Buses on highways tend to either have horrible bus stations in the median, which are often far from where you want to be and are incredibly noisy and riddled with pollution.
Or they have to go off the highway which requires either very expensive exclusive off-ramps, otherwise they get stuck behind all the other traffic on the highway which defeats the purpose.
I unfortunately think that 101 traffic in the bay area is pretty unsolvable. The main silicon valley area is incredibly low density and virtually unwalkable given the masses of parking lots.
I think the best option is to massively increase density next to Caltrain stations (which is starting to happen) and basically move all the development next to the train, rather than trying to build transit to the existing development.
Maybe new lines could be built on BART etc to make new corridors, paid for by big taxes from existing "sprawl" office developments far from transit to make them unattractive compared to higher density ones near train service.
It's frankly ridiculous that Apple Park was allowed to be built in its current form, for example. It's 3mi from Caltrain, has a ridiculous requirement for parking and is terrible land use wise (though it does look cool). It could have easily been a tower nearer transit, if it wasn't for NIBMYism.
>It could have easily been a tower nearer transit, if it wasn't for NIBMYism.
i don't think it's really fair to blame the NIMBYs for that one. a sprawling, campus surrounded by a big buffer to keep it separate from the community is clearly what Apple wanted, not just what the city of Cupertino wanted. If they wanted to build something with more density and transit links that was integrated into the community, they could have.
If they could get rid of the level-crossings so that the caltrain doesnt have to constantly honk it's horn, then I'd consider living near a caltrain station.
Buses on highways tend to either have horrible bus stations in the median, which are often far from where you want to be and are incredibly noisy and riddled with pollution.
Or they have to go off the highway which requires either very expensive exclusive off-ramps, otherwise they get stuck behind all the other traffic on the highway which defeats the purpose.
I unfortunately think that 101 traffic in the bay area is pretty unsolvable. The main silicon valley area is incredibly low density and virtually unwalkable given the masses of parking lots.
I think the best option is to massively increase density next to Caltrain stations (which is starting to happen) and basically move all the development next to the train, rather than trying to build transit to the existing development.
Maybe new lines could be built on BART etc to make new corridors, paid for by big taxes from existing "sprawl" office developments far from transit to make them unattractive compared to higher density ones near train service.
It's frankly ridiculous that Apple Park was allowed to be built in its current form, for example. It's 3mi from Caltrain, has a ridiculous requirement for parking and is terrible land use wise (though it does look cool). It could have easily been a tower nearer transit, if it wasn't for NIBMYism.