California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

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Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

enraged_camel posted:

Unfortunately capitalism says that a public company's first responsibility is to its shareholders and it must come in the form of maximizing profits. You can bet your rear end that some shareholders (especially rich/influential ones) would throw a hissyfit if they found out that these companies are planning to do "socialist" stuff like improve public transit. And if the companies in question have one bad quarter, programs like that would be the first to get cut anyway, making the improvements unreliable and sporadic.

From the city government's perspective, the way I would approach the problem would be by providing tax benefits or other financial incentives to companies who allow their employees telecommute. Reduce the number of people who need to be in the office every day of the week and you'll go a long way towards solving issues related to commuting.

Oh come on, companies like 3M, IBM, and Dow are able to do programs like this, but yet Silicon Valley tech companies (who often have founders that own large chunks of their stock still) have more aggressive stockholders? I don't buy that excuse one bit. This is a rather common practice including here in the Bay Area. (Also we have this thing called contracts that allows us to get over the "bad quarter, cut the program" problem)

Actually, I just learned that Genetech does allow other local employees to use their buses but doesn't advertise the fact. That's smart and I imagine might be part of the reason we don't hear as many complaints about their 56 bus routes.

Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jun 21, 2014

# ? Jun 21, 2014 01:51

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# ? May 10, 2024 08:00

hell astro course: Dec 10, 2009; pizza sucks

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Google-says-6-8-million-for-youth-Muni-passes-5273937.php

They already have. They can afford more. This is like peanuts to them. The idea that google is some on the ropes company beholden to their shareholders is kind of amusing though. That being said, google IS a company, and all their 'saving the world' cheer, is mostly a smokescreen, they're not shy to make a buck.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 02:14

Shbobdb: Dec 16, 2010; by Reene

Corporate buses and other related services in SF are, hilariously, one of the few examples of libertarianism working. Now, for an American city, the Bay Area has really good public transit but it isn't NYC/Europe levels. It actually reminds me of Beijing, where it is really good at a few specific tasks and remarkably deficient outside of those very highly specialized realms. Despite that, there is a demand for a communal transportation and that demand is backed by some serious cash.

That's where the whole inequality shitstorm that is the Bay starts to bubble to the surface. Traffic in the Bay Area is awful and the public transportation is both overcrowded and inadequate*. Then the invisible hand of the free market creates a solution that is largely for those who are (demographically speaking) transplants, white, young, childless, male and wealthy. As noted, tech represents a minority in SF but they are a visible minority that has come to be a symbol for a lot of problems. People bitch about the Google Bus, not the Genentech bus. And the even more abstracted gentrification issue gets a lot of lip-service but precious little action.

It is a visible representation for a lot of problems. Rather than address the problems directly, people fight the visible symbols of said problems. It's actually some good framing, since it allows a lot of temporarily embarrassed millionaires to get their quota of self-righteousness while not actually having to sacrifice anything.

* Also a sort of Libertarianism-almost working situation, since there are a lot of quasi-related public transportation systems but they aren't really integrated. Clipper card helps gloss over this problem, but centrally planned it ain't! When the next housing bubbles crashes, I'd really love for Bay Area public transportation to get centralized like NYC's did during the Depression. That would help a lot.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 02:21

Kobayashi: Aug 13, 2004; by Nyc_Tattoo

Trabisnikof posted:

Oh come on, companies like 3M, IBM, and Dow are able to do programs like this, but yet Silicon Valley tech companies (who often have founders that own large chunks of their stock still) have more aggressive stockholders? I don't buy that excuse one bit. This is a rather common practice including here in the Bay Area. (Also we have this thing called contracts that allows us to get over the "bad quarter, cut the program" problem)

Actually, I just learned that Genetech does allow other local employees to use their buses but doesn't advertise the fact. That's smart and I imagine might be part of the reason we don't hear as many complaints about their 56 bus routes.

Also Facebook bought their own police officer.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 02:53

on the left: Nov 2, 2013; I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

Trabisnikof posted:

The thing is, is if the tech companies wanted to earn some respect from their communities it is relatively easy to work with transit authorities to pay for additional bus routes that cover your commuter need. Other large employers do this all the time, even here in the Bay.

Adding public transit capacity and paying the $1 fee would have gone a long way to removing community support for the most extreme anti-tech activists. Even if they just added 1 public commuter run for every 5-10 private runs, that would have solved so many of the issues here. And of course their own employees could use the public run too. These companies are big, powerful and influential. They could have easily turned this into a PR blessing with some stupid rear end SOMA-SV connector bus and then get the mayors to talk about how these companies that are used to connecting us digitally are helping to connect us physically or some poo poo.

San Francisco could always take all that extra income tax it is raking in and spend it on expanded metro service.

They won't do it though because it's a political mess, which is the same reason why even if Google agreed to run the entire public transportation out of its own budget, things wouldn't be fixed.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:03

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

on the left posted:

San Francisco could always take all that extra income tax it is raking in and spend it on expanded metro service.

They won't do it though because it's a political mess, which is the same reason why even if Google agreed to run the entire public transportation out of its own budget, things wouldn't be fixed.

You mean the tax income SF is missing because none of these companies have their headquarters in SF and thus don't pay SF payroll taxes?

# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:08

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Capitalism gives no fucks about anything other than profit, until those things threaten profit enough to make interest in them profitable. If anyone tells you contrary to this, they are relying on anecdote and should be ignored. No one will fix bay area traffic until it is profitable to do so. Given that it will almost certainly never be profitable, it will never be fixed.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:15

Shbobdb: Dec 16, 2010; by Reene

cheese posted:

Capitalism gives no fucks about anything other than profit, until those things threaten profit enough to make interest in them profitable. If anyone tells you contrary to this, they are relying on anecdote and should be ignored. No one will fix bay area traffic until it is profitable to do so. Given that it will almost certainly never be profitable, it will never be fixed.

Given broad strokes, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this.

Except the last bit. While public transit isn't directly profitable, it can be very profitable (indirectly). That's why a lot of hyper-capitalist areas (NYC, London, Paris, etc.) have really incredible (albeit overcrowded during peak hours) public transit systems.

I mean, if we are gonna blame capitalism, let's just go for the commute itself. Things like concentration of wealth, white flight (and its close sibling gentrification) and all that poo poo is a function of capitalism.

Don't get me wrong. I'd rather full Communism. But I'm rich enough, comfortable enough, white enough and straight enough for me not to want to rock the boat too much. So, I'll happily agitate for Maoist third-worldism while hoping to settle for what was politically acceptable as "European Left" in the '60s and '70s. I'd love to Zhou Enlai it, but he was a lot savvier than I am. So, I'll advocate extremism in service of moderation.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:44

Craptacular!: Jul 9, 2001; Fuck the DH

Shbobdb posted:

* Also a sort of Libertarianism-almost working situation, since there are a lot of quasi-related public transportation systems but they aren't really integrated. Clipper card helps gloss over this problem, but centrally planned it ain't! When the next housing bubbles crashes, I'd really love for Bay Area public transportation to get centralized like NYC's did during the Depression. That would help a lot.

The Bay Area is rather sprawling. Clipper is limited because MTC wants agencies to pay for it, but they somehow have the money to rename it from Translink to Clipper and "get the word out" through dumb marketing programs.

Lots of cities can have one big transit agency cover the city and several more the burbs. Chicago (CTA/Metra/Pace) and Toronto (TTC/GO) being two high ridership examples that come off the top of my head.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:49

hell astro course: Dec 10, 2009; pizza sucks

It's weird. I don't know a single person who doesn't want better public transport in the Bay Area. Most people want to pay for it too, but local politics seem to prevent anything productive from happening. What's the "real story" behind it?

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:04

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Space-Bird posted:

It's weird. I don't know a single person who doesn't want better public transport in the Bay Area. Most people want to pay for it too, but local politics seem to prevent anything productive from happening. What's the "real story" behind it?

If it's like anywhere else it's probably a combination of disagreements over the exact implementation (routes and the like) and having multiple jurisdictions that you have to deal with which adds to confusion (e.g, there's the SF government but also the Oakland government, etc).

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:07

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Its the smaller communities that don't want their "small town charm" destroyed by public transit. That's why Marin and the Peninsula don't have the BART. Palo Alto is considering suing Santa Clara county over their spending of public transit dollars on the BART interconnection rather than a non-existant Dumbarton commuter rail line.

There is no regional authority in the Bay Area and it really shows. Even ABAG, which is fairly middle of the road and has no enforcement powers, is discussed with contempt in the comments section of Palo Alto Online. SF, SJ, Oakland and Richmond each end up having to support more infrastructure than most cities of their sizes or tax bases.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:14

Bip Roberts: Mar 29, 2005

Also lots of people disagree with public transportation, they just go about blocking it by doing everything except saying outright that the measures they create are to block public transportation.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:16

on the left: Nov 2, 2013; I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

Trabisnikof posted:

You mean the tax income SF is missing because none of these companies have their headquarters in SF and thus don't pay SF payroll taxes?

If San Francisco is like practically any other city, they have an income tax on residents, regardless of where they work.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:48

Colin Mockery: Jun 24, 2007; Rawr

on the left posted:

If San Francisco is like practically any other city, they have an income tax on residents, regardless of where they work.

California doesn't do this.

http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/States-Prohibiting-City-Income-Taxes.htm

# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:57

Craptacular!: Jul 9, 2001; Fuck the DH

I can only speak for the North Bay, though that's where everyone points fingers over bad transit. It's not all bad up here. For instance, Petaluma pretty much is Small Town Charm personified and has a nice little system of it's own. It's the bedroom communities of fewer than 50,000 that are hit and miss, as their service comes in the form of multi-region services, running through them on lines connecting between larger populations, and if you don't live near the thoroughfare they travel through as they meander across the town, then tough.

Sonoma and Marin passed a measure to tax for a local train system on the old abandoned freight lines up here, and opposition to repeal it (led by a guy on the far northern Sonoma terminus of Windsor who hitched about small town charm and "social engineering" to coat people into using trains they didn't want) never got enough signatures to go to ballot. It still is a bit of a quiet boondoggle, because you have politicians directly involved in steering the project and people are skeptical about their executive competence and the salary they're collecting for it.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 05:36

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Shbobdb posted:

Given broad strokes, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this.

Except the last bit. While public transit isn't directly profitable, it can be very profitable (indirectly). That's why a lot of hyper-capitalist areas (NYC, London, Paris, etc.) have really incredible (albeit overcrowded during peak hours) public transit systems.

As far as I can tell, all of those major public transit system you mentioned were 1) begun long, long ago (like the 19th century), 2) received significant and sometimes massive public subsidies when they were private and 3) the huge boosts in construction and expansion during the 30's-50's (probably the golden age of public works) that made them what they are today were done through public ownership, not private corporate ownership. It is not profitable to conduct now, in 21st century American urban areas for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is that we spend countless billions propping up the automobile industry through freeway and highway construction and maintenance. The absolutely staggering amount of money it costs to go through super urban areas doesn't help either.

Shbobdb posted:

I mean, if we are gonna blame capitalism, let's just go for the commute itself. Things like concentration of wealth, white flight (and its close sibling gentrification) and all that poo poo is a function of capitalism.

Don't get me wrong. I'd rather full Communism. But I'm rich enough, comfortable enough, white enough and straight enough for me not to want to rock the boat too much. So, I'll happily agitate for Maoist third-worldism while hoping to settle for what was politically acceptable as "European Left" in the '60s and '70s. I'd love to Zhou Enlai it, but he was a lot savvier than I am. So, I'll advocate extremism in service of moderation.

I'm right behind you, just a lot more pessimistic I guess.

Space-Bird posted:

It's weird. I don't know a single person who doesn't want better public transport in the Bay Area. Most people want to pay for it too, but local politics seem to prevent anything productive from happening. What's the "real story" behind it?

Don't forget the unique geography of the bay area. A huge ring of dozens of cities around a large bay, with a few annoying mountain ranges mean that commute times can be really crazy. The gaps in coverage (like in the east part of the south bay) exaggerate the issue - it probably takes 2.5 hours or more to go from San Jose to Antioch (a distance of about 65 miles/1 hour on the freeway outside of traffic) on public transit because you have to go west from San Jose, up the peninsula, then east back across the bay.

cheese fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Jun 21, 2014

# ? Jun 21, 2014 08:02

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

cheese posted:

I'm right behind you, just a lot more pessimistic I guess.
Don't forget the unique geography of the bay area. A huge ring of dozens of cities around a large bay, with a few annoying mountain ranges mean that commute times can be really crazy. The gaps in coverage (like in the east part of the south bay) exaggerate the issue - it probably takes 2.5 hours or more to go from San Jose to Antioch (a distance of about 65 miles/1 hour on the freeway outside of traffic) on public transit because you have to go west from San Jose, up the peninsula, then east back across the bay.

Uh, I mean that commute would still be 2.5+ on public transit, but not for the reasons you suggest. It's a 30 minute bus ride to the Fremont BART station from downtown San Jose. Plus the Caltrain would be way more expensive than taking a bus from San Jose to Fremont.

Anyway, we are building a BART to San Jose interconnection, while the BART will never go through the peninsula.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 08:24

Kenning: Jan 11, 2009; I really want to post goatse. Instead I only have these🍄.

I live by the del Norte BART and I had to pick up a car in west San Jose today. I BARTed to Millbrae, took Caltrain to Palo Alto, had my friend who lives in Palo Alto pick me up and drive me to my car, and then I drove up 880 to get home. Round trip? Five and a half hours. If I had gone to Fremont and taken buses it would have probably been 6.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 09:44

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

It's pretty sad how the original BART plan was more ambitious but got shot down since Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo county didn't want to raise the bond money to make the service ring around the bay.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 17:30

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Trabisnikof posted:

Uh, I mean that commute would still be 2.5+ on public transit, but not for the reasons you suggest. It's a 30 minute bus ride to the Fremont BART station from downtown San Jose. Plus the Caltrain would be way more expensive than taking a bus from San Jose to Fremont.

Anyway, we are building a BART to San Jose interconnection, while the BART will never go through the peninsula.

I can assure you that the bus ride from downtown to the Fremont BART station is not 30 minutes during afternoon rush hour, the time when public transit should have the big advantage over cars.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 17:36

GATOS Y VATOS: Aug 22, 2002

etalian posted:

It's pretty sad how the original BART plan was more ambitious but got shot down since Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo county didn't want to raise the bond money to make the service ring around the bay.

gently caress. That would have been great.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 17:51

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

GATOS Y VATOS posted:

gently caress. That would have been great.

Looking at that makes me angry that it didn't happen.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 17:52

Shbobdb: Dec 16, 2010; by Reene

Wow, that map is beautiful.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 18:16

Papercut: Aug 24, 2005

etalian posted:

It's pretty sad how the original BART plan was more ambitious but got shot down since Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo county didn't want to raise the bond money to make the service ring around the bay.

I like the fact that the North Bay is now spending an absolutely absurd amount of money to get an above ground train just from Santa Rosa top San Rafael

# ? Jun 21, 2014 18:21

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Papercut posted:

I like the fact that the North Bay is now spending an absolutely absurd amount of money to get an above ground train just from Santa Rosa top San Rafael

Yeah the Smart train project is pretty lol

# ? Jun 21, 2014 18:23

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

To think that we could have had a BART station on Mission Boulevard here in Fremont, which is today probably the most car-centric, pedestrian-unfriendly part of the whole city :sigh:

e: seeing a BART line going up the 680 corridor down Danville/Alamo and San Ramon would also be quite the sight.

Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jun 21, 2014

# ? Jun 21, 2014 19:58

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

To think that we could have had a BART station on Mission Boulevard here in Fremont, which is today probably the most car-centric, pedestrian-unfriendly part of the whole city

e: seeing a BART line going up the 680 corridor down Danville/Alamo and San Ramon would also be quite the sight.

The only flaw in the 1956 mass transit plan was putting a stop in Atherton.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 20:07

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Its interesting how it is being made up piecemeal by various other systems. Caltrain, Ace, sf muni, and smart(lol). Ah well.

Edit: amtrack too I suppose.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 20:16

Kobayashi: Aug 13, 2004; by Nyc_Tattoo

etalian posted:

It's pretty sad how the original BART plan was more ambitious but got shot down since Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo county didn't want to raise the bond money to make the service ring around the bay.

That is infuriating. I suppose it's too late for summary executions for NIMBYs.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 20:51

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

It really is so god drat beautiful.

# ? Jun 21, 2014 20:54

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

etalian posted:

It's pretty sad how the original BART plan was more ambitious but got shot down since Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo county didn't want to raise the bond money to make the service ring around the bay.

Sorry but this isn't the origninal plan but someone's proposed ideas: http://sfist.com/2012/09/11/bart_opened_its_door_40_years_ago_t.php

quote:

Update: Some have confused this map as BART's original plan. This, sadly, isn't the case. These are merely proposed ideas � ideas of a dreamier life where one could take BART to wine country and then ride home in a fume blanc-induced blackout.

Edit: Here's the original BART map:

Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 21, 2014

# ? Jun 21, 2014 21:18

ProperGanderPusher: Jan 13, 2012

Maps like these make me ashamed to be a Peninsulaire. We're probably the NIMBYest people in the entire Bay Area except for maybe the folks in Marin and Napa.

# ? Jun 22, 2014 04:14

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

ProperGanderPusher posted:

Maps like these make me ashamed to be a Peninsulaire. We're probably the NIMBYest people in the entire Bay Area except for maybe the folks in Marin and Napa.

From mass transit to housing nothing is safe from NIMBY.

I lolled reading a article about Burglingame in which local residents were whining about the Caltrain electrification project since it would require cutting some limbs off the local prize winning Eucalyptus trees.

Yup local residents get bitter over improving mass transit since it would hurt poor trees, which are actually non-native invasive species trees that were imported from Australia.

# ? Jun 22, 2014 05:23

Proust Malone: Apr 4, 2008

Never heard the word carlmont before

# ? Jun 22, 2014 05:38

obliviums: Oct 2, 2013; The only exercise I get is poopin'

Do you fat-shaming try-hards really know how good ice cream is?

Trabisnikof posted:

Its the smaller communities that don't want their "small town charm" destroyed by public transit. That's why Marin and the Peninsula don't have the BART. Palo Alto is considering suing Santa Clara county over their spending of public transit dollars on the BART interconnection rather than a non-existant Dumbarton commuter rail line.

There is no regional authority in the Bay Area and it really shows. Even ABAG, which is fairly middle of the road and has no enforcement powers, is discussed with contempt in the comments section of Palo Alto Online. SF, SJ, Oakland and Richmond each end up having to support more infrastructure than most cities of their sizes or tax bases.

Who do you see currently working to stop transportation plans? historically, once yes marin was too NIMBY for a train but have the communities been asked recently? In my personal experience discussing it with marinites recently expanding pub. trans. is generally in favor

# ? Jun 22, 2014 08:29

ProperGanderPusher: Jan 13, 2012

obliviums posted:

Who do you see currently working to stop transportation plans? historically, once yes marin was too NIMBY for a train but have the communities been asked recently? In my personal experience discussing it with marinites recently expanding pub. trans. is generally in favor

Come down to Atherton sometime. When high speed rail threatened to build a line adjacent to Caltrain, everyone was all "NOOO, MUH PROPERTY VALUES :qq:

".

That said, most people here admit some extra public transportation is needed, the only exception being those who don't work anymore. Not surprisingly, the NIMBYest folks tend to be old people (one old timer I know still thinks BART was a waste of money and still talks about how inconvenienced he was during its construction in the early 70s).

# ? Jun 22, 2014 09:16

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

obliviums posted:

Who do you see currently working to stop transportation plans? historically, once yes marin was too NIMBY for a train but have the communities been asked recently? In my personal experience discussing it with marinites recently expanding pub. trans. is generally in favor

That's the trick about public transit, most people agree with it in abstract but fewer agree in reality. Sure MART or whatever is happening, but its not exactly connecting to a community with "those people" in it. And even with MART people are up in arms over transit-centric development. Marin still does a good job keeping affordable housing out.

The peninsula has a lot of communities actively against major transit projects and they may be framed in "sensible" ways, such as Palo Alto's fight to prevent Santa Clara county from spending money on BART expansions that will never serve Palo Alto. That makes "sense" but stymies reasonable development.

# ? Jun 22, 2014 10:04

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

So I just changed my voting address to my parents' home just to vote against this rear end in a top hat:

http://www.kuoforsenate.com/

Apparently rear end in a top hat rich kids from my high school are calling SCA5 "Skin Color Act 5". He still won't have a shot in hell, given that he only got 26% of the vote in the first round and the guy who beat him (Democratic State Assemblyman Wieckowski) got 37% or so, but wow. Also, I can vote for Honda instead of pissing away my ballot in Orange County.

# ? Jun 22, 2014 22:59

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# ? May 10, 2024 08:00

Big K of Justice: Nov 27, 2005; Anyone seen my ball joints?

Craptacular! posted:

I can only speak for the North Bay, though that's where everyone points fingers over bad transit. It's not all bad up here. For instance, Petaluma pretty much is Small Town Charm personified and has a nice little system of it's own. It's the bedroom communities of fewer than 50,000 that are hit and miss, as their service comes in the form of multi-region services, running through them on lines connecting between larger populations, and if you don't live near the thoroughfare they travel through as they meander across the town, then tough.

Sonoma and Marin passed a measure to tax for a local train system on the old abandoned freight lines up here, and opposition to repeal it (led by a guy on the far northern Sonoma terminus of Windsor who hitched about small town charm and "social engineering" to coat people into using trains they didn't want) never got enough signatures to go to ballot. It still is a bit of a quiet boondoggle, because you have politicians directly involved in steering the project and people are skeptical about their executive competence and the salary they're collecting for it.

I'm in Novato near the old freight line, they redid the level crossings near me. I work over in the presido, and commute down which isn't as bad as people here told me. Novato is an ok place, nice school district and I'm walking distance to a few places downtown for shopping which is nice. Enough people from work live here we carpool almost every day.

Really strange the 101 car pool closes off at 8:30am instead of 9:00am. Took a while to figure out traffic in North Bay, most of the commuter congestion seems to be.. oddly enough school related. You got that big bottle neck between Novato and MarinWood/Lucas Valley because of the lack of surface streets and any other options than the 101 to get through those valleys.

There's not enough capacity for Novato students in town, so anyone who doesn't get their kid into a Novato school, has to drive their kids down to San Rafael. Once you get past that bottleneck traffic is fine again. Building more schools in Novato would actually greatly help commute times along the Santa Rosa -> SF 101 route.

It's too bad the rail can't link up to SF proper in some fashion. Going to the Ferry terminal doesn't really help me or others that have to trek into SF, but can be a great help to those who come in to San Rafael to work.

As for housing development, I'm following along but it's messed up here like anywhere in the Bay Area.. NIMBY and no high density housing anywhere.

http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25779905/new-group-seeks-calm-troubled-waters-marin-s

# ? Jun 28, 2014 17:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

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