
California rejects SB 50, a push for denser development near transit - ed
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/sb50-california-housing.html
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rsync
Californian (Bay Are) here.

Denser development near transit sounds fantastic - it's just the kind of Jane
Jacobs future I hope we can build for ourselves.

However, I strongly disliked SB50 - and other measures like it - because they
_consider American-style busing to be transit_.

Buses in the United States, _for the most part_ , are throwaway, afterthought
breadcrumbs that planners and political leaders cram in to soften the blow of
overwhelmingly automobile-centric transit design.

This results in poorly scheduled, infrequent, usually empty buses bonking
their way around infrastructure that has no place for them. There are
exceptions, of course, some of which exist here in the Bay Area, but for the
most part in the United States, busing is the lame, pathetic stand-in for
_real transit investment_ \- like subways and commuter trains.

What does that mean for a policy like SB50 ? It means that any old bus stop,
which is completely dysfunctional and derelict, counts as "transit" around
which to build denser housing. This could be _anywhere_. I don't want denser
housing built anywhere some planning afterthought put a bus stop that nobody
uses. Further, I don't want to continue to enable busing to exist as a viable
policy option - because it isn't.

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diebeforei485
> It means that any old bus stop, which is completely dysfunctional and
> derelict, counts as "transit" around which to build denser housing.

I don't know where you're getting your information. Let's look at the actual
text of SB50[1], which is fairly clear: it has to be within one-quarter mile
radius of a stop on a high-quality bus corridor, which is defined as:

“High-quality bus corridor” means a corridor with fixed route bus service that
meets all of the following criteria: (1) It has average service intervals for
each line and in each direction of no more than 10 minutes during the three
peak hours between 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., inclusive, and the three peak hours
between 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., inclusive, on Monday through Friday. (2) It has
average service intervals for each line and in each direction of no more than
20 minutes during the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., inclusive, on Monday through
Friday. (3) It has average service intervals for each line and in each
direction of no more than 30 minutes during the hours of 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.,
inclusive, on Saturday and Sunday. (4) It has met the criteria specified in
paragraphs (1) to (3), inclusive, for the five years preceding the date that a
development proponent submits an application for approval of a residential
development.

[1]
[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB50)

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chrismcb
You don't know where the op gets his information from... But then you agree?
He says he didn't like sb50 because it treats busses as transit. You then
basically agree and point out that the density had to be within a certain
distance of bus stations... Busses are not the best mass transit

~~~
diebeforei485
Well, OP talked about empty buses and bus stops that nobody uses, and claimed
this bill would result in housing development there.

That is misinformation, because the actual bill only applies to strictly
defined high-quality bus stops.

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neonate
[http://archive.md/VRvXh](http://archive.md/VRvXh)

