
The Problem with Solano County's Rail Plan - DoreenMichele
https://solanorail.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-problem-with-solano-countys-rail.html
======
CalChris
The Bay Area used to be dotted with military bases.

    
    
      Alameda NAS
      Concord Naval Weapons Station
      Fleet Industrial Supply Center Oakland
      Hamilton AFB
      Hunters Point
      Mare Island
      Moffett Field
      Oakland Army Base
      Oakland Naval Hospital
      Presidio
      Treasure Island
    

In fact Silicon Valley used to be defense industry before it was silicon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)

Losing Travis would cost jobs but CA would eventually recover. Vallejo is
finally recovering from Mare Island closing and losing that tax base. However,
we pay for those jobs which get shipped elsewhere with CA taxes. Also,
military jobs are less impacted by economic cycles and provide more stability
to the local economy. Solano should fight hard to keep Travis but the article
doesn't provide good news on that front.

~~~
joe_the_user
That misses the point that the problem is transit created as political
footballs. That basically results in grand plans that end-up worthless.

I used to live in Sonoma County. To fight congestion, they created the Smart
Train. But through a similar process, the train wound-up a seldom running,
expensive medium rail from nowhere to nowhere.

Maybe there's a reason to not put trains where people generally good but you'd
have to spell out what that is.

~~~
season2episode3
They made the mistake of trying to build that train through Marin. Good luck.
Marin's home to some of the most regressive local politics imaginable.

~~~
joe_the_user
The mistake of thinking they could go halfway through Marin and extend it
later.

And the mistake of having the train use a single track for half it's length
(once an hour service at most, any time of day).

------
Lammy
Remember to read "protecting the environment" as "protecting our segregation"
when anyone opposes constructing housing or transportation of any kind. From
the summary of the linked slides:

> "Recommendations: Halt work on sites for Benicia and Vacaville-Fairfield.
> Develop plans which better serve the majority of residents along the Capitol
> Corridor Route"

Now, I wonder what "the majority of residents" in Benicia might want? (or,
might not want?)

[https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-
franci...](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-francisco-
bay-area)

"Rio Vista and Benicia are the two most segregated, and heavily white cities
of Solano County."

~~~
AbrahamParangi
NIMBYism is just Conservatism bereft of any kind of principles or values.

~~~
FreakyT
You’re definitely correct that NIMBYism is a form of conservatism (in the
classic sense of the word), but what I find really interesting is how
effectively NIMBYism crosses party lines. I’ve noticed both very liberal and
very conservative people will both be anti-development, but their rationales
will change. The conservative will raise objections around things like
“neighborhood character” and “small businesses”, while liberals will raise
objections around “the environment” or “displacing disadvantaged communities”.
Either way, the resultant viewpoint is the same: everything is perfect the way
it is right now and nothing should ever change.

~~~
smnrchrds
In support of your point, Margaret Atwood (the author of The Handmaid's Tale)
is famously NIMBY [0].

[0] [https://globalnews.ca/news/3707723/margaret-atwood-condo-
con...](https://globalnews.ca/news/3707723/margaret-atwood-condo-controversy-
in-toronto/)

~~~
dmitriid
On the other hand the article calls "8-storey 16-unit building" a "modest
condo development". I'm not NIMBY, and I would be opposed to that.

~~~
CalRobert
OK, where should those people live instead?

~~~
michaelt
When you're a NIMBY, depending on your political persuasion they might say:

* I don't care, just not here

* One of the housing developments in other towns, which I don't oppose

* Working from home is the future, why do people need to move here anyway?

* Further out, served by improved public transport infrastructure.

* Homelessness is really more of a mental health services problem. So the real solution here is healthcare reform.

* The problem is billion-dollar corporations all centralising in one place for no good reason. We should spread the jobs out.

* Who says the population has to grow at all? Capitalism is the problem, the endless growth it demands isn't possible.

* The solution is a bay-area-wide master plan to deliver an integrated response, addressing our current and future needs for jobs, homes, schools, equality, desegregation, mass transit, homeless and mental health services, and a response to the climate crisis.

Needless to say, these are well beyond the power of someone building a few
condos. But the NIMBY's alternative is only to assuage their conscience, so
realism isn't important.

~~~
dmitriid
There's also a whole range of possibilities between "people don't have a place
to live" and "oh, let's build sixteen 8-storey buildings".

> these are well beyond the power of someone building a few condos.

They are probably within the power, but they really don't care. It's cheaper
and faster to build a few apartment blocks in a limited space (usually putting
a strain on existing infrastructure — from water and sewage to roads to
kindergartens and schools) than to invest in building out.

Unfortunately, as I see it in trends around the world, this is what's
happening in almost every country. Why create a "master plan to deliver an
integrated response" when you can plop down a few apartment buildings and be
don with it.

~~~
smnrchrds
> _They are probably within the power, but they really don 't care. It's
> cheaper and faster to build a few apartment blocks in a limited space
> (usually putting a strain on existing infrastructure — from water and sewage
> to roads to kindergartens and schools) than to invest in building out._

The reason we have gotten to this point is building out instead of up, sprawl
instead of vertical expansion. Surely the solution is not more sprawl.

~~~
dmitriid
There's definitely a sweet spot in between.

------
niftich
The traffic in the Greater Bay Area is so bad, the effect of chokepoints so
profound, and the geographic concentration of jobs is so strong, that the
Park-and-Ride model actually works there, and isn't just wishful thinking.
This means that the exact placement of stations in the exurbs is much less
relevant.

The viability of P+R makes the Benicia station worthwhile to pursue, despite
the challenging site. It's clear that transit-oriented development won't
happen there, but in terms of transportation geography, it's a chokepoint at
the Solano side of one of the few crossings of the Strait.

The newly-opened Travis station is as close to the base as they could've
cheaply made it, being completely greenfield and not clashing with any
existing land use. If the base really wanted to, they could arrange a traffic-
avoiding shuttle between the station and the base, through a new, dedicated
northwest gate. But it's worth remembering that any threat Travis makes about
encroachment is likely tough talk to keep the neighboring towns from getting
too clever, because Travis encroaches just as well on itself: half of the base
is housing, there's elementary schools...

I admire the author's passion: I'm the same way, poring over GIS and aerial
photos, reading draft plans, EIS documents, and public comments. But the
author perhaps overestimates the county's appetite for well-placed rail
stations next to which a higher density of construction becomes worthwhile.
Just look at the Suisun-Fairfield station, which is nearly as well-placed as
the one in Davis. If a midrange suburban hotel, a two-story office building,
some offramps, and some underutilized public space the most the two cities can
offer for this key gateway, what hope is there for a site where Vacaville's
sprawl gives way to farms on its eastern edge?

------
supernova87a
It's an admirable effort and I'm glad the author is concerned about such
issues -- we need such concerned citizens. I hope she applies her local
enthusiasm to wherever she is now.

I think the presentation could use some help though, for the idea to come
through clearly (I don't know enough locally to comment on the merits):

1) The webpage and title purport to tell the story about what should be done,
but it's filled with tangential information not relevant to the issue. It took
me about 3 casual readings to realize there were conclusions about the
alternative plan that should be pursued, written on the page. And I didn't
realize what this page was for, until I clicked the PPT link -- which is
relatively hidden amongst text despite it leading to the primary document of
substance.

2) The document itself (PPT -- unfortunate vertical format and page/text
layout I have to say) is also not clear about the disadvantages of the current
route, and advantages of the proposed route. Despite being so short, it
rambles. It really needs some summary bullet points and maybe a table for
someone to quickly grasp what the proposal is.

3) Visually, the map differences between the existing planned route and the
proposed alternative are not at all clear -- the maps look almost identical to
my quick glance at this scale. If some of the conclusions are that the
stations are poorly located, the point is to show some of the locations in
detail and the alternative location in clear comparison. It's almost without
point to enlarge the maps so much, yet not point out what is distinguishing
about the original versus the proposed route alternatives.

Overall, given that county/city authorities signed off on the project, and
that this reads as someone's interesting but casual idea, I can only (as a
uninformed observer citizen) assume that forces at play have made their
decision, and an effort like this, unless professionalized and given some real
attention, are probably too late (see other comments below on why).

But if there is opportunity to make change, I wish the author (or others
interested) good luck in going after it!

------
Felz
I live in Benicia and I think the alternate plan is slightly disingenuous in
removing Vallejo as a consideration for the Benicia stop. Much of Vallejo is
only 20 minutes away from the rail line.

------
three_seagrass
Tragedy of the commons in action

------
google234123
I'm not surprised to hear that bay area politicians would be happy to rid
themselves of something "unpleasant" like a military base. Also, I wish we
would give up all the grandiose and expensive plans for trains as a means of
public transportation in the US. This pandemic has just added another reason
why they are not viable here.

~~~
so33
Bus rapid transportation could be a better fit, given existing freeway
infrastructure. But good luck taking away two lanes of highway anywhere in the
United States (true right-of-way separation is necessary for any effective
_rapid _transit). A lot of other BRT ends up most of the time being express
buses with fancy stations/shelters that still cost a bunch of money.

Honestly I think that the way we plan cities in North America is broken to the
point where any transportation strategy is doomed to result in sprawl and
congestion. To use a train analogy, I’d say that city planning is the true
third-rail of American politics.

~~~
bobthepanda
The problem is that moonshots do not work for solving bread and butter
problems, and generally speaking you need to do lots of legwork before a metro
area is ready for such things. The poster child I like to use for this is San
Jose VTA, which has not a lot to show for its large light rail network despite
being the home to Silicon Valley, but similar stories can be told in most
major US metropolitan areas.

The odd one out in terms of public transportation in the last two decades is
Seattle. Seattle is now investing tens of billions of dollars to extend the
tentacles of its light rail throughout the region, eventually to 116 miles.
But before this has even been completed, the metro area is one of the only
non-NYC metros to have recorded consistently positive transit ridership growth
in total, and probably the only one that had an actual percentage growth in
mode share too, all with a rapidly expanding population.

This has mostly occurred via the normal, no-frills bus. The vast majority of
bus routes do not have lanes or traffic priority or separation, but the very
important thing is that frequency was massively increased; 70% of Seattle
households are a ten minute walk from very frequent transit in 2019, up from
25%. [1] It turns out that if bus services are actually convenient, and
driving is a pain in the ass, people will switch to transit to save themselves
the frustration of having to actually pay attention to maddening road
congestion. In addition land use in Seattle has long been focused on smart
growth, with growth being funneled into dense regional nodes and highway buses
being set up to link them on an hourly or half-hourly basis.

[1] [https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-
annual...](https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual-
report/)

