Really appreciate the note on public transportation. Limited housing gets a lot of the press currently but other infrastructure including public transportation is pretty overwhelmed currently as well. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing major public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are also overloaded. It also seems like it would be a lot easier to fix as the current system is pretty crazy with most public transportation done at the county level with 20 operators in 9 counties so for most public transportation you can't cross a county line without transfering[4]. I think a lot of people living in the bay would be more open to development if there were actually going to be infrastructure to support it.
The Bay Area does not have the 2nd worst traffic - off the top of my head, NYC, LA, and DC are often ranked higher in most articles on worst traffic, and from experience, I at least know that NYC and DC have it far worse.
Report from I cited TomTom says SF in particular has second worst traffic in the US[1]. I think lots of other cities have terrible traffic and ranking would certainly change depending on how exactly one evaluates traffic and what are the limits of the metro area. Point here is just to show that traffic is already bad and public transportation is also impacted. Especially in SF where Muni is by their own report [2] the slowest and most expensive to operate public transportation of 10 comparable US cities.
I just appreciate top comment bringing up this type of infrastructure as I think there is room for big improvement in Bay Area. We really need it to support any increase in housing which is also badly needed to ensure a diverse and prosperous economy going forward.
Yeah, traffic is so bad in New York that we have to have three different rail systems to bring commuters into the city! Even investment bankers from Greenwich have to commute with the peasants, what a infrastructural tragedy!
I personally take my helicopter to work to avoid all that, but it's pretty expensive.
[1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/bay-areas-disjointed-pu...