> modernize the public transportation system and, obviously, the housing crisis.

I think the two are very related. The Bay Area's biggest problem is there is no Brooklyn or Queens -- meaning large, extremely dense residential areas which are a (relatively) painless commute from the city.

Brooklyn and Queens didn't become dense residential areas with relatively painless commutes from the city overnight. It's not like there isn't land for such areas in the bay area, the biggest issue is that they are all separate cities and have separate local governments.

Well, all we need to do is make Oakland seven times more populous, and it's Brooklyn.

And more accessible by transit. The parts of Oakland near BART are super easy to get to FIDI, Market, the Mission, etc, but huge swaths of the Town are miles from BART.

Hell, drop a few BART stations in Alameda you'd be a huge step in the right direction.

The population of Oakland is more densely packed around BART stations than is the population of San Francisco. Yes there are “large swaths” within the city limits, but they are the least populous.

Some Second Transbay Tube plans mention a stop in Alameda before entering Oakland.

Whether the project happens in San Francisco's lip-service to transit NIMBY climate is the bigger question.

You should probably know that amongst the voting class of the SF Bay Area, "Manhattan" is a four letter word.

Makes me think you Bay area people have been living in your gig economy servent utopia for too many years without an earthquake to remember why this will never be the case.

Earthquake Tokyo would like a word with you :p

I think there's still a chance! SPUR (http://www.spur.org) is one organization trying to move the Bay Area in this direction; maybe people on here know of others. 2017 has seen some promising housing legislation at a state level (like SB-2, SB-3 and SB-35), and I believe there's even more in the pipeline for 2018.

Yes, as someone who commutes to SF from the South Bay, it's depressing how our public transport compares to other major cities.

BART needs to just go around the Bay Area entirely in a loop, or Caltrain needs to become more efficient. Hopefully electrification will help in this regard.

This is actually happening.

BART is going to San Jose. It will go to San Jose Diridon thus completing the loop. It will take longer than everybody likes and probably cost more money than was originally budgeted, but it's going to happen.

I ended up looking it up after I posted, and you're right! Plans also include going all the way to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, surprisingly. Maybe by 2030.

And it will take two hours to get to SF. Even Millbrae to Hayward takes 90 minutes.

From my understanding, most of the benefit of this BART extension will be for East Bay commuters (areas in the south, like Milpitas and Fremont, in particular) who are more likely to work in the South Bay than in San Francisco.

Caltrain presumably will remain the fastest option from San Jose, at least if regressive enclaves like Atherton don't delay the improvements for the high-speed rail project.

Getting the fiefdoms to coordinate is the Bay's eternal transit problem, however.

Tell me about it. The closest CalTrain to me is Atherton, which, of course, is only open on weekends.

OTOH Atherton may well be one of HSR's smallest problems.

Oh certainly, the political implications of digging a tunnel under Los Padres haven't even begun to unfold.

I support the project, but part of me wishes that the money could have gone to massive improvements of Los Angeles, Bay Area, Sac, and smaller cities' transit (with density bonuses, value-capture schemes, etc.). No way that wins a statewide ballot though.

In the end, the Caltrain improvements as part of the project will help a lot, which I think include more double-tracking as well as electrification and grade-separation.

Explosive growth of cities, adding modern infrastructure as fast as you possibly can, labor mobility, etc: Think of how China is doing these things and turns out to be growing economically at an unbelievable rate. We're only blocked by lots of smalltime local rent-seeking behavior.

maybe if they weren't so vulnerable to climate change. My money is on Portland. Good climate projects, tons of natural resources, strong urban growth boundry restricting sprawl. If the state ever figures it's shit out Portland would boom.

Portland has no idea how to deal with the growth we get now, much less anything that would qualify as a 'boom'. Traffic is frequently terrible with no real plan in place on how to deal with it. The canned answer is 'more bikes and light rail' but that's clearly not going to cut it.

Plus, houses are already getting quite expensive here, largely due to that UGB you mention. Unless we're willing to compromise on that (and as a long-time resident who appreciates being able to reach something like wilderness pretty easily, I hope we do not) then pretty quickly we are going to have SF-level housing problems.

Portland; home of impractical solutions, for anti-problems.

I honestly love portland, but it doesnt want to be an urban area.

"due to that UGB" ...

Man, developers always say that, and it's simply never been true. There's so much undeveloped land still within the UGB, and so many opportunities to build densely close into city limits--a lot of which is happening, but a lot more of which could still happen.

Portland does have a big housing problem, it's true, but the solution isn't in opening up the UGB--it's in getting more good jobs, and encouraging more entrepreneurship, so that folks can actually afford to buy the condos going up all over that city.

Maybe I wasn't totally clear on my point about the UGB. I believe it to be the primary reason houses are as expensive here as they are. Sure, there are still some places to build within the UGB, but if you want your little slice of suburbia (single family home, a bit of grass around it) then space is tight enough to drive up the price quite a bit.

Housing is expensive in inner Portland. In the suburbs, prices are still quite reasonable. My house, a mile from MAX and 4 miles from "large tech employer" would cost 2x-3x in SE Portland. We love our 10 minute commute and still take advantage of Portland's foodie scene pretty much every weekend.

Dang sorry man that wasn't what I meant. The Ugb encourages density as you said, which is quite good if you want a comprehensive transit system.

When density is high enough, and public transit decent enough, people don't need to own cars. In Manhattan, 85% of residents do not own cars. And that's with a terrible subway!

Portland's urban growth boundary doesn't seem terribly effective. Most of the land inside the boundary is a fractal sprawlscape of dead-end streets lined with single-family homes and 3-car garages. Most of the region's population growth is happening outside the boundary, in places like Vancouver (Washington) and Salem. Because Portland has failed to really urbanize and build sufficient housing, while having a strong economy and plenty of jobs, people are simply driving further to work and living in places outside the UGB.

This can't be overstated. Anecdotally, you can feel it just by looking at the city. Downtown Portland isn't really growing in the same way that cities like Austin are (which isn't to say Austin is the poster child for urban growth either).

The suburbs also have urban growth boundaries (parents live next to one) and it's easy to build over single family homes. The people and the city don't seem very interested however. The whole state is really antigrowth and it has been for a century.

My concern with Portland is that it can be washed away by a massive tsunami any day now. Reference: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

The likelihood that Portland will be washed away by a tsunami is basically nil.

Portland is ~80 miles inland from the pacific ocean - and the odds of a tsunami coming up the columbia river from the pacific, and still having much destructive power to do more than just flood, is again, basically nil - it would literally need to be a perfect storm for it to work.

I thought you were wrong based on my memory of the 2011 Japan tsunami and the images we all watched as it raced inland for what seemed like forever, but according to wikipedia it only traveled up to 10 km (6 miles) inland.

So even the biggest tsunami the world has witnessed wouldn't come close.

there is also a mountain range in the way.

Considering Portland is about 80 miles inland, earthquake is the major risk... But that's no different than the other major cities on the Pacific Rim.

Meh, New York could be wiped out by a moderate-sized earthquake (that we're supposedly overdue for and definitely unprepared for) any day now.

I'm not sure there's such a thing as a city that's not vulnerable to at least one climate change or natural disaster threat.

> I'm not sure there's such a thing as a city that's not vulnerable to at least one climate change or natural disaster threat.

Denver seems pretty safe. No earthquakes, safe from rising seas, no hurricanes or tsunamis.

True, except for freshwater availability. Denver already has to pipe water in and hope for plenty of snowmelt. Climate changes could impact that.

Yellowstone supervolcano.

Tornados? Drought?

Driving in snow.

Northern cities that are more inland seem to avoid them. Maybe they have the same earthquake vulnerability you mentioned, but I think it's extremely unlikely, but there's Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, even Montreal that are able to deal with the large snowfalls they get, and in general don't seem like they'll be hit as hard by climate change-caused extreme weather as other areas.

An even worse version of the 1998 ice storm could really cripple the northern cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic...

>maybe if they weren't so vulnerable to climate change

Of the unpredictable and rapid vertical and horizontal kind?

What do you mean "if the state ever figures its shit out"?