The Problem with Solano County's Rail Plan | Hacker News Reader

The Problem with Solano County's Rail Plan

solanorail.blogspot.com

43 pointsDoreenMichele49 comments

The Bay Area used to be dotted with military bases.

  Alameda NAS
  Concord Naval Weapons Station
  Fleet Industrial Supply Center Oakland
  Hamilton AFB
  Hunters Point
  Mare Island
  Moffett Field
  Oakland Army Base
  Oakland Naval Hospital
  Presidio
  Treasure Island

In fact Silicon Valley used to be defense industry before it was silicon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

Losing Travis would cost jobs but CA would eventually recover. Vallejo is finally recovering from Mare Island closing and losing that tax base. However, we pay for those jobs which get shipped elsewhere with CA taxes. Also, military jobs are less impacted by economic cycles and provide more stability to the local economy. Solano should fight hard to keep Travis but the article doesn't provide good news on that front.

That misses the point that the problem is transit created as political footballs. That basically results in grand plans that end-up worthless.

I used to live in Sonoma County. To fight congestion, they created the Smart Train. But through a similar process, the train wound-up a seldom running, expensive medium rail from nowhere to nowhere.

Maybe there's a reason to not put trains where people generally good but you'd have to spell out what that is.

They made the mistake of trying to build that train through Marin. Good luck. Marin's home to some of the most regressive local politics imaginable.

The mistake of thinking they could go halfway through Marin and extend it later.

And the mistake of having the train use a single track for half it's length (once an hour service at most, any time of day).

More airbases and airfields:

  Crissy Field
  Half Moon Bay Airport
  Watsonville Airport

If we venture a bit farther south:

  Hollister 12th Naval District Target No. 5 [1] [2]
  Salinas Army Air Base

[1] http://www.militarymuseum.org/NAS-Hollister-History.pdf

[2] https://goo.gl/maps/HEpQV6QZp7B6jHi98 (The runway is Lightning Tree Ranch, a private airstrip now used for drone testing. The bombing range is the deserted area to its south.)

Camp Parks too. They've has been selling off land to local developers, to the point that they completely moved the primary entrance. Signage claims it's for reserve force training, but it used to host some MILSATCOM personnel, and there's no indication that's changed.

Remember to read "protecting the environment" as "protecting our segregation" when anyone opposes constructing housing or transportation of any kind. From the summary of the linked slides:

> "Recommendations: Halt work on sites for Benicia and Vacaville-Fairfield. Develop plans which better serve the majority of residents along the Capitol Corridor Route"

Now, I wonder what "the majority of residents" in Benicia might want? (or, might not want?)

https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-franci...

"Rio Vista and Benicia are the two most segregated, and heavily white cities of Solano County."

NIMBYism is just Conservatism bereft of any kind of principles or values.

I thought the bay area is very liberal? Japan which is a very conservative country, both in absolute terms and as a general philosophy, has very lax zoning rules and many trains running literally thorough people back yards. So I wouldn't say it is related.

The Bay Area is many things to many different types of people. Unfortunately it is also very segregated: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

From what I've experienced, the majority of the Bay Area is very liberal up until the point it actually costs them something - then it quickly becomes a conservative paradise.

People will shout and scream and boycott to make sure you can use whatever bathroom you choose. Or make sure that everyone respects your choice of pronouns.

But ask those same people to build more housing and provide ample public transit? Ask those same people to close all private schools and force people to use public school lottery systems that mingle rich, middle-class, and poor?

Absolutely never. They isolate into their communities and tell the folks trying to get in that their town is now full.

You’re definitely correct that NIMBYism is a form of conservatism (in the classic sense of the word), but what I find really interesting is how effectively NIMBYism crosses party lines. I’ve noticed both very liberal and very conservative people will both be anti-development, but their rationales will change. The conservative will raise objections around things like “neighborhood character” and “small businesses”, while liberals will raise objections around “the environment” or “displacing disadvantaged communities”. Either way, the resultant viewpoint is the same: everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing should ever change.

In support of your point, Margaret Atwood (the author of The Handmaid's Tale) is famously NIMBY [0].

[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/3707723/margaret-atwood-condo-con...

On the other hand the article calls "8-storey 16-unit building" a "modest condo development". I'm not NIMBY, and I would be opposed to that.

Well then you are NIMBY, just for some things and not others, like every other person.

OK, where should those people live instead?

When you're a NIMBY, depending on your political persuasion they might say:

* I don't care, just not here

* One of the housing developments in other towns, which I don't oppose

* Working from home is the future, why do people need to move here anyway?

* Further out, served by improved public transport infrastructure.

* Homelessness is really more of a mental health services problem. So the real solution here is healthcare reform.

* The problem is billion-dollar corporations all centralising in one place for no good reason. We should spread the jobs out.

* Who says the population has to grow at all? Capitalism is the problem, the endless growth it demands isn't possible.

* The solution is a bay-area-wide master plan to deliver an integrated response, addressing our current and future needs for jobs, homes, schools, equality, desegregation, mass transit, homeless and mental health services, and a response to the climate crisis.

Needless to say, these are well beyond the power of someone building a few condos. But the NIMBY's alternative is only to assuage their conscience, so realism isn't important.

If only these meetings included the kids who don't know their parents because mom and dad have commutes where they leave at 6 AM and get home at 8 PM. But the problem with "consulting with the community" is it doesn't give a voice to the people who might _like_ to live in Berkeley, but are stuck commuting from Stockton because they're not millionaires.

Yep won’t some please think of the children.

There's also a whole range of possibilities between "people don't have a place to live" and "oh, let's build sixteen 8-storey buildings".

> these are well beyond the power of someone building a few condos.

They are probably within the power, but they really don't care. It's cheaper and faster to build a few apartment blocks in a limited space (usually putting a strain on existing infrastructure — from water and sewage to roads to kindergartens and schools) than to invest in building out.

Unfortunately, as I see it in trends around the world, this is what's happening in almost every country. Why create a "master plan to deliver an integrated response" when you can plop down a few apartment buildings and be don with it.

> They are probably within the power, but they really don't care. It's cheaper and faster to build a few apartment blocks in a limited space (usually putting a strain on existing infrastructure — from water and sewage to roads to kindergartens and schools) than to invest in building out.

The reason we have gotten to this point is building out instead of up, sprawl instead of vertical expansion. Surely the solution is not more sprawl.

There's definitely a sweet spot in between.

It’s a chicken and egg problem: why build infrastructure that is not currently needed. And if try to attach the infrastructure construction to the housing construction, it complicates the process. This reduces supply.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

> And if try to attach the infrastructure construction to the housing construction, it complicates the process.

That's how you end up with public transport overwhelmed, electric grid strained, local schools and kindergartens overflown. Because instead of "attaching infrastructure construction to the housing construction" you just build housing. Lots of it.

And then there will be a unified voice to fix those issues, versus the reality today where all those things already happen, just only to the poorest and least-represented.

> And then there will be a unified voice to fix those issues

By then it will already be too late, and you would have to tear down half or more of what has been built just to fix the issues.

> "oh, let's build sixteen 8-storey buildings"

I'm pretty sure an "8-storey 16-unit building" means "a single building, with 16 apartments spread over 8 floors" - not 16 buildings.

Ah, thank you. Got confused by that. It doesn't sound too bad (but can't say for sure without seeing the actual plan, of course)

There's a whole range between "sixteen 8-storey buildings" and "people don't have where to live"

The line that NIMBYism doesn't cross is the property owner / renter line.

That even depends. In San Francisco, where there is extensive rent control, I've noticed even renters tend to also be extreme NIMBYs, because any change to the neighborhood might result in them losing their $500/month legacy rent-controlled unit.

What changes to the neighborhood could cause that?

I believe one possible sequence would go something like this:

1. The area that contains your rental unit is rezoned, allowing higher density

2. The current owner of the building you rent in is now able to sell the property to a developer interested in demolishing the building in favor of a taller, denser one

3. You get kicked out, and have to find an apartment at market rate (Your building being demolished is one of the few ways you can kick a tenant out in San Francisco IIRC)

When people have lived in a place for long enough their memories and to a certain extent their identity are bound up with that area. Development, especially low density to high density development can feel a bit like too much change too fast and irrational or not it feels like part of your home and your past are being destroyed.

People will come up with any number of reasons to oppose it as you suggest, but the core reason I think is simply people don't want their homes and neighbourhoods to change dramatically, they find comfort from them remaining roughly the same over time.

It’s not always about that kind of diffuse NIMBY objections. At 2% growth a county takes 35 years for the population to double. However, that growth is rarely spread evenly.

The difference between living next to farmers and having a giant subdivision, 5,000 kid summer camp, or an airport next door are huge. We rarely see direct compensation for the negative impacts of such change so people have little reason to support change that negatively impacts themselves.

Portland, OR is famous for hating both sprawl and density. NIMBYism is something all Americans can get behind.

The traffic in the Greater Bay Area is so bad, the effect of chokepoints so profound, and the geographic concentration of jobs is so strong, that the Park-and-Ride model actually works there, and isn't just wishful thinking. This means that the exact placement of stations in the exurbs is much less relevant.

The viability of P+R makes the Benicia station worthwhile to pursue, despite the challenging site. It's clear that transit-oriented development won't happen there, but in terms of transportation geography, it's a chokepoint at the Solano side of one of the few crossings of the Strait.

The newly-opened Travis station is as close to the base as they could've cheaply made it, being completely greenfield and not clashing with any existing land use. If the base really wanted to, they could arrange a traffic-avoiding shuttle between the station and the base, through a new, dedicated northwest gate. But it's worth remembering that any threat Travis makes about encroachment is likely tough talk to keep the neighboring towns from getting too clever, because Travis encroaches just as well on itself: half of the base is housing, there's elementary schools...

I admire the author's passion: I'm the same way, poring over GIS and aerial photos, reading draft plans, EIS documents, and public comments. But the author perhaps overestimates the county's appetite for well-placed rail stations next to which a higher density of construction becomes worthwhile. Just look at the Suisun-Fairfield station, which is nearly as well-placed as the one in Davis. If a midrange suburban hotel, a two-story office building, some offramps, and some underutilized public space the most the two cities can offer for this key gateway, what hope is there for a site where Vacaville's sprawl gives way to farms on its eastern edge?

It's an admirable effort and I'm glad the author is concerned about such issues -- we need such concerned citizens. I hope she applies her local enthusiasm to wherever she is now.

I think the presentation could use some help though, for the idea to come through clearly (I don't know enough locally to comment on the merits):

1) The webpage and title purport to tell the story about what should be done, but it's filled with tangential information not relevant to the issue. It took me about 3 casual readings to realize there were conclusions about the alternative plan that should be pursued, written on the page. And I didn't realize what this page was for, until I clicked the PPT link -- which is relatively hidden amongst text despite it leading to the primary document of substance.

2) The document itself (PPT -- unfortunate vertical format and page/text layout I have to say) is also not clear about the disadvantages of the current route, and advantages of the proposed route. Despite being so short, it rambles. It really needs some summary bullet points and maybe a table for someone to quickly grasp what the proposal is.

3) Visually, the map differences between the existing planned route and the proposed alternative are not at all clear -- the maps look almost identical to my quick glance at this scale. If some of the conclusions are that the stations are poorly located, the point is to show some of the locations in detail and the alternative location in clear comparison. It's almost without point to enlarge the maps so much, yet not point out what is distinguishing about the original versus the proposed route alternatives.

Overall, given that county/city authorities signed off on the project, and that this reads as someone's interesting but casual idea, I can only (as a uninformed observer citizen) assume that forces at play have made their decision, and an effort like this, unless professionalized and given some real attention, are probably too late (see other comments below on why).

But if there is opportunity to make change, I wish the author (or others interested) good luck in going after it!

I live in Benicia and I think the alternate plan is slightly disingenuous in removing Vallejo as a consideration for the Benicia stop. Much of Vallejo is only 20 minutes away from the rail line.

Tragedy of the commons in action

I'm not surprised to hear that bay area politicians would be happy to rid themselves of something "unpleasant" like a military base. Also, I wish we would give up all the grandiose and expensive plans for trains as a means of public transportation in the US. This pandemic has just added another reason why they are not viable here.

Berlin, New York, London, and Tokyo, and dozens more show that it’s perfectly possible to get the virus under control even in places where public transport is popular.

By getting ridership down to 5-20% of normal levels.

Which is a level where public transport is unsustainable, both from a monetary and from an environmental standpoint.

To get a handle on what 5 to 20% means in the context of Japan, I did some searching around. It turns out that the Tokyo Metro and BART have similar amount of track (121.2 miles vs 131 miles), though the Tokyo Metro has many more stations. If the Tokyo Metro was operating at 5 to 20% or normal, it is still exceeding BART's daily ridership.

"Tokyo Metro" is one of several metro networks in greater Tokyo. 121 miles only represents the sum total of a single subway system

What's the argument here? The decreased mobility affects roads and airports too, should we tear them up ASAP?

The deeper, obvious (I thought) argument is that corona is a special, temporary circumstance, not a point for or against anything long-term.

Bus rapid transportation could be a better fit, given existing freeway infrastructure. But good luck taking away two lanes of highway anywhere in the United States (true right-of-way separation is necessary for any effective _rapid _transit). A lot of other BRT ends up most of the time being express buses with fancy stations/shelters that still cost a bunch of money.

Honestly I think that the way we plan cities in North America is broken to the point where any transportation strategy is doomed to result in sprawl and congestion. To use a train analogy, I’d say that city planning is the true third-rail of American politics.

The problem is that moonshots do not work for solving bread and butter problems, and generally speaking you need to do lots of legwork before a metro area is ready for such things. The poster child I like to use for this is San Jose VTA, which has not a lot to show for its large light rail network despite being the home to Silicon Valley, but similar stories can be told in most major US metropolitan areas.

The odd one out in terms of public transportation in the last two decades is Seattle. Seattle is now investing tens of billions of dollars to extend the tentacles of its light rail throughout the region, eventually to 116 miles. But before this has even been completed, the metro area is one of the only non-NYC metros to have recorded consistently positive transit ridership growth in total, and probably the only one that had an actual percentage growth in mode share too, all with a rapidly expanding population.

This has mostly occurred via the normal, no-frills bus. The vast majority of bus routes do not have lanes or traffic priority or separation, but the very important thing is that frequency was massively increased; 70% of Seattle households are a ten minute walk from very frequent transit in 2019, up from 25%. [1] It turns out that if bus services are actually convenient, and driving is a pain in the ass, people will switch to transit to save themselves the frustration of having to actually pay attention to maddening road congestion. In addition land use in Seattle has long been focused on smart growth, with growth being funneled into dense regional nodes and highway buses being set up to link them on an hourly or half-hourly basis.

[1] https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual...

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