30 Years in Review

Hat Tip to The Overhead Wire for posting this video:

Development Oriented Transit

I read Streetsblog New York's piece on BRT yesterday, and thought about mentioning some arguments in opposition to BRT, but held off.

Good decision, it turns out, since The Overhead Wire can be counted on to make the case against BRT far more passionately than I can. That post and the comments it generated are definitely worth a read, but one remark in particular struck me:

SF's Own Second Ave Subway

Not down Second Avenue in the Richmond District, naturally. The title refers to the eighty-year-long history of the as yet unbuilt Subway line under Second Avenue in Manhattan.


This map was drawn in 1931, two years after the Second Avenue line in New York was proposed. I have a copy of this hanging in my hallway, so I was surprised when I noticed the other day that it includes a couple lines that transit enthusiasts would still love to see built.

See, It Doesn't Cost Too Much!

I can always count on The Overhead Wire to link to a news story that pisses me off. I fully recognize that there's a pie-in-the-sky element to my H-Potrero Van Ness subway plan because it is the most expensive option. But it's just damn hard to take such claims of poverty seriously when cases like this are out there.

It's not 'We don't have the money,' it's 'We don't want to spend it on public transit.'

Keep Hope alive

I take sick pleasure in reading posts like this. They keep alive a dream that will almost certainly be dashed by the intellectual giants at the SFCTA.

One point that The Overhead Wire touched on that I think is important is that a proper setup for this corridor involves grade separated rapid transit (subway) in addition to an improved surface line.

SFCTA Prefers Wrong Option for Geary

What a week for any agency called SF_TA!

The Examiner reports that the SFCTA (San Francisco County Transportation Authority, not to be confused with the MTA) has surprised nobody and chosen center-lane BRT as the preferred option for the Geary corridor. I'm inclined to agree with what The Overhead Wire says about this conclusion: that it's based on unrealistically high estimates of the cost of rail, and unrealistically high estimates of the ridership of BRT.

It evokes a point frustrated transit advocates repeat like a mantra - Why is building a road with extra room considered to be planning for the future, whereas building a transit route with extra capacity is considered a waste of money?

Transit is just as susceptible to the if-you-build-it-they-will-come of induced demand as roads are. If you build a robust, rapid rail line underneath Geary, you will get more riders than you think (as Phoenix did) and your investment will pay off as population and retail activity along the corridor increases.