
A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M - el_benhameen
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/business/economy/san-francisco-commute.html
======
ucaetano
San Francisco has more than twice the area of Manhattan, with half the
population.

The San Francisco Bay Area CSA has about the same population as Switzerland,
with 2/3 of the area of Switzerland.

Both have similar GDPs.

If someone wanted to live in Germany, and commute to work in Zurich, with
Swiss salaries and German cost-of-living, their commute would be about
1h15min.

The housing and infrastructure problems in the SFBA are purely political, and
self-inflicted.

~~~
lex_luthor
True.

But a non-political solution to affordable housing could be coming soon in the
form of rapid transit via Hyperloop. Hyperloop could put deflationary pressure
on housing prices.

If Hyperloop actually materializes, and their route transit times are anywhere
near what they say they will be, then real estate prices should decline in the
bay area, or at the worst level out.

I doubt people will continue to pay crazy prices in SF when you can commute
from almost anywhere on the west coast to SF within an hour on Hyperloop.

[http://hyperloop-one.com/routes/](http://hyperloop-one.com/routes/)

~~~
nerdshoe
The Elon Musk Reality Distortion Field is proving to be as effective as the
one surrounding Steve Jobs (praise be unto him.)

~~~
yahna
I wonder how much he spends on PR and other upkeep.

------
nxsynonym
While the rising cost of housing is an easy target, why not put the pressure
on the companies that are driving the influx of workers and out of control
cost of living?

If tech companies are drawing people into cities and forcing out those who
keep the city itself operating, why not have them subsidize and improve public
transportation? Lower income housing? Encourage more remote work or move their
headquarters out of the city centers? It seems crazy to me that people get
driven out of their homes by real estate developers who re-develop due to
tech-wages.

This example is a bit on the fringe, but it does illustrate the daily struggle
of many normal people. 2+ hour commute is insane. And before someone comes in
with the "why doesn't she get a new job closer to home?", you know it's not
that easy - not to mention unfair to suggest that someone should change their
entire life because their profession isn't flavor of the month.

~~~
andrewjl
This isn't an issue of tech companies forcing anyone out. Bay area
municipalities and NIMBY property owners have created a hostile regulatory
environment for property developers, leading to a lack of new housing coming
onto the market and driving rents upward.

~~~
curun1r
Keep going up the chain of causality. Property Owners are so NIMBY because
there's an economic incentive to behave that way. This is only the case
because Prop 13 caps their property taxes. If California had property taxes
that, like other states, could increase as the assessed value of your home
increases, the incentive to oppose new building would be significantly
lessened and it would then be in everyone's best interest to keep housing
costs low, not just those who rent or are looking to buy.

Prop 13 is immoral and has not only wreaked havoc on real estate market in the
state but has also gutted the state's public education system. It needs to be
repealed before any progress on these housing issues can be made. There can be
provisions to ensure that people don't lose their homes to rising property
taxes...Texas, IIRC, has one that allows property taxes to accrue and only
need to be paid when the title of the property changes hands, which seems like
a good compromise. But the state's population is going to go up which means
we're going to need to build a lot more housing, and our laws need to create
an environment where that can happen.

~~~
emodendroket
> If California had property taxes that, like other states, could increase as
> the assessed value of your home increases, the incentive to oppose new
> building would be significantly lessened and it would then be in everyone's
> best interest to keep housing costs low, not just those who rent or are
> looking to buy.

That might make rational sense but it is not how homeowners actually behave.

~~~
bb611
I'v seen this extensively in multiple upper-middle income communities on the
east coast. Houses that have tripled in relative value force their now retired
owners to sell because they can't afford the higher property tax. Developers
can buy above market because they demo the house and put down 2 houses that
each sell for 75% the original home's value.

This scales for quite a long time, and is generally how suburbia transforms
into, well, east San Jose.

It's not that homeowners make rational choices as a result, it's that over
time they are pushed out and the rational choice is made by the larger market.

~~~
emodendroket
It seems like if you're retired and having trouble with property tax a reverse
mortgage would be pretty attractive.

------
jakelarkin
Reporters keep trying to find profiles of the housing crisis but this seems
disingenuous. A lot of what this woman is doing is a choice; waking up hours
before the train, huge house in Stockton vs condo/apartment closer. She makes
$80k/year meaning post-tax $4600/month. She could easily afford a nice 1 or 2
bedroom in Pittsburg or Pleasanton for ~$2k a month, and her door-to-door
commute would be well under 80 minutes.

~~~
kevinburke
That's $12000 extra on rent per year, which is a lot to someone making $80k a
year.

~~~
QML
Take the time to commute (8hrs) into consideration. Is that extra $12000 worth
it?

~~~
sageabilly
In the article she can work from home some days a week (I know for feds in DC,
it's mandatory 5 days out of 10, so maybe at least that many for her) _and_
she has a government job which (for many in the non-tech, non-startup world)
is the Holy Grail of jobs- incredibly stable, great benefits, pension, etc.
She's 61, so in her mind the trade-off might be worth it if she plans on
retiring at 65 (and perhaps even earlier if she's got a ton of time in her PTO
bank). Coming at the angle of a young tech person raising a family, the trade-
off might not be worth it, but for an older person with retirement coming
soon, the priorities are different.

~~~
madcaptenor
People are _required_ to work from home 5 days out of 10? I'm for encouraging
working from home, but that policy assumes that everyone can spare the space
in their home to have some sort of home office. (And since it's not a fully
remote job, you still have to live near DC.)

~~~
OrwellianChild
Mandatory minimum _allowed_ remote-work days. It's a quality-of-life measure
for the employees - not some way to save money/office space on the employer's
part.

~~~
madcaptenor
Thanks for the clarification.

------
__sha3d2
I was going to come in here and talk about how this strikes me more as a
personal choice than a symptom of a systemic problem (i lived well in SF on
$60k, and I mean for fucks sake Stockton? that is aggressively far. There are
many great closer options.), but who cares.

This woman seems to have a really peaceful existence. It would be nice to have
such relaxing routines in my own life, especially in the face of stressful
realities like a long commute on public transit. It makes me want to develop
the fortitude that this woman exercises every single day.

~~~
Phanyxx
^Agreed, and agreed.

------
edward
I think these articles about extreme commutes are interesting. I recommend you
read what Mr. Money Mustache has to say on the subject.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-
of-c...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-
commuting/)

~~~
ghaff
Eh. It's reasonable to point out that even a < 1 hr. car commute can be a
bigger money leak than a lot of people appreciate. And I also believe that
anyone commuting 2 hours each way daily needs to give serious thought to
alternatives; it doesn't seem sustainable.

That said, selling and buying houses (or changing jobs) on an ongoing basis so
you're right next to your job doesn't seem like a great strategy either. And
likely not a plausible one, at least outside of a city, if you have a partner
who also goes into an office.

~~~
KekDemaga
When choosing between jobs I try to calculate the true hourly wage I'd
receive. I include transportation costs, travel time, expected unpaid overtime
etc and pick not the highest salary but the highest hourly rate all things
considered.

~~~
overcast
Do you calculate life lost as well? I'm being serious. There is a MASSIVE
difference between a five minute commute, and an hour commute when you add it
up over a lifetime. That's a stupid amount of your life wasted doing nothing.

~~~
KekDemaga
I do, a job with an hour one way commute will have ten hours weekly of
additional work time as opposed to 50 minutes for the 5 minute example. Thus
if salaried at the same rate the 5 minute commute is the better deal (and
that's before calculation of travel costs)

~~~
overcast
I was referring to literal life time lost. If you're salaried better with a 3
hour commute, it's still not worth it in my opinion. There is a definite
maximum commute time, no matter the price.

------
jdavis703
One way to make this better is to support the plan to inline the Capitol
Corridor and ACE trains with Caltrain via the unused and abandoned Dumbarton
rail bridge [0]. Make sure to tell your elected officials you support this.

[0]: [http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-
stud...](http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-study-needs-
review-august-meetings/)

~~~
melling
I wonder what they're doing in other parts of the world where the population
is much larger?

[http://www.metro-report.com/news/single-view/view/beijing-
ma...](http://www.metro-report.com/news/single-view/view/beijing-maglev-
carries-passengers.html)

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-08/15/content_306...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-08/15/content_30620747.htm)

~~~
komali2
Well, for one thing, Beijing is miles and miles of 20+story apartment
highrises. I don't know why San Francisco is so resistant to that, seems
inevitable to me.

------
bartart
It appears that when local cities have control over housing, they make
decisions that are good for them, but bad for the state that needs higher
paying jobs that generate tax revenue. Plus low density housing is bad for the
environment when compared to high density:
[http://news.colgate.edu/scene/2014/11/urban-
legends.html](http://news.colgate.edu/scene/2014/11/urban-legends.html)

Other places would move heaven and earth to have a place like Silicon Valley
and it seems like California is shooting itself in the foot with this self
inflicted housing shortage.

~~~
twobyfour
Thank you for the article link!

------
santaclaus
If a municipality decides to open 100 seats of office space, they should be
required to zone and approve 100 beds for said workers to sleep in. Otherwise
you have the situation where towns like Brisbane can build office complexes
for the tax revenue and entirely pass the buck to their neighbors for the cost
of housing the new workers.

~~~
jakelarkin
This is a major major part of problem and one of the simpler legislative
solutions. The extreme example is Cupertino and Palo Alto which have approved
10000s of office desks but resist building any meaningful housing whatsoever.
Peninsula towns also need incentives/mandates to upzone around Caltrain. SF
also does a huge desks to beds imbalance in approvals.

------
peterjlee
>Ms. James pays $1,000 a month in rent for her three-bedroom house, compared
with $1,600 for the one-bedroom apartment she had in Alameda.

She was forced out of her original apartment but unless she had a new
situation that required her to have more bedrooms with a lower budget, some
part of this extremity was her choice. I think NYT should've chosen a better
example if the point they were trying to get across is "tech boom forcing
workers out".

~~~
Sodman
This really stood out for me too. Her commute is awful, but it seems more like
a conscious compromise that she herself opted for (Larger house, cheaper
budget, longer commute), given her work situation (able to work from home) and
personal lifestyle choices (likes to take her time, takes the stairs at the
station, gets off the train a stop early to have a leisurely walk on her
commute).

Maybe it was the style of writing in the article, but it didn't give me the
impression that Ms. James is unhappy with her choice to move.

------
turtlebits
A little misleading as she needs to catch the train at 4am. Still, an almost 3
hour commute is brutal.

~~~
rhizome
Misleading? Do you not include layovers in the time it takes to travel
somewhere? Most people do.

~~~
sp332
_But she likes to take her time and have coffee. She keeps the lights low and
the house quiet and Zen-like. “I just can’t rush like that,” she said.

When the second alarm goes off at 3:45 — a reminder to leave for the train in
15 minutes — her morning shifts from leisure to precision._

She could get up somewhat later to catch her train.

~~~
rhizome
Right. That's addressed later in the article.

~~~
mmanfrin
Hence the title being misleading.

------
ChuckMcM
This is a pretty amazing example. It raises more questions than it answers
however. The big one is "Why continue working in SF with this horrible
commute?"

Market dynamics suggest that in a 'free' market, on an individual basis, a
person seeks to maximize their value received. So in this case, if this was an
open market, the (commute + $81K/year) > any other option that she might
choose.

So what are we missing that there isn't at least an equal paying job available
in the Central Valley that would cut her commute by 80 - 90% ? I can imagine
lots of things that might contribute like pension eligibility, or
specialization. But "Public Health Advisor for DHHS" seems to be a position
that is available in many cities in the state. I would have liked to read what
about _this_ job in _this_ city was so important.

And all of that is to the meta question of salary growth has been flat for a
long time, but for a long time people felt they had to keep their job at all
costs. A what point does the advantage change? 3% unemployment? 2%? What needs
to happen so that people are confident enough to say "pay me more or I'll work
somewhere else." ?

As a result of the stuff I wonder about, I feel like there might a tremendous
amount of tension in the economy that isn't as visible as one might hope. And
I wonder what happens when it snaps. Do we get the 10 - 15% stag-flation of
the 70s?

~~~
tmpdude01
I immediately searched for the word "pension" in the comments, and your
comment was the only one to have it. She's 62 years old, and commuting to this
job so that she can maximize her pension.

[https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/employers/benefit-
programs/r...](https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/employers/benefit-
programs/retirement-benefits)

~~~
cbcoutinho
Getting through tough times is much easier with an end in sight and incentives
to keep going. This is truly the right answer

------
deckar01
I paid about 30% of my salary in 2014 for a SRO [0] in San Francisco with a 10
minute commute. I decided that the quality of living was not worth the
potential future earnings for staying in the bay area. In Tulsa I pay about
14% of my salary to rent a large apartment with a 4 minute commute.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy)

~~~
olegkikin
But you make a lot less in the absolute terms. So you save less, you can
afford less of cool stuff. Most people in the world want to move in the
opposite direction.

~~~
BeetleB
Both ways of looking at it are problematic.

The way you should look at it: Take your savings. If you suddenly could get no
income, no welfare, etc: How many months/years can you maintain your current
standard of living before you run out of money?

Being paid more in absolute, and even saving more in absolute, doesn't
guarantee a longer time till you go broke. It's the ratio of your savings to
the monthly cost of living.

I could move to the Bay area and get paid enough to save, say, $5K more per
year than I do now, I'm still in worse shape because of the COL. Effectively,
even though I'm saving more in absolute terms, I'll not be able to retire as
early as I can now.

------
ghomrassen
What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing?
Doesn't that solve many issues with housing supply? Looking at wikipedia, the
density is crazy low even compared to other major cities in the US.

~~~
santaclaus
> What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing?

Entrenched residents who oppose new construction, primarily. Look at the
recent kerfuffles involving residents opposing the replacement of parking lots
with housing.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Lack of infrastructure as well. Despite the low density, it is pain to get
around SF and bay area generally unless you are luck enough to have a trip
that starts or ends near one of the few rail lines. Double the density, and
getting around would go from bad to worse.

~~~
panic
That's not necessarily true. More density could allow people to live closer to
work and reduce the amount of traffic.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Even in dense cities (Manhattan), most people don't live walking distance to
work. But they have a great public transportation system, so it works. The Bay
Area has a terrible public transit system, and if you add density without
improving it will get a lot harder to get around.

Also, the big tech jobs centers (apple/facebook/Google) are in the south bay,
and many of their employees (especially those without kids) choose to live in
San Francisco because it is a much more interesting vibrant interesting place
than Mountain View, Menlo Park, or Cupertino. Someone living in Noe Valley and
working at Apple could already live closer to work, for much less, if that's
what they wanted.

So adding high density housing will allow some people to live closer, and some
to live farther, but it will add incrementally more traffic. That's fine, but
let's at least address the infrastructure in tandem, if not first.

------
owenversteeg
Why isn't there a good, inexpensive bus? You can fit almost one hundred
passengers on a single bus. Buses are pretty fuel-efficient per passenger,
easy to reroute if you have more/less demand, and you can go directly to where
you need to go. They scale very well - if there are only 20 people or so you
can send a small bus, if there are thousands you can send multiple large
buses.

Sure, traffic can be an issue, but I'd imagine train delays are roughly as big
of a problem.

In this case, it looks like her 3hr 20min commute could become 1hr 30min with
a bus that goes from Stockton.

Why has nobody done this?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Why has nobody done this?

You're vastly underestimating how bad rush hour traffic is. Also, the longer
the bus is on the road the more likely it will be to be in it. Then you run
into the same problem where you're getting a 5am bus for a 9am job even though
it's only a 1hr drive on paper

------
PopsiclePete
So why do we keep commuting for jobs that don't really _require_ our physical
presence?

It was a long hard battle for me to be able to work from home, and yes, I
sometimes do miss out on face-to-face interaction, but going to the office 2
instead of 5 days a week is still a huge win - I'm not in a car out there,
making traffic worse for _you_. You're welcome.

Can we please solve the supposed "interaction" problem with some nice digital
pens and white-boards and web cams and just .... work from anywhere?

~~~
xeromal
I hate working from home. I'm a social being.

~~~
PopsiclePete
Me too - which is why I still go to the office - just not 5 days a week. If we
could stagger people's schedules somehow - you go on Monday, I go on Tuesday -
and do that on a massive scale - it should help traffic congestion quite a
bit.

Or we could actually build some nice mass transit in this country. But now I'm
just talking crazy.

------
Grustaf
As the article says, she could sleep 90 minutes longer. And if she drove to
work, she does have a car, she could easily leave at five.

She could also get a 3200 dollar apartment where she used to live, have at
least two rooms, sleep late and still have 3550 left every month.

Maybe medical insurance and such things that we europeans don't need to buy
are very expensive, but apart from that it doesn't seem very difficult to live
on 3500 after rent for a single person. My whole family spends less than that
after rent, four people in one of the most expensive cities in the world,
Copenhagen.

I must be missing part of the equation here.

~~~
got2surf
Take-home salary after taxes could be a lot less than $6,750 per month. Health
insurance is probably reasonably priced given that she seems to have a
government job.

But I do see your point - she could (and many do) live closer, pay more, and
sleep more.

~~~
Grustaf
Good point about the tax, American salaries are quoted pre tax of course! I've
spendt the whole afternoon with my nose in P&Ls, where the quoted salary is
pretty much what is interesting.

In any case, I feel the headline is pretty sensationalistic, even if she wants
to live where she lives, she could probably get up at 5 and drive to work.

------
ProfessorLayton
I don't dispute that Bay Area housing is very expensive, and there are plenty
of issue it needs to address, but this person seems so have made a personal
choice to have that commute, which I commend if thats the lifestyle she wants.

Perhaps her personal circumstances didn't allow for it (Or she chose not to,
which is fine too), but a home can be purchased for as little as 3.5% down
(FHA) + closing costs. For someone with an 81K salary, their borrowing limit
is around ~460k (@43% FHA DTI Limit [1]), and in 2014 (When the person in the
article was evicted) there were plenty of homes in that price range in the
East Bay. That DTI won't be easy, but neither is a 6-8hr daily commute.

In fact, there are homes/condos _right now_ [2] still in that price range. The
crisis is for those making the _median household income_ of say, 52.9K in
Oakland, _thats_ the income where one is basically shut out of the housing
market.

[1]
[https://www.fha.com/fha_requirements_debt](https://www.fha.com/fha_requirements_debt)
[2]
[https://www.redfin.com/city/13654/CA/Oakland/filter/property...](https://www.redfin.com/city/13654/CA/Oakland/filter/property-
type=house+condo+townhouse,min-price=100k,max-
price=400k,viewport=37.93869:37.57279:-121.89166:-122.579,no-outline)

------
sodapopcan
It's odd this article doesn't mention what time she goes to bed or how much
sleep she gets. I found that was all I wanted to know first reading the
headline to the end of the article. It mentions people sleep on the train but
never really confirms if she does (the one photo of her in the train she is
looking at her phone so I assume not).

------
WalterSear
I feel bad for her, but if she's taking an hour and a half to leave the house
in the morning, she's >choosing< to get up at 2am.

~~~
b4ux1t3
Is wanting to be fully alert before leaving the house so strange?

~~~
sluggg
yes. Particularly when you are driving to sit on a bus, then on a train where
you don't have to be alert at all.

------
kamaal
Just playing the devils advocate by posting some themes discussed on the
article's comment section.

\- She apparently can't relocate as she makes $81K as a federal employee. Most
commenters seem to point out they make far less for equally brutal commute,
and don't even complain.

\- She also works from home every now and then. Something which most other
people like Chefs, Janitors, Barbers who are paid way less, don't even have an
option to do by very occupational design.

\- She qualifies for pension after some time. There fore it's not too much to
expect somebody to make a little sacrifice for a few decades worth of getting
paid without doing anything at all.

\- Most other commenters seem to point out that they would love to have a job
which pays $81K, with benefits and a pension even at that commute time.
Therefore this is not a problem, this is actually an opportunity.

Most comments seem to have a _' Cry me a river'_ kind of a sentiment.

------
overcast
Makes me appreciate what I have in Rochester. 5 minute commute if I don't hit
the lights correctly. Drive home for lunch in silence, take a nap. Cost of
living where I have more money than I know what to do with. The grind a lot of
you put up with chasing money, is paid for with your life, literally.

------
djhworld
My commute is 55 - 65 minutes each way, and 70% of that is spent underground.

That's more than enough for me, don't think I could stomach any longer than
that!

------
yardie
AS I've gotten older and more experienced I realized my commuting circle has
shrunken. When I was dumb and young I was willing to commute 3 counties for
work. Gas was cheap and apparently my time (1 hr each way) was cheaper. If
it's not close by (<30 min) and I can't telecommute than I don't really care
for it. I live in the city so there are plenty of other opportunities.

------
rbcgerard
1\. I wonder what her commuting cost are + having to have a car is a month?

2\. Stockton has a median income of $45k vs $81k in SF [factfinder.census.gov]
- so in SF she is right in the middle, in Stockton she is at twice the median
income (for households) is it really surprising to anyone that she can get
more for her housing $ in Stockton?

------
sluggg
We should seriously consider following Norways example of moving government
buildings to the suburbs.

------
greyfox
this woman needs a car drive it as far into the city as possible then park it
and use transit

~~~
komali2
And sit in traffic for an hour instead of relax on a train for 2? Ew.

What this lady needs is a sweet GSXR-1000 to split all the way to paradise. I
don't know why more people don't take advantage of the fact that lane
splitting is legal here, it's a fantastic way to cut commute time in half.
Plus you get free or super cheap parking pretty much wherever you want.

~~~
DesiLurker
My dear, Bikes aren't cheap if you factor in the funeral costs!

Seriously though, the amount of additional risk of life/limb/etc you'd be
taking by biking to work isnt worth saving an extra hour given the raised
attentiveness you have to be on throughout the commute.

What we all really need is cheap selfdriving vanpool networks that dynamically
optimizes routes based on traffic flows. or better yet hub-to-hub VTOL human
transport drones. In all honesty I think we'll see those before we'll see
legislative action helping the housing crisis.

------
mikejholly
As a 5-year-long remote worker this seems archaic and cruel.

------
maxxxxx
With self driving cars I see this happening even more.

~~~
gozur88
Yes, but with a self-driving car you'll be able to sleep during your commute.

~~~
slackfan
I have slept and have seen plenty of other people sleep on trains all the
time.

Doesn't really change anything.

~~~
christoph
Tokyo is particularly well known for it.

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/03/09/our-
lives/...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/03/09/our-
lives/sleeping-on-the-train-a-rite-of-passage-into-japanese-society/)

------
sidcool
I travel 1 hour one way and find it brutal. Can't begin to imagine what this
person must be going through.

~~~
b4ux1t3
My dad has been doing an hour and a half (each way) commute for the better
part of the last decade.

I ended up doing the same commute when I started a new job last week. I'm
already dying to move into my new apartment. I don't know how these people do
it.

And to be clear, the hour+ commute wouldn't be so bad if it were just driving.
But stop-and-go traffic does not a relaxing drive make.

------
ktRolster
This is what happens when you let office space be built without building extra
housing.

------
jdalgetty
I guess my commute wasn't so bad :)

------
DeepRote
The reason it's so expensive to live near SF is because of people like this.

Your landlord knows how much you'll pay if they know you work in the gay area
and will tolerate a 5-hour commute.

It's the same reason NJ is becoming more expensive. They know you'll pay
because you're willing to ride PATH every day to get to work.

Don't commute more than an hour to work. If you can't afford to live close to
your work, find different work.

People like this are making it even worse, and not just in SF, in NYC, in
Boston, in and around Raleigh, in ATX, everywhere.

Commuting is making it harder for other people and yourself.

~~~
wbl
Actually refusing to build more housing is what is raising prices.

------
downrightmike
The odds are that in WWIII it will be lost and then will be able to be rebuilt
like a actual modern city with proper infrastructure. All those amazing
buildings that we see in the Star Trek movies and shows probably weren't built
while Nimby's were still there. [http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/21st_century](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/21st_century)

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mudil
Liberals like to talk big about the public transportation, but when it comes
time to deliver they follow the unions' script that results in exuberant costs
(to build the system and to run it) and extremely poor performance. And as a
result the average folks and the poor suffer the most.

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seanmcdirmid
I'm not sure if you've ever been to Europe before, where the liberals (and
even the conservatives) do public transit right.

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twblalock
Furthermore, unions in Europe are much more powerful than they are in the US.
It must not be unions holding the US back if Europe can manage to build better
transit with much stronger unions.

