
Petition for Smarter Infrastructure - khuey
http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/smarter-infrastructure.html
======
tmh79
> If we make it easier to quickly travel longer distances in/out of work hubs,
> the intense demand for housing can be diffused to communities that can
> handle it.

Wow, just wow. Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Cupertino et al can all
"handle it" they just don't want to. There is plenty of space for transit
oriented housing and office space along the cal-train corridor. If Cupertino
can "handle" an office space for 14k workers, they can "handle" building
housing for 14k workers too.

There is absolutely no reason the peninsula and south bay should remain
majority single family home cities, especially wiht the crazy jobs/housing
imbalance they have willingly created for themselves.

~~~
oppositelock
I live in Mountain View, and I've lived here for 20 years and followed local
politics all this time. I'm also, unlike most of my fellow residents, pro
development and think that increasing density is the only way out of this
housing debacle, but maybe I'm biased by having lived in NYC and seen that
high density can work.

Where we are today is that your basic crappy 2/1 or 3/1 starter home is over a
million dollars here. They're $2 million in a better neighborhood. The
majority of higher density housing is rentals, not owner condos. We're losing
everyone except families with dual high income workers due to housing costs
here.

One big part of the problems is that residents who already own property resist
change and want Mountain View to remain as it was when they moved in. It's a
selfish mindset, commonly likened to pulling up the ladder behind you when you
get on a ship to keep others out. Whenever there's a development proposal, a
vocal group of generally older and retired folks show up to try shouting it
down. The anti-development people constantly say that the character of the
city will be ruined by more housing, but are blind to the character of the
city being homogenized on high income tech workers.

Another big part of the problem is ridiculous zoning. It's basically illegal
to build anything anymore given the land that's left and the density limits.
Every development requires variances from the city council, so even though
zoning code isn't meant to give the council the power to meddle in individual
developments, it's become so overbearing that the city council effectively
dictates what can be built and where, down to the type of food a restaurant
will serve. This is no different than communist central planning. These code
variances are attained by renovating parks, or contributing to schools, or
whatever else the council wants to extort. Permit fees are well into six
figures for new housing developments, per unit. Most of these are impact fees
for infrastructure and parks. With the high cost of housing here, permit
costs, and extortion costs, it's simply impossible to build affordable
housing. This is fine, since expensive housing takes the load off the older,
affordable stock, but the pace of housing growth isn't keeping up with
population growth.

The local cities here belong to a larger organization called the Association
Of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). ABAG sets minimum building quotas on towns,
and they have to approve that many units, but where they approve the units is
up to them. Here in Mountain View, the downtown area is mostly owner occupied
single family homes, and these people are against increasing density at all,
and probably the most vocal anti-development neighborhood. The downtown area
is also the one closest to transit, which is where high density makes sense.
Due to this NIMBY attitude, the new developments happen mostly along the El
Camino and 101 corridors, which don't have good public transit.

It's a giant mess, basically. The same people who resist density will also
resist and kind of better local transit if it means building more tracks near
their house, or digging tunnels under their house.

------
marcell
> We can fund this by stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion
> we are planning to spend on that on better local rapid transit systems,
> improved bus lines, and new roads instead

This proposal would replace a real and coming solution (HSR) with vague
proposals ("improved bus line") and tech that may not pan out for years if
ever ("electric airplanes"). I'm skeptical.

The HSR will provide a significant improvement for the Bay Area->LA route, and
provide rail service to places that currently don't have it at all (eg.
Fresno->San Jose). If we kill HSR, it's entirely likely that we'll end up with
both no HSR, no hyperloop, and no super-speedy self driving cars. I'd rather
keep chugging along on HSR, and build the hyperloop (or whatever comes next)
when it's ready.

~~~
mosheroperandi
Yeah, there's some magical thinking that it'll take several decades to fully
roll out "yesterday's technology", but somehow, by the time hyperloop
technology is production ready, it won't take several more decades to actually
get one built.

------
durgiston
The reason that there is a housing crisis in the Bay Area is that there is a
lack of housing in the Bay Area. We don't need to make it so you don't need to
live in SF to work in SF, we need to make it so that there are enough homes
for the people that want to live there. And this means one thing, ZONING. The
reason that more housing isn't built in the Bay is that the people living
there don't want developers to build it, not that it can't be built. This is
much easier and cheaper to change than public transit infrastructure (or
maybe, the fact that it isn't is a sign that SF is screwed?).

~~~
enra
I agree that we need to build in the city as well, but many major cities have
good transportation inside and outside of the city too.

Currently it's almost an hour to get to downtown from Ocean Beach to Financial
district with a bus, and its only 7 miles away. That is 7mph, almost a walking
speed.

For example, back in Helsinki (where I'm from) you could easily get to the
downtown anywhere in the 12mile radius in 10-20mins with a bus, light rail or
train. I know the numbers are similar in many European cities.

Generally in Europe public transport is usually the easier and faster option
than driving or at least the same time. If driving in a city is multitudes
faster then you're not doing to public or other transportation systems very
well.

~~~
durgiston
You walk really fast! But seriously, revitalizing existing public transit and
making it function properly should be a priority. No disagreements there. But
we don't need to build new trains and bus lines that go further out.

~~~
closeparen
Urbanists will continue to think we don't need more sprawl, and NIMBYs will
continue to think we don't need more density, and nothing will change.

The only politically realistic way we're going to get large-scale high-density
environments is through greenfield projects. Having a long but tolerable
public transit journey between your greenfield high-density development and
the existing job centers is one of very few plausible paths to getting there.

------
jbob2000
>We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by
stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to
spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and
new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing
and have a better quality of life.

Bad idea. More roads does not mean less traffic, More roads = more cars. And
more infrastructure begets more infrastructure - You build more roads and
buses and light rail lines, now you need all the staff to maintain these
things, now you need somewhere for these staff to live, now you need more
infrastructure to get the staff to work to maintain the infrastructure...

Stop the madness! The answer is not to transit at all. Live near your job,
walk or bike to work. Build more housing dammit! Why the fuck does a software
company need to be in the middle of big city? All you need is electricity and
internet, move out to the country!

~~~
throwanem
Okay. And _without_ boiling the ocean, what have you got that's better?

~~~
jbob2000
Short term - more buses, alternate day driving, increase incentives for no car
ownership (tax rebate), increase penalties for car ownership (increase parking
fees/fines, increase number of no-parking tow-away zones).

Medium term - Build bike lanes, convert streets to promenades, build light
rail, build traffic calmers (narrow streets, speed bumps, lane bollards)

Long term - Marketing programs to encourage different business lifestyles
(city vs. country, remote vs in-person). Tax incentives for moving out of the
city.

~~~
KirinDave
It must be cool to have no desire for stability in your life or the life of
your spouse and offspring.

Certainly I'd find that lifestyle less difficult to plan moves around. Of
course, I'd also find it fulfilling and depressing.

~~~
the_common_man
What are you talking about?

~~~
closeparen
In a world with effectively zero transportation possible beyond a range of a
few miles, you need to move every time you change jobs (or never see your
family because you're walking/biking/riding a bus for a huge chunk of each
day).

------
thecombjelly
Alternate proposal that would not destroy more of the earth, make a big impact
on lessening climate change, and improve people's health: ban personal
vehicles from urban and suburban areas. Then reallocate the resources from
maintaining roads and sprawling infrastructure to mass transit, biking,
walking, and new housing. Roads and suburban infrastructure take up an absurd
amount of space that could be reallocated to housing or even more open space.
It would also help tremendously if property owners were not allowed to have
any vacancy. A ridiculous number of housing units are sitting empty that could
be used.

~~~
friendzis
Sorry, but your ideas seems extremely narrow minded. Yes, there are areas
designed from the ground or evolved over time to be used without personal
vehicles, but that is by no means the general case.

Firstly, if doing without personal vehicle works for you, it is great. I do
see many situations where it could work. But remember that Uber drivers use
personal vehicles, they are by no means part of public transit. Hourly car
rent services are not public too.

Secondly, we do not live in corporate owned factory-cities, layout with well
defined living quarter areas and workshops. I see no way to arrange efficient
public transport system for everyone in organically grown areas, though we can
probably make it work for majority. We have much more job varieties than
factories - large concentrations of workforce. Take kindergartens and primary
schools for example. As a parent, you want them to be as close to home as
possible. You want the best educators there. Unless you assume that the best
educator-children fit will be with educators from your district (for which you
must assume that there _are_ educators in your district in the first place),
you need transportation for them. There are travelling salesmen, home
deliveries, non-peak (home-work, work-home) traffic to theatres, eating out,
hospitals, friends. Unless you want army of robots, I see no way to do without
personal transportation altogether. Without personal vehicles altogether,
places several kilometres away from public transport stops will be out of
reach for less mobile: disabled, elderly, families with babies, etc..

\-------

As for vacant properties... I do not even know where to begin. This idea has
already been tried in Soviet Union, except they took it even further - there
was per person space quota and space exceeding that quota would be taken away.
Like one room in a flat would be given to someone else. Your children moved
away? Say bye-bye to half of your property. Your family member passed away and
you inherited their property? Better do something with it quick or risk losing
it. Residents moved from you rental property? Better find anyone to rent it
for any sum or risk losing it. I just don't think these are the values of
democratic republic. It may be me, though.

------
rdiddly
Dashed-off in a hurry without thinking it through, just like most of the
supposed high achievers and visionaries I know.

 _If we make it easier to quickly travel longer distances in /out of work
hubs..._

...the demand for quickly traveling longer distances in/out of work hubs,
increases accordingly. Which leads to the same congestion problems spreading
outward. You don't want to plan your land use based on what types and kinds of
transportation are possible. But if you open up a transportation corridor
hoping for the best, that is exactly what you're doing. Based on the fact that
there is now transportation available, you get mile after mile of hastily-
constructed bland, dystopian nowhere suburbs that breed ennui, conformism and
fascism. Meanwhile all those people shoulder extra "friction" in their lives
in the form of traveling around pointlessly.

Instead you should plan land use deliberatively. Build the destination. And
then connect destinations. The answer is the exact opposite - have a strong
urban growth boundary that keeps growth compact, and remove barriers to high-
density housing construction in the city. Because this leads to less demand
for travel, everyone saves on transportation costs - not only the costs of
infrastructure but of using it. And they get to live in a dense, interesting
city where their genitals can be located near the genitals of many others of
their preferred gender for mating. Which is great for software companies that
hire young people.

~~~
bendmorris
>Based on the fact that there is now transportation available, you get mile
after mile of hastily-constructed bland, dystopian nowhere suburbs that breed
ennui, conformism and fascism.

The level of condescension here is overwhelming. I would love to live in a
"bland, dystopian" suburb where I can afford a yard, more space for my family,
access to necessities and a reasonable commute. If you'd prefer to live in a
crowded city, do it, but don't think it makes you superior to anyone else.

~~~
rdiddly
I grew up in the suburbs and I live there now, that's how I know.

------
ejlangev
Imagine thinking that "high-speed self-driving cars, electric airplanes, and
maybe even Hyperloops" are viable solutions for transit problems of today when
none of them exist in any real viable form and have major obstacles to
overcome in order to exist. Reminds me of the craze with pneumatic transport
in the past. It too was the way of the future and NYC even had a model
pneumatic subway line
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit).
Lost out to the normal train by a long way.

------
zelon88
I'd be happy just to see traffic lights that actually factor traffic
congestion. One of my peeves is when a traffic light makes me and a whole line
of cars waste brakes to stop then waste gas to sit at a red light just to let
one car go when the efficient option would have been to let the line of cars
travelling 50mph go first, THEN let the loner who's already stopped go
afterwards. It's a problem I've wanted to solve for a loooong time. Imagine
the savings in time, gasoline, and environment if every intersection actively
tried to maximize efficiency.

~~~
Lramseyer
Not to mention the amount of CO2 emissions that would be reduced from drivers
having to stop and re-accelerate fewer times. While I don't know if it would
make much of a change during heavy traffic, I think it would make a huge
difference during medium to light traffic.

I like the idea of opening up light timings for public review, however
figuring out how to optimize everything would probably take a great deal of
computational power, and likely out of the scope of local governments that
actually make those decisions. It's also not profitable, so I don't see too
many companies going after this problem. If only there was a company that had
detailed maps, good traffic statistics, insane computational power, and
ambitions to do stuff that may or may not be profitable. Maybe they create
tools for municipalities to help time their lights.

~~~
zelon88
I agree with most of your points. However, I think it would be easier to use
machine learning and computer vision to solve this problem. The profit would
come in the form of reduced traffic which would mean more throughput to local
businesses. FedEx would profit, trucking would profit, mom-and-pop shops with
prime retail locations would profit. Hence, the municipalities would profit
from surge in tax revenue. As far as processing goes, the red-light cameras
get recorded somewhere, right? Why not double up those servers, put an RPI
with a camera on each traffic light, and then beam the data back to the server
room for processing. With machine learning and a lot of patience the system
would be able to improve itself over time.

I have always believed that this problem could be solved with about $200 worth
of hardware at the traffic light, a cheap mobile plan, and a central server
location (wherever they host the red-light footage from cameras that already
exist).

Now, if anyone has a million bucks laying around I can get to work right away.
;)

------
rayiner
The deeply ironic thing about California HSR is that it's basically going to
be most useful for business travelers. Who the hell else needs to go from SF
to LA on any regular basis? If you spent that money on regional rail instead,
you might actually help out working class people.

In cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, tons of middle class
people ride the train to/from what used to be streetcar suburbs. Caltrain/BART
is a joke in comparison, and $68 billion would go a long way towards making
that not the case.

~~~
jbob2000
The stupid thing is that those business travelers won't use the rail line,
they'll happily chug along in their self-driving Teslas and ultra comfy
Audis/Mercedes/BMWs.

Toronto just dealt with this. We built a rail line that goes from our
international airport right into the heart of the downtown. The plan was that
business travelers could get off the plane, get on the train, and go right
into the city without a car. Nobody uses it. They forgot about the comfort of
the taxi and limo - you don't have to carry your luggage and you don't have to
share the car and listen to screaming children.

~~~
gtirloni
> Nobody uses it

The few times I've used it, the train was pretty full (with people standing).
Maybe I got seriously lucky.

~~~
maxerickson
I think they meant the only people that use it are the screaming children.

------
mlinksva
> We should double our annual infrastructure budget...new roads

No mention of maintenance.

[https://www.strongtowns.org/nonewroads/](https://www.strongtowns.org/nonewroads/)

[https://www.strongtowns.org/infrastructure/](https://www.strongtowns.org/infrastructure/)

------
deft
Somehow hyperloops are better than high speed rail. In actuality they are the
same thing except a hyperloop has a pointless tube protecting it. The original
hyperloop concept and the 'hyperloops' being worked on are completely
different.

Hyperloop is a rebrand. This is a terrible idea, instead of opting for urban
sprawl and more roadways, increase density, increase public transit
facilities, and actually PLAN development projects.

------
jwatte
Longer travel is inherently less efficient. It's much better to build denser
close to existing transportation hubs.

Proposal: Pass a law that cities can't prevent permitting of mixed
developments up to 8 stories within 1500 feet of existing trail r stations or
freeway exits, and see where that takes us!

(Also, doubling down on BART, Caltrain, SMART and the boats would be quite
helpful.)

------
gravelld
How do you plan on dealing with all the induced demand that building more
roads brings? Would the roads _only_ be for buses?

~~~
adventured
If you were going to go the suggested route of building more roads, the only
sane thing to do would be to make them bus only lanes and then to invest into
that category heavily in regards to efficiency / automation / capacity. I
can't see any other scenario that makes sense in terms of building more roads,
unless this is premised on autonomous driving 20 years out improving the
traffic patterns & congestion.

------
jeffdavis
The solution is to spread out more?

There is lots of developable land here on the peninsula. We just aren't
developing it.

------
sperling75
Totally agree 100% and wrote about this in 2015 but on a different tack.
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/americas-disastrous-mass-
tran...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/americas-disastrous-mass-transit-
policy-look-smart-sam-sperling)

Reality is California is terrible at the mega projects - look at LA metro as
an example. We are out of practice and the graft level is through the roof.
Any public funds are likely far better spent on smaller projects that are
chosen for the outsize benefit.

SF to LA is already solved by airlines and the freeway. The benefit of a rail
will be marginal and temporary when cars become good at driving the freeway
autonomously.

------
fillskills
Ummmmm, where is the data to support either argument? How will and how much
buses need to be added to support just the current population in the current
cities? How does that follow up on expanding population? How does that match
with new construction and available land close by. What is the distance and
driving time for buses between work hubs and housing. While housing can be
built relatively fast, work hubs take a lot more time for various reasons.

------
brwr
On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. The problem is that, once you
look at the details, you realize there are none.

How is this going to work? Where does that $68bn get re-allocated? Who will
benefit from this? What is the economic advantage of investing in transit
infrastructure in dollars and cents?

I've seen a few of these proposals that sell hopes and dreams with no
discussion of how it's going to work. Until I see that, I can't support this.

------
k3oni
So build more roads because we will use more cars? Not sure i get it.

Instead of a high speed rail between 2 cities how about a higher speed rail
running in all directions around the major hubs and suburbs. I'm not in SF or
CA by that matter, but trains work good if the rails are designed with
specifics in mind. SF to LA high speed doesn't solve much of a problem, nor is
more car lanes/highways.

------
kylehotchkiss
I recently moved to San Diego from the east coast and I really agree with
petition. The Trolley here seemed idealistic to be at first, "I can take the
train downtown from my apartment in 40 minutes!" I thought. I love driving as
much as most people but parking downtown is not fun to find. So I took the
train twice, but after being on the train, I won't do it again. There are
several people shouting odd things and no police in sight addressing that.
Along with an recent armed robbery of 16 year old on the train, I'm thinking
that this well designed system totally flopped its daily execution. If
California could invest some one time resources (make the platforms gated and
require paid fares to ride, maybe some tech to know if people are riding the
train with no destination) and recurring resources (heavier police presence on
trains) towards the Trolley in San Diego they could pull some cars off the
highway.

Public transit options are most beneficial if people feel safe and confident
riding them.

~~~
durgiston
Or maybe we could invest more in mental health care and public education and
the like instead of shunting off the poors somewhere else so you don't have to
see them.

------
nahnah
The big housing problem in Bay Area is partially because there are
ridiculously large empty houses in areas such as Los Altos Hills, Atherton
etc.

------
maxxxxx
As a VC he would be in a good position to push for spreading out companies
over the country instead if everyone sitting in SV.

The solution can't be more commuting

------
dba7dba
I personally think all of these problems could be dealt with if the large tech
companies would just allow remote work.

------
simonebrunozzi
Since this is a topic I'm studying/researching heavily at the moment (it's at
the heart of my new startup), I'd like to comment on some of Sam's passages:

> If we unclog our infrastructure we can spread out to more of the state and
> increase the supply of developable land. There is lots of land in this
> state, but only a small amount is close to jobs.

I disagree. The trick is not to simply increase the supply of "buildable"
land. That way, the main effect would be to increase sprawl. Jobs are usually
in already-dense areas, in which most land has already been developed.

A different, perhaps smarter plan could be to do what some small companies are
doing in Barcelona: allow buildings to add 1-2 floors at the top. It increases
density, and housing supply.

> If we make it easier to quickly travel longer distances in/out of work hubs,
> the intense demand for housing can be diffused to communities that can
> handle it.

I don't see how this passage is related to the previous one. Alleviating
traffic? Good luck. Until we have 90% or more driverless cars, traffic is not
going to change.

> We should double our annual infrastructure budget. We can fund this by
> stopping the high-speed rail, and spend the $68+ billion we are planning to
> spend on that on better local rapid transit systems, improved bus lines, and
> new roads instead. This will allow people to live in more affordable housing
> and have a better quality of life.

Yes, $68 Billion can be spent much better, I agree. But investing them in a
generic "infrastructure" is not going to solve the problem at all.

I'll give you one of many possible examples: when you build an additional
highway lane, traffic temporarily goes down. On average, after 6.5 years,
traffic is back to the original level (everything else being equal). You can
actually reduce traffic by REDUCING the amount of roads available, as long as
the resulting roadmap is "simpler" to navigate for human drivers. Sometimes,
you get less traffic accidents by REMOVING road signs. Etc. Etc.

> A lot more people need this more than they need a train from LA to SF. In
> any case, the train is yesterday’s technology. By the time it’s completed,
> we will have new and much better technology, like high-speed self-driving
> cars, electric airplanes, and maybe even Hyperloops.

We already have one of the best transportation systems that could be invented,
in terms of price-performance: bicycles. We don't need to trouble HyperLoops
and the like.

But I agree that investing in trains is not the right thing to do.

In essence, what Sam is suggesting is to divert that $68B to something
smarter: on this, I wholeheartedly agree.

------
beguiledfoil
>If we unclog our infrastructure we can spread out to more of the state and
increase the supply of developable land.

Really amazing to read that people that live in low density clusterfuck think
that the solution is to expand the low density clusterfuck.

Also, being against high speed rail but being for a hyper loop is an
indication that you have a technology boner that is lasting longer than 4
hours and you should see a doctor.

~~~
dang
> _you have a technology boner that is lasting longer than 4 hours and you
> should see a doctor_

Please don't do this here.

