> other people will ride BART, which will reduce traffic for me so I can drive > (I do hear BART has better ridership now)

Not just better ... It's literally bursting at it's 1970s-designed seams.

The culture around driving vs rapid transit access has changed dramatically in the Bay Area since that time. In those days, people who couldn't afford to drive (very poor) used mass transit, which is why people of means preferred to drive. Today, people pay for the privelege of _not_ having to drive to the workplace.

There's a lot of evidence that housing near good non-car transit is in higher demand than equivalent non-transit accessible housing.

For proof you need look no further than the price/sqft for housing within a few blocks of BART stations vs farther away:

"A condominium located within a half mile of BART is worth 15 percent more than one located more than five miles from BART, all else being equal" [1]

Admittedly that's a study by BART themselves, but you can see the same pattern around the price of housing near tech company shuttle stops, which has in turn attracted the ire of anti-gentrification advocates.

1. https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2014-08%20BART...

> There's a lot of evidence that housing near good non-car transit is in higher demand than equivalent non-transit accessible housing.

Anyone paying attention to house prices knows this well. 1,000 sqft. bungalows near BART stations are going for 1.5mm, while 5 or more blocks away, they're a more 'reasonable' 1.1 or 1.2. The price difference is stark and easily observable.

What kills me isn't so much the lack of apartments in single-family home areas, it's the resistance to ideal apartment development projects. 1900 4th St. in Berkeley is a perfect example: it's high density, right by Cal Train, nearly commercial/shopping, and currently a parking lot that's poorly utilized. It's the perfect example of sustainable high-density development, yet the resistance has been withering. Not to mention the exploitation of Ohlone culture and history. It's despicable.

> right by Cal Train

I think you mean Amtrak, but overall point taken.

Actually BART is continuing its downward trend as has most mass transit in the US [1]. Ridership was down in 41 out of 50 cities just from last year. Even with increases in service areas many transit authorities did not see a good return on investment. A common method has been to reduce bus service to try to bolster rail only to end up losing the revenue from the bus riders. Many transit authorities have tens of billions in deferred maintenance that is catching up to them. NYC has notorious problems with both expansion and maintaining its current system with pension debt fast becoming the big bogey man.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/With-BART-riders...