Francisco, where it takes an hour to go 4 or 5 miles and three hours to go
from the west part of San Francisco to Silicon Valley, plus being packed in
like sardines for the entire standing-room-only trip.

The cushy tech buses thus incite further outrage from those who are forced to
take public transport to work every day.

~~~
keithpeter
Is there any plan to improve the public transport? In a large city in the
Midlands UK we have new 'platinum' express buses with larger seats, wifi and
rather swish branding. Same price as standard if you have a travel pass but
more if you pay for an individual journey. Getting closer to the train service
slowly. Metro coming on line soon as well.

~~~
bradleyjg
A major problem is that there's no political unit of the correct size: San
Francisco is too small and California is too big.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A major problem is that there's no political unit of the correct size: San
> Francisco is too small and California is too big.

If only there was a political unit -- say, maybe, a "district" \-- of larger
geographical scope than San Francisco, but smaller than California, focused on
providing rapid transit for the San Francisco Bay Area...

~~~
pjlegato
The BART system you refer to was gutted. It met with heavy resistance from the
local governments in the Marin and Peninsula suburbs who feared it would
"alter the character" of their quaint semi-rural villages (which haven't been
that for a very long time.) They got away with it and effectively blocked most
of the planned system from ever being completed.

Original plan: [http://www.jakecoolidgecartography.com/regional-rapid-
transi...](http://www.jakecoolidgecartography.com/regional-rapid-transit-bay-
area.html)

------
tsunamifury
A lot of people are afraid, from every walk of life and demographic around the
Bay Area.

The poor and working class who are the lifeblood of the city are realistically
worried about being priced out if they don't own already. New tech workers are
completely unable to break in to even moderate land ownership to lock in cost-
of-living, and experience the same. And forget about our critical social
contributors like teachers, who are forced to depend on another income to fund
their work.

I know several Googlers fleeing the bay out of fear. It doesn't matter how
much money they have or don't have, they have come to the conclusion they
can't and don't want to fight an infinitely growing market that absorbs every
raise, bonus, or stock grant back into rent. Got a new RSU grant? Great, your
landlord just raised the rent by $20,000 over the year. Got a big bonus?
Sorry, that down payment now needs to be double what it was last year... try
again next year!

What I sense is fear everywhere, that is driving greed. A runaway market means
you can never have enough to overcome a future where you will be priced out.
This feedback loop drives land owners and workers into and endless cycle of
misery thats making the Bay a very undesirable place to live.

The tech buses are the most visible thing to blame, but ironically these are
liking making commutes slightly more tolerable than they would be without
them.

~~~
pjlegato
The large number of people from all walks of life who already own land in the
bay area aren't afraid. They think this is great.

------
thedevil
It might not be obvious right away, but San Francisco is really tolerant and
open minded. That picture looks like yet another hate rally targeting a
specific demographic, but it's really a welcoming party for new arrivals to
the city.

Edit: Yes, yes, I know I'll get some downvotes for this. But hate and
prejudice are disgusting, even when they are popular or politically correct.

~~~
khuey
San Francisco is nowhere near as tolerant and open minded as it claims to be.
It's still far better than almost everywhere else though.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's not hard to come up with other places that are vastly more tolerant of
newcomers.

Consider, for example, Houston. Houston issued permits to build 64,000 new
homes in 2014. SF issued permits for 3800, and California as a whole issued
83,000.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/hou...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/houston-
v-california.html)

[http://www.sf-
planning.org/ftp/files/publications_reports/20...](http://www.sf-
planning.org/ftp/files/publications_reports/2014_Housing_Inventory.pdf)

In fact, Texas issued more new housing permits than CA, NY, NJ and MA
combined.

[http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/txt/tb2u2014.txt](http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/txt/tb2u2014.txt)

Or did you just mean abstract tolerance of certain socially approved groups as
opposed to the real humans who want to move in?

------
Zach_the_Lizard
We should just adopt the Japanese zoning system and tell NIMBYs to pound sand.
Housing is a matter of regional and national impact and we shouldn't allow
small, well-organized groups to freeze housing in our most productive regions.

~~~
ionforce
What is the Japanese zoning system?

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
To quickly summarize, zoning is of course what you can or can't build on a
given space. In the US, this is almost exclusively controlled at the local
level. In Japan, it's mostly at the national level.

In the US, the zoning process isn't simple. We can have hundreds of different
zones that attempt to micromanage even what kind of stores go on which block.
In most of America we have exclusionary zoning: only this kind of thing can go
here, everything else is disallowed.

In addition to zoning, we have lots of other planning rules. How far a house
is set back from the street, minimum acreage, maximum height, parking
requirements, floor area ratio (FAR).

The net effect is that much of America is unwalkable. Your closest grocery
store, gym, office, etc. is in another zone. Your house has to sit on at least
half an acre, so that would mean longer walking distances and a smaller
customer base. Buildings can't front the sidewalk due to setbacks.

You have to navigate a sea of parking because the urban planners said that
your store must build enough parking to handle Black Friday, even though most
of it is unused every other day of the year. Oh, and it _must_ be free.

When you build, you must navigate all of these complicated rules. Because it's
all at the local level, your neighbors are empowered to protest and stop the
process, because your neighborhood council has the power to stop it for
arbitrary reasons, mostly codewords to keep "others" out.

All of these things have an environmental and economic cost.

In Japan, it's much simpler. There are way fewer zones to choose from. Most
zones that include anything other than residential only will include all uses
considered to be lesser nuisances in addition to whatever new uses it allows.
For instance, a commercial zone also allows residential. A light industrial
zone allows commercial and residential activity. Some zones, like heavy
industry, only allow that single use. This is due to fire and safety needs.

Japan also has FAR limits, setbacks, etc., but most of these are based on
something rational: shadows. The idea is that, without special exemption,
casting shadows on neighboring properties is bad and heights, setbacks, etc.
are all based on this. Japan as far as I know doesn't push things like parking
minimums, so builders build however much parking they think they'll need.

The net effect is that much of Japan is denser than America. There are way
less tall buildings than you'd imagine, but it's uniformly medium density
until you get out into the countryside.

A lot of errands can be accomplished with a quick walk or bike ride. Because
of the density, public transit can actually be run at a profit by private
companies, who make money on real estate as well as transportation. That is,
incidentally, the reason why systems like the New York subway were built: to
make money, especially via real estate.

While Japanese megacities like Tokyo are expensive, they are actually fairly
affordable as compared to other megacities like London or New York. The ratio
between median income and housing price means that it's possible for your
median household to get something. Japan builds a _ton_ of housing, way more
than NYC does.

What's great is that if you're priced out of Tokyo, most Japanese cities are
going to be fairly walkable given the good planning, so there isn't the "I
must live in New York to live in a city" issue we have in America where places
like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, DC, etc. all have huge demand because
they are the few walkable cities.

The negative to the Japanese system is lack of local control over most things.
Japanese localities have some levers, but mostly the national government
controls everything. Lots of Japanese buildings are IMO ugly, but there is
some architectural experimentation that would be difficult to do in America.
For instance, this (close) restaurant: [http://okinawahai.com/naha-harbor-
diner-aka-the-treehouse-re...](http://okinawahai.com/naha-harbor-diner-aka-
the-treehouse-restaurant/)

Imagine that restaurant in downtown $AMERICAN_CITY.

------
sitkack
Was the protest ever _specifically_ about buses or the influx of tech workers
with the ability to push up rental prices? Protesting infront of the bus is
the most visible expression of that frustration, but it doesn't mean that
people attribute the bus itself as the problem.

~~~
resonanttoe
Not so much, but the long bow they drew relied pretty heavily on the existence
of the buses. The buses were a centralised point in SF that had all the Tech
companies and tech workers so they could make a showing. Otherwise you've just
got a lot of people who are fairly indescript. (then it looks really racist
and anti-immigration when you're protesting foreign people).

There was a part of me that really hoped the buses stopped just because the
problem wouldn't. Then everyone who's up their own arses about SF's
progressiveness would actually be in the position of Shut the fuck up or
protest immigrants and look like racist douchebags.

Mind you, also the latter isn't strictly true either. SF does have a housing
problem, but when one of your major cities won't build over two stories high
and have high density housing, well... no shit right?

~~~
sitkack
The building restriction is ridiculous. I don't know enough about the players
and their motivations, but could it be that landlords don't want to lose that
4200$ median rent? Has this been put up to referendum?

~~~
resonanttoe
I don't know much about it as well to be honest other than bits I've seen and
I opted for avoiding the area pretty soon after.

If it is, its ultimately self-limiting. Other cities around the world have
happily embraced urban density and its done wonders for all concerned. Nice
new affordable housing. Landlords make more in quantity not necessarily
margin. Commercial ventures have more customers and employees.

SF is really weird to me and I can't quite grasp the motivations for not
densifying in a meaningful way other than a rather simplistic "Keep the charm"
kind of motif. That seems to trivial as an explanation to me, but other
stories always invoke long circuitous logic that boarders wayyy to heavily on
the Immigrants=bad speak without actually invoking it for my tastes.

------
jkot
I find this whole thing quite funny. One of the 'best cities' is missing basic
infrastructure such as public transport, bike lines or high rise buildings.
But there is a debate if buses are privileged or not.

------
JustSomeNobody
Why don't we just move everyone out of SF and close it. If you're going to
fight over it, we'll just take it away.

~~~
samstave
> __ _But moooom! The poor started it!_ __

We should have an open competition for ideas to fix the disconnect between all
public transport;

Bart and Caltrain don't connect and don't schedule together.

Amtrak and Bart and Caltrain don't connect.

Muni and Bart connect physically but their schedules suck (muni schedules 6
consecutive inbound trains to all dump off and go off line at the same time in
the peak of rush hour backing up people in the station)

Tickets between Bart and muni have no discount, so you may take muni for five
minutes and lose your "85 remaining minutes of paid travel time"

Bike support on all systems is abhorrent - even on Caltrain the bike cars
often fill up completely leaving many bikers awaiting another train, even
though there is technically space on the full ones.

Bart has many stretches of track where they can only drive and very slow
speeds, as does Caltrain, muni as well...

All agencies operate in a seemingly uncooperative manner, both with each other
and their riders. (Bart employees are some of the rudest, least connected
people I've encountered. Telling the Bart station agent about sanitary issues
I. The elevator and escalators replies with "it's not my job")

The list goes on and on

~~~
dragonwriter
> Bart and Caltrain don't connect and don't schedule together.

Not sure about scheduling, but BART and Caltrain they connect at the Millbrae
Transit Center.

> Amtrak and Bart and Caltrain don't connect.

As noted above, BART and Caltrain do connect. Amtrak and BART connect at the
Richmond and Oakland Coliseum stations. Amtrak and Caltrain connect at San
Jose Diridon Station (which is planned to also get BART service with the
Silicon Valley BART extension.)

BART, Caltrain, Muni, and eventually California High Speed Rail -- among other
transit systems -- are all planned to connect at the new Transbay Transit
Center in SF, as well.

> Tickets between Bart and muni have no discount

Untrue; BART to Muni transfers have a discount (or, in some cases, are free):
[https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/muni/fares.do](https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/muni/fares.do)

~~~
samstave
I dont find those connections to be practical. Further they are scheduled very
poorly.

If you take Bart to Millbrea, the logistics of getting from Bart to the train
can at times be difficult to make. The scheduling is that Bart will arrive
either two minutes too late - or twenty minutes early... Then, you even run
the risk of the bike car being full if you're attempting to get the <9AM
train...

Overall, to get to Mountainview by 10AM from Alameda on public transport I'd
have to leave my house at 6:30AM

So - while achievable - the experience is piss-poor.

Ill have to look at the transfer discounts - as I had not noticed them ever
hitting my card as I have to take Munit to bart, then bart to work...

------
coldcode
As long as everyone wants to build tech businesses only in the SF area, you
are going to have problems with too many people and not enough
(desirable/affordable) places to live. I lived there 20 years ago for a year
and never wanted to go back, even less now. Thankfully I am moving to a city
with lots of room and very pleasant choices for places to live. No latter how
denimbyed you want to make SF, there isn't enough land to deal with even more
people.

~~~
kzhahou
Where are you moving to?

------
pmiller2
I tend to doubt their methodology of surveying people who are _already_ riding
the buses. I think many of those who claim they would drive or take public
transportation would pretty quickly realize that both options pretty much suck
for getting from SF to Menlo Park, Cupertino, or Mountain View. I'd guess that
"live closer to work" would be the dominant option once people were exposed to
the reality of their choices.

~~~
khuey
There's also option 3: Google further expands its presence in San Francisco
until everyone who lives in the city can work there too.

------
DannoHung
Did they do an analysis of the tech buses in comparison to actually creating
new municipal transportation open to all residents? That's what always seemed
to be the real problem with them to me.

~~~
thrownaway2424
What do you envision such an agency would look like? "Tech buses" is a thing
that hauls thousands of people from all over six counties to a small area. The
only thing similar in scope is BART, and we already have BART, and it's not
that good.

What we need is a S-Bahn-like service running up both sides of the Bay from
San Jose to San Francisco and Richmond. The tracks are already there, we just
suck at trains. An electrified two-track mainline railroad operating on
5-to-10-minute headways with bi-level cars would completely solve our traffic
problems, and bring the Bay Area up to the standards of minor second-tier
European cities.

~~~
samstave
Is there any way any private access to said tracks could be had?

What about designing rail cars based on Teslas open patents for small, semi-
autonomous electric rail cars that operate on a very tight automated schedule
along a public track.

~~~
thrownaway2424
See, that right there is the problem with Americans. There is NO NEED for some
new kind of rail car. Ordinary bi-level passenger trains with 6 cars carry
~2500 people and can run on 2.5-minute headways (1000 people per minute).

~~~
samstave
Well, to be fair the carrying capacity of Caltrain is immense, but they are
slow as hell, poor coverage area and if you want to commute from the east bay
simply to mountain view via Caltrain its three hours one way!!!

So while technically you may be correct, they way they have been implemented
here in the Bay Area, is, in my opinion, an utter failure.

What's worse, is we knew they were a failure from an efficiency standpoint
twenty years ago.

So either we join all the agencies together and fire any schedulers they have
and start from scratch. Or we find some way to do what these agencies can't.

------
morgante
Only in San Francisco do you get liberals who are virulently anti-immigrant
and anti-busses.

~~~
astazangasta
Are you using 'immigrant' to describe privileged tech workers who move to the
city? This seems a strange misappropriation of the word.

~~~
morgante
Nothing about the term "immigrant" reserves it to the poor. In what way are
people who move into San Francisco from elsewhere in the world not immigrants?

I've long wanted to do a quiz on identifying whether phrases are from San
Francisco liberals or Donald Trump.

~~~
gozo
> Nothing about the term "immigrant" reserves it to the poor

No, but it is generally reserved for people whom have permanently settled in
another country. That doesn't include H1B (non-immigration) workers that could
be thrown out if fired.

~~~
morgante
Nowhere near the majority of SV tech workers are on an H1B visa.

~~~
gozo
Other popular visas aren't immigration visas either. Your point doesn't hold
since by large peoples attitudes doesn't differ between immigrants and
temporary workers, if people are from outside or inside the country nor relate
to immigrants that settle outside the bay area. They are maybe
protectionistic, anti-urbanization or anti-development but not anti-immigrant
per se.

