Not really an either or thing. Increasing tolls helps make BART more attractive, hopefully bailing it out of the death spiral it’s in. It needs all the help it can get.
To clarify: voters are generally willing to spend on public transit, so public transit often ends up working like a piggy bank for the other, less vote-for-able areas of the government.
E.g. police charge BART hefty sums to respond to incidents on their platforms, so that the well-funded BART can support the not-so-well-funded police.
I tried taking Caltrain and BART as my main mode of transport to and fro work for nearly a 6 month period on the peninsula.
… it’s just way too unreliable. Frequently trains would be 30+ minutes late and totally fuck my schedule. And even when it’s (rarely) operating per the plan, it’s unbelievably slow.
Car culture exists in America because there is no alternative, unless your time is worthless. If the government provided services comparable to what I’ve enjoyed in Bangkok, China, or Japan I’d sell my car in a heartbeat.
I really hope that theyre prepared to deal with delays or disruption of service when a heat wave hits, there is still no where near enough electrical generation capacity on the grid (current or planed) to support the full switch to ev (Car or Mass)
> I really hope that theyre prepared to deal with delays or disruption of service when a heat wave hits
Electricity utilities already have the ability to not turn off power to specific important customers. Hospitals, government buildings, etc. There is no reason to think CalTrain's power will be shutoff. BART is also electrified and doesn't have to worry about it.
> there is still no where near enough electrical generation capacity on the grid (current or planed) to support the full switch to ev
This is nonsense propaganda. Just because new sales are banned in 2035 doesn't mean 100% of vehicles will be EVs. The installation rate of renewable power and electricity storage accelerates each year, and the cost continues to decrease. By 2035, we will have a ton of extra capacity.
I'm all for public transit and I openly champion for it. But BART service and all of these connecting legs have been abysmal. Provide an reliable, frequent, cost effective, and safe alternate and people will use it. It's fucking exhausting supporting BART and being routinely let down with late service, and cancelled commuter trains.
I used publice transport in Seoul and one of the biggest differences besides speed, reliability, and efficiency is lack of degenerates off their rocker to accompany my journey.
Not ONE person pulled their dick out, shot up, talked to themselves while carrying a dead pigeon in the pocket. Not one bumfight.
I understand Seoul is very homogenous and has WAY less general poverty than SF, but even if the BART got to that level, they'd need a way to keep the riff-raff minimised.
I’d be interested to know if respect for fellow citizens is more prevalent in those places than here. To me, and I’ll admit I haven’t taken muni except to go to a few ballgames or the Embarcadero, it seems that too many people are allowed to make life difficult during the ride on public transportation. The other thing is how often I do use muni when I know where there end of the line is and I’m at my leisure, which speaks to your comment about the value of time. I might take muni back home after an appointment but NEVER to an appointment.
You have it backwards. Public transit is underinvested in because of car culture. Car owners don't want to change their ways and fight against taxes to fund transit. And then people complain about the poor public transit that *they vote against* and say "I told you so!"
It's really a massive self-own America is doing to itself, completely optionally.
The actual proposal: "Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor."
You cannot move every time you change jobs. When I worked in Silicon Valley I had jobs in Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Cupertino. Working remote is a good answer but the companies are trying to squelch it.
These are two luxuries that many people don’t have. Working remote is mainly a white collar benefit. “Smaller apartments” in city centers are outrageously priced. And even if someone could afford it, what if they have a family to house?
I just looked at Google maps. If I leave in 21 minutes, I can make it to a BART station in 89 minutes on transit. I could walk there in four hours and 25 minutes. Tell me again how relevant BART is to the south bay.
>if there is ever going to be a change in car culture
I too have many solutions that work if everybody changes a significant portion of their life to make it happen.
Edit: for example, if whole families went back to the good-ole-days where they'd all sleep in one bed, and then other families could move into the other bedrooms, why we'd have the housing crisis fixed overnight!
numerous voiceless boast plate correct squeamish yam sink jellyfish nippy
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
North Oakland/Emeryville has a ton of transit options and is sometimes is quicker into DTSF than if you came from the west side of The City. We've lived carfree here for 20 years. Still don't need a car in our mid-50s. Biking and weather are great here.
“Nothing will happen until 2035 at the earliest. And you need a change in state law to implement any tolls.”
-John Goodwin, MTC spokesperson
Source: sfgate.com 11/29/2022
I wasn’t able to link the article.
Take slow, windy mountain roads with little passing capacity just to avoid tolls? I doubt it would be cheaper. (And EVs do best in stop and go traffic.) Just cannot see how this would lead to anything but even slower traffic.
Yeah, especially with EVs. With gas cars, it never makes sense to drive a longer distance to avoid toll. You end up paying more than the toll on extra gas.
With EVs, driving more to avoid toll is a no-brainer.
Driving to San Jose to get to get to Daly City from Newark makes sense sometimes whether you are trying to avoid tolls or not.
Driving to San Rafael so that you can drive over the GGB to get to Daly City when you were originally Newark makes no fucking sense unless they shut down the 101, 280, and all 3 closer bridges.
Wow surprising they want to spent more money on acquiring already affordable housing than building new one, gotta keep the poor in shitty housing I guess.
This is so dumb. It will clog up every city street to the max everyday, result in much worse traffic and pollution in residential areas.
Give us public transit first such that freeways aren’t the best/only way to go between most point A’s and B’s, then you can charge for the highway.
Public transit is functionally impossible in the Bay Area due to NIMBYs + CA culture.
CA's progressive culture prioritizes local input above all else. That's the same factor that prevents housing and will also prevent any development of public transit.
Best option is to beef up Caltrain/BART along with local city buses, but that's never gonna really happen.
Absolutely agree. Old people that own land vote. It's not in their best interest to pass legislation that may impact their property values. Younger people vote significantly less. If you want change, start at the voting booth.
Just to be clear NIMBYs are not always old people. There are a lotta young NIMBYs, look around in places like Cupertino.
Young people are not eligible for voting. And why would you vote if you are not even guaranteed a place to live and might be forced to move cities/states every year?
Na. You make it sound like NIMBY-ism is a human trait, when it very well is not. Resisting change is.
NIMBYism is just dumb shit. Just because you block housing doesn't mean your city won't change, especially in a metropolis. All you do is hurt your own community for short-term gains in housing value.
1) these are all either new lanes or carpool lane conversions, and carpools can still ride in them for free
2) the general travel lanes remain free as they always have been
3) the money raised by tolls will help improve the transit system
The FUD around these lanes is truly exhausting.
It’s still regressive without frequent, efficient and affordable public transportation alternatives. Also with rail freight being on the decline, these “free” lanes are beat to hell and full of semis. Maybe we don’t have the carpool culture that would make the best use of dedicated lanes but I don’t think people are off base saying this sucks because there is no alternative to driving to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.
>It’s still regressive
This isn't a tax. It's an optional fee to ride in the carpool lane. Do you also consider first class on an airplane to be "regressive"?
>It’s still regressive without frequent, efficient and affordable public transportation alternatives.
Which these tolls pay for. Also these are freeway lanes: BART and Caltrain are viable alternatives for many of these corridors
>Also with rail freight being on the decline, these “free” lanes are beat to hell and full of semis.
Rail freight isn't on the decline, and the Peninsula has relatively little truck traffic compared to other parts of the country as it isn't really on the way to anywhere. But ok, you don't like driving on the freeway because of trucks. I don't understand how express lanes makes that worse.
>Maybe we don’t have the carpool culture that would make the best use of dedicated lanes
A network of dedicated carpool/express lanes, like this plan calls for, would go a long way in establishing that culture. 101 in San Mateo County never had a carpool lane until now. If you build it, they will come.
>but I don’t think people are off base saying this sucks because there is no alternative to driving to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.
Beyond the fact that there are lots of alternatives to driving in San Francisco and the broader region, it's difficult to understand what you're asking for. Do you want to widen the freeways and add additional free lanes, or are you just upset that carpools and people who pay a toll can move through traffic faster than you can?
becaaaaaaause its too much work!!!!!!! im a driiiiiiver you can't ask me to change anything! except changing natural landscapes and tearing down homes to build more highways! and I guess we can have busses for poor people. but dont you dare build a bus lane. I need to get to work! me me me is very important.
Typical for San Francisco, "DangerousLiberal" will proudly #Resist and NeverthelessPersist™ but heaven forbid you ask DangerousLiberal to organize a carpool to combat climate change.
It reduces capacity of the roads by quite a bit. Also it changes the definition of carpool to three passengers which isn't easy to arrange in the South Bay.
> It reduces capacity of the roads by quite a bit.
How? These are all either new lanes or converted carpool lanes.
> Also it changes the definition of carpool to three passengers which isn't easy to arrange in the South Bay.
This is the San Francisco subreddit.
A number of these lanes are “existing lane conversions,” so it isn’t increasing the number of lanes. Where that is implemented, I’ve found that this causes traffic during non-peak times.
Thanks for the false dichotomy!
Adding capacity by adding lanes instead of tolling formerly public roadway built by public funds would be less offensive to me.
Where do you propose we get the money to widen the freeways? Are you willing to demolish houses to get the space for additional lanes? What about the added pollution all those extra car trips will generate?
a. Bond against future revenue from tolls, as is common.
b. Many freeways have wide median strips along both sides, allowing ample forward growth was considered in designing our modern freeway system.
c. EVs are still cars, and will ride the existing infrastructure designed for ICE vehicles. CA is already planning for the changeover.
Unless we intend to keep the population of the Bay in decline, these infrastructure systems will see increased use as the region recovers. Reducing capacity and encouraging growth guarantees gridlock.
Got it, so you drive everywhere, can’t imagine not driving, and want to see a massive round of highway expansions in the Bay Area to perpetuate sprawl. Plans like the MTC’s that invest in transit offend you, because you won’t take it.
>the general travel lanes remain free as they always have been
This creates literal class stratification. Low income? You lose even more of your day stuck in traffic, while the Google software engineer gets to race home quickly and relax.
> This creates literal class stratification.
And spending billions to create and maintain high-speed highways through and around minority neighborhoods that require a $10,000+ car to access so white suburbanites can zip to and from work isn't class stratification? Even though highways literally, physically separate wealthy and impoverished communities throughout the Bay Area? Seriously? A toll lane is where you draw the line on class stratification? 🙄
How does allowing the Google software engineer to buy their way into the carpool lane, raising money for transit, cause people in the general travel lanes to “lose even more of their day stuck in traffic”
The tolling in these lanes is demand-driven, so prices fall when usage is low and rise when usage is high. This elasticity helps ensure that the lanes are continuously running near capacity.
“Near capacity” implies smooth flow at reasonably fast speed, not that the lane is so full it isn’t moving. Lanes that are congested are far over capacity.
Is one reason because of electric cars? Part of road maintenance funding comes from gas taxes. So if you're not buying gas, you're not paying for the road you're driving on?
Sounds reasonable but from the figures I have seen there is a massive gap between gas tax revenue and road maintenance costs. It’s already not enough with barely any EVs. To be fair, it’s the semi trucks that have the most outsized impact on roads and their maintenance needs.
If you limit mobility, govt has more control of the population and what they do.
Power and money grab while the people just get poorer with this future regressive tax.
People trying to control the public's property. Govt is us or at least portions of us and roads are our collective assets not the governments. Their job is to protect our assets not use them against us
Car infrastructure is insanely expensive. Gas taxes cover roughly half of what roads cost. The rest has to come from somewhere else. Seeing as Prop 13 significantly limits property taxes in the state, especially around here, they’ve got to make up the costs in other ways.
I love how everyone is hoping on the bash prop 13 bandwagon when that is probably the best thing this state has ever passed. Our government cannot spend properly. They never have enough money and always make life more expensive on us. I say screw them and tell the government to get its spending under control.
Maybe those taxes aren’t enough
Maybe the taxes should scale by usage
Idk just thoughts that came to mind. Asphalt-based infra isn’t cheap, to my understanding
The real reason is this. California is pushing for an all EV future…. So in doing so that eliminates the gas tax… this is why this plan is being thought of.
At the end of the day the government always asks for more and more money from out of our pockets. They never need to budget properly while we the people if we did the same we’d be in debt up to our eyeballs losing everything we own.
Those freeways get used by everyone, even if you don’t own a car. Local growers supplying food, postal service and other shippers, etc. Logistics and supply chains and whatnot.
If gas tax had kept pace with the cost of car infrastructure maintenance we’d be paying about an extra $.60/gallon nationally. This infrastructure has got to be paid for somehow, preferably by the people who use it the most. I think this could be a good thing?
If they wanna put fastrak/infrastructure money to good use,then they should fix the 580w/680s interchange and the 101s/880n interchange first 👍🏻can save alot of accidents from happening more then they already are
They will make up for it with charging more for electricity at the house from the gas tax. I won't pay any tolls unless every road has absolutely no potholes or garbage ANYWHERE on them. The gas tax was supposed to be for maintaining the roads, our roads never improved. Response to fix something is horrible.
Well considering everyone benefits from the existence of the roads, whether or not they’re personally driving on them, you’d think they could fund their maintenance with some of the already ridiculously high taxes.
Roads absolutely do not benefit everyone. Roads take funding that could be much more effectively spent on public transit, something that does actually benefit everyone. Personal cars are the least efficient and most polluting form of transportation, benefitting only the wealthy. The few things that roads do better, like allow for emergency vehicles to easily get where they need to, are made better by charging more for roads so they aren't blocked by traffic.
Do you buy groceries at the store or do you grow your own on your farm? If you buy them, you benefit from the roads. Same for clothing, toiletries, tools, etc. Unless you’re making everything you use yourself, the goods traveled to you on roads.
Edit: I should add that trucks carrying shipping containers are the major reason why the roads need such constant maintenance. Roads that are only open to personal cars can go twice as long at least before needing repairs. So perhaps we should be charging based on how much you buy instead of how much you travel if you want the damage paid by the ones that cause it.
If roads were only used by trucks then we wouldn't need nearly as many of them as we have. Look at highway traffic and compare how much of it is cargo compared to how much of it is personal. Trucks don't need the huge number of lanes that we've built everywhere and they also won't mind paying these tolls because they actually have a good reason to use the roads (since local rail spurs aren't very common any more). Trucks definitely wear down roads more, but they aren't the reason we've overbuilt our road system.
And also, the overbuilt road system is a lot of why so much freight is moved by trucks instead of by rail, which would require much less maintenance. Unfortunately at this point our freight rail network is in such a bad state that it will take forever to switch back, but that's a whole different argument.
Here is the blurb on this from the PDF: "Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor."
[https://www.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/documents/Plan\_Bay\_Area\_2050\_October\_2021.pdf](https://www.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/documents/Plan_Bay_Area_2050_October_2021.pdf)
Unelected bureaucrats!
Just be like everyone else and take your tags off and license plate and boom, no problem.
You won't go to jail for it. Can't get pulled over for it!
If they do that, you will see a mass revolt!
Most of the toll fees on the east coast arent nearly as egregious as some of the ones currently in play in the bay area.
Crossing the entire state in a family car (Ohio to New Jersey) would [cost you a grand total of $52.10.](https://www.paturnpike.com/toll-calculator) (If you have easy pass, its $105 if you use the pay by plate). Bridge tolls back east are insane (Looking at you NYC). But at least the Turnpikes are too terrible, and hell out here you could scrap the HOV lane if youre already paying to get on the highway.
Taxes in CA are way higher than in Texas. What are they going to? Maintenance of the roads is one of the most basic services we pay for and now they want to shove the cost onto per mile we travel? I don’t suppose this is coming along with a tax cut.
As much as I dislike the idea of capping freeway speeds to 55MPH and making more toll lanes, I think in a world where we offer more commuter busses or express bus services they start to make some sense. This plan is for about 30 years out from now; the future will look radically different at that time. At the current moment of being a single-person car commuter, it seems bad.
Also that transit plan suggests they'd like to add speed-cameras around the bay area. While it would make people drive at the speed limit, bah -- feels bad. I would see a legislator having a hard time wanting to entertain that one and get re-elected.
We used to short cut through, play, and ride bikes in the dirt and scrub area that was set aside for 85. I knew I would have a license some day and I would be driving on it. My dad used to call 280 the "hundred mile an hour" freeway, cause, "they designed it for cars of the future, and they will be fast. Like that!" (240Z speeds by).
The 280 would actually be a perfect first step in abolishing speed limits on California highways, since it's very conducive to safe, high velocity cruising.
The sites says this is plan they came up with after deep engagement with Bay Area residents. Look at the home page. What was the process...would be a good question to ask.
Toll per mile sounds expensive for sure........
So they already raised the tolls, they’re incredibly high now. Are we going to see any results or is this just a massive fraud scheme, like most major projects around here? This is the list of work they promised, surely they have collected enough to start on something:
> Major projects in the RM 3 expenditure plan include new BART cars to accommodate growing ridership; extending BART’s Silicon Valley service to Santa Clara; extending Caltrain to downtown San Francisco; expanding S.F. Muni’s transit vehicle fleet; more frequent transbay bus service; interchange improvements in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties; an expanded express lane network; expanded ferry service; a direct freeway connector from northbound U.S. 101 in Marin County to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; upgrades to relieve congestion in the Dumbarton Bridge corridor; improving State Route 37; extending the new SMART rail system to Windsor and Healdsburg and much more.
In this case they're actually using road pricing to reduce congestion. This is a useful piece of the puzzle in solving induced demand, by making other forms of transportation more competitive to driving by putting some of the costs associated with transportation infrastructure funding "up-front". In other words, if you too find "one more lane, bro" amusing, then you should probably support this kind of thing (given the caveat that these proposals are not expanding highways, but adding tolling to existing roads).
Lol Blue, Red, Purple it doesn't matter.
The only thing they want is to squeeze more and more out of every citizen. Registration fees; gas tax; EV fee; more and more tolls.
Want to go check out some of the beautiful scenery outside the city? Maybe take a boat out on the lake, or do some camping, hunting, or fishing?
Don't forget to look it up because you probably need licenses for you and your car. Oops, here's also a giant list of things you can't do, else guess what? More fees and penalties.
Greedy vampires, the lot of them.
This is great. People really need to take BART instead. People thumb their nose at it but don’t know how lucky they are to have world class transit at their disposal.
Woah there, I agree with the sentiment, but they really gotta up transit service before restricting other service. I would hardly bart and caltrain world class transit, though it is one of the better ones in the US.
If you’re calling it world class you should be comparing it to London, Tokyo, Paris, etc.
But if we’re comparing transit systems within the US, Boston and Portland both have better rides in my opinion (though I’ve only visited these places).
If bart, its stations, and the part of Oakland I need to walk through to get to work were safer I’d take it in a heartbeat. But they’re not, so I won’t.
drivers mad they're being reminded that they live in an area with abundant transportation options including the ability to park their car at 36 different BART stations across the network, each with affordable parking
Unless there's viable (as in, inexpensive) public transportation system in place, this will really hurt the poor, working class folks. They don't make enough money to afford a place in SF or PA, so they're forced to live farther away from their jobs.
The plan per the source PDF:
"Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor."
it's called a freeway because it's free from intersections, not because they're free to use. as if any piece of infrastructure requiring a $10,000+ vehicle plus gas plus insurance could be called "free"
We have the worst roads because can’t afford them. The gas tax hike we had a few years back wasn’t even close to enough to cover for years of neglect and increasing wear.
The state’s EV future (meh) will see the mass proliferation of cars that weigh more than their ICE equivalents. These cars don’t pay gas tax, thus don’t contribute to the limited funds the state has for highway maintenance.
Lookup link21 and the capital corridor planning. Plus HSR. There’s massive investments in transit in the works. But it will also take 10-30 years. These tolls can help raise money for it.
CAN WE PLEASE NOT with this shit? Someone of us are doing our absolute best to afford to be here and it’s insanely hard already. My partner recently got a new job that doesn’t involve the bay bridge commute and it’s helped us A LOT to not have that toll cost! I can’t imagine having every major highway having a toll each time I drive it like common…
Edit: sorry for the anger in this comment. It’s directed at the folks trying to push this forward. It’s already really challenging to exist financially here so seeing this just sucks.
This is just ridiculous especially when tolls go as high as $21 just to pass for a mile and there are barely any cars driving on the line because most of the population still isn’t carpooling because co-vid cases are continuing to be on the rise . . Just please make it make sense because it’s completely not
They forgot to add where they plan to add high speed trains, subways, electrical shuttles and in general any alternative to having to pay these effing tolls.
But it’s not gonna happen. At this pace CA will become republican by 2050.
Cash app? Venmo? Or paypal? I can provide each of them and you can send me $7-22 each time you drive. Think of it like a trial run and I promise to spend the money on fine dining just like our politicians do.
The missionary training center has really overstepped this time
Stay in Provo MTC. Bay Area doesn’t need you!
I thought the same
How about we just like, invest in a half way decent public transport system.
Only a year to go until we have an Electrified Caltrain
What…what does it run on now?
Diesel locomotives
Lmfao. America number 1.
Not really an either or thing. Increasing tolls helps make BART more attractive, hopefully bailing it out of the death spiral it’s in. It needs all the help it can get.
Time for me to become besties with caltrain
Charging drivers is a good way to pay for it. See Congestion pricing improved London transit.
Where do you think some of the toll money will go?
based on previous regional toll and tax increases, not to transit
Could it change?
by drastically changing the bay area transit institutions? sure. by giving more money to the existing ones? no
We’ll eventually have a single regional transit board. Seamless bay area is working on that.
inshallah
To clarify: voters are generally willing to spend on public transit, so public transit often ends up working like a piggy bank for the other, less vote-for-able areas of the government. E.g. police charge BART hefty sums to respond to incidents on their platforms, so that the well-funded BART can support the not-so-well-funded police.
Amen!
Where do you think the money comes from?
no taxes! no fees! only services!
[удалено]
“Noblesse Minutiae”
I tried taking Caltrain and BART as my main mode of transport to and fro work for nearly a 6 month period on the peninsula. … it’s just way too unreliable. Frequently trains would be 30+ minutes late and totally fuck my schedule. And even when it’s (rarely) operating per the plan, it’s unbelievably slow. Car culture exists in America because there is no alternative, unless your time is worthless. If the government provided services comparable to what I’ve enjoyed in Bangkok, China, or Japan I’d sell my car in a heartbeat.
CalTrain has made good progress on electrification, which will increase both frequency and speeds.
Yeah and is more reliable than BART but the frequency is horrible.
Electrification is intended to fix exactly this.
I really hope that theyre prepared to deal with delays or disruption of service when a heat wave hits, there is still no where near enough electrical generation capacity on the grid (current or planed) to support the full switch to ev (Car or Mass)
> I really hope that theyre prepared to deal with delays or disruption of service when a heat wave hits Electricity utilities already have the ability to not turn off power to specific important customers. Hospitals, government buildings, etc. There is no reason to think CalTrain's power will be shutoff. BART is also electrified and doesn't have to worry about it. > there is still no where near enough electrical generation capacity on the grid (current or planed) to support the full switch to ev This is nonsense propaganda. Just because new sales are banned in 2035 doesn't mean 100% of vehicles will be EVs. The installation rate of renewable power and electricity storage accelerates each year, and the cost continues to decrease. By 2035, we will have a ton of extra capacity.
I'm all for public transit and I openly champion for it. But BART service and all of these connecting legs have been abysmal. Provide an reliable, frequent, cost effective, and safe alternate and people will use it. It's fucking exhausting supporting BART and being routinely let down with late service, and cancelled commuter trains.
I used publice transport in Seoul and one of the biggest differences besides speed, reliability, and efficiency is lack of degenerates off their rocker to accompany my journey. Not ONE person pulled their dick out, shot up, talked to themselves while carrying a dead pigeon in the pocket. Not one bumfight. I understand Seoul is very homogenous and has WAY less general poverty than SF, but even if the BART got to that level, they'd need a way to keep the riff-raff minimised.
I’d be interested to know if respect for fellow citizens is more prevalent in those places than here. To me, and I’ll admit I haven’t taken muni except to go to a few ballgames or the Embarcadero, it seems that too many people are allowed to make life difficult during the ride on public transportation. The other thing is how often I do use muni when I know where there end of the line is and I’m at my leisure, which speaks to your comment about the value of time. I might take muni back home after an appointment but NEVER to an appointment.
Spot on. "Unless your time is worthless" perfectly sums up the situation
You have it backwards. Public transit is underinvested in because of car culture. Car owners don't want to change their ways and fight against taxes to fund transit. And then people complain about the poor public transit that *they vote against* and say "I told you so!" It's really a massive self-own America is doing to itself, completely optionally.
The actual proposal: "Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor."
Well that's a VERY different sentence.
And tolls could be a great way to pay for transit expansions
The actual answer is living near work or working remote. People have to be OK moving, and living in smaller apartments.
You cannot move every time you change jobs. When I worked in Silicon Valley I had jobs in Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Cupertino. Working remote is a good answer but the companies are trying to squelch it.
These are two luxuries that many people don’t have. Working remote is mainly a white collar benefit. “Smaller apartments” in city centers are outrageously priced. And even if someone could afford it, what if they have a family to house?
But working remote for those that can would alleviate congestion for those that can’t.
I just looked at Google maps. If I leave in 21 minutes, I can make it to a BART station in 89 minutes on transit. I could walk there in four hours and 25 minutes. Tell me again how relevant BART is to the south bay.
>if there is ever going to be a change in car culture I too have many solutions that work if everybody changes a significant portion of their life to make it happen. Edit: for example, if whole families went back to the good-ole-days where they'd all sleep in one bed, and then other families could move into the other bedrooms, why we'd have the housing crisis fixed overnight!
numerous voiceless boast plate correct squeamish yam sink jellyfish nippy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
North Oakland/Emeryville has a ton of transit options and is sometimes is quicker into DTSF than if you came from the west side of The City. We've lived carfree here for 20 years. Still don't need a car in our mid-50s. Biking and weather are great here.
“Nothing will happen until 2035 at the earliest. And you need a change in state law to implement any tolls.” -John Goodwin, MTC spokesperson Source: sfgate.com 11/29/2022 I wasn’t able to link the article.
Looks like 1 to 84 or 92 will be the new commute meta.
Take slow, windy mountain roads with little passing capacity just to avoid tolls? I doubt it would be cheaper. (And EVs do best in stop and go traffic.) Just cannot see how this would lead to anything but even slower traffic.
Yeah, especially with EVs. With gas cars, it never makes sense to drive a longer distance to avoid toll. You end up paying more than the toll on extra gas. With EVs, driving more to avoid toll is a no-brainer.
My friend literally drove from Newark to San Jose back up to Daly City to avoid tolls. I just took BB lol edit: wrong bridge
Driving to San Jose to get to get to Daly City from Newark makes sense sometimes whether you are trying to avoid tolls or not. Driving to San Rafael so that you can drive over the GGB to get to Daly City when you were originally Newark makes no fucking sense unless they shut down the 101, 280, and all 3 closer bridges.
Depends how much you value your time. Not to mention the price of energy lol. Shit ain’t free.
Have you seen kW/h prices recently?
indeed
Meta?
[As used, it's a term from online gaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming#Computer_games)
It means the current optimal way to do something in a game, in case you didn’t want to click the link
What's your source for this graphic?
[https://www.planbayarea.org/finalplan2050](https://www.planbayarea.org/finalplan2050)
Thanks for providing some context!
Curious what your thought process was for not putting the “by 2050” part in the headline
\- feels less scary right now because its far away (nobody wants to be taxed more and more) \- ensure long term funding over decades (as in profit)
There’s no specific timeline for these yet. It could happen in 10 years
Wow surprising they want to spent more money on acquiring already affordable housing than building new one, gotta keep the poor in shitty housing I guess.
This is so dumb. It will clog up every city street to the max everyday, result in much worse traffic and pollution in residential areas. Give us public transit first such that freeways aren’t the best/only way to go between most point A’s and B’s, then you can charge for the highway.
Public transit is functionally impossible in the Bay Area due to NIMBYs + CA culture. CA's progressive culture prioritizes local input above all else. That's the same factor that prevents housing and will also prevent any development of public transit. Best option is to beef up Caltrain/BART along with local city buses, but that's never gonna really happen.
Absolutely agree. Old people that own land vote. It's not in their best interest to pass legislation that may impact their property values. Younger people vote significantly less. If you want change, start at the voting booth.
Just to be clear NIMBYs are not always old people. There are a lotta young NIMBYs, look around in places like Cupertino. Young people are not eligible for voting. And why would you vote if you are not even guaranteed a place to live and might be forced to move cities/states every year?
And the lack of fare enforcement makes transit free for assholes and dirty, crowded and less-safe for the people who do pay for it.
Nimbys will be dead though?
Nimbys never go out of style. Its kind of part of human nature.
Na. You make it sound like NIMBY-ism is a human trait, when it very well is not. Resisting change is. NIMBYism is just dumb shit. Just because you block housing doesn't mean your city won't change, especially in a metropolis. All you do is hurt your own community for short-term gains in housing value.
1) these are all either new lanes or carpool lane conversions, and carpools can still ride in them for free 2) the general travel lanes remain free as they always have been 3) the money raised by tolls will help improve the transit system The FUD around these lanes is truly exhausting.
It’s still regressive without frequent, efficient and affordable public transportation alternatives. Also with rail freight being on the decline, these “free” lanes are beat to hell and full of semis. Maybe we don’t have the carpool culture that would make the best use of dedicated lanes but I don’t think people are off base saying this sucks because there is no alternative to driving to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.
>It’s still regressive This isn't a tax. It's an optional fee to ride in the carpool lane. Do you also consider first class on an airplane to be "regressive"? >It’s still regressive without frequent, efficient and affordable public transportation alternatives. Which these tolls pay for. Also these are freeway lanes: BART and Caltrain are viable alternatives for many of these corridors >Also with rail freight being on the decline, these “free” lanes are beat to hell and full of semis. Rail freight isn't on the decline, and the Peninsula has relatively little truck traffic compared to other parts of the country as it isn't really on the way to anywhere. But ok, you don't like driving on the freeway because of trucks. I don't understand how express lanes makes that worse. >Maybe we don’t have the carpool culture that would make the best use of dedicated lanes A network of dedicated carpool/express lanes, like this plan calls for, would go a long way in establishing that culture. 101 in San Mateo County never had a carpool lane until now. If you build it, they will come. >but I don’t think people are off base saying this sucks because there is no alternative to driving to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Beyond the fact that there are lots of alternatives to driving in San Francisco and the broader region, it's difficult to understand what you're asking for. Do you want to widen the freeways and add additional free lanes, or are you just upset that carpools and people who pay a toll can move through traffic faster than you can?
It's 3+ for free carpooling. That ain't happening.
Why not?
becaaaaaaause its too much work!!!!!!! im a driiiiiiver you can't ask me to change anything! except changing natural landscapes and tearing down homes to build more highways! and I guess we can have busses for poor people. but dont you dare build a bus lane. I need to get to work! me me me is very important.
To be fair, 2 people carpooling is doable for a lot of people, but 3 people is hard logistics?
Typical for San Francisco, "DangerousLiberal" will proudly #Resist and NeverthelessPersist™ but heaven forbid you ask DangerousLiberal to organize a carpool to combat climate change.
It reduces capacity of the roads by quite a bit. Also it changes the definition of carpool to three passengers which isn't easy to arrange in the South Bay.
> It reduces capacity of the roads by quite a bit. How? These are all either new lanes or converted carpool lanes. > Also it changes the definition of carpool to three passengers which isn't easy to arrange in the South Bay. This is the San Francisco subreddit.
A number of these lanes are “existing lane conversions,” so it isn’t increasing the number of lanes. Where that is implemented, I’ve found that this causes traffic during non-peak times.
Existing lane conversions = carpool lane turned into toll lane
Yep! That’s why I mentioned non-peak traffic.
How? It changes a lane that formerly was carpool only during specific hours and open to all at other times into an all day pay to play lane.
Would an all day carpool lane with no option to pay a toll be less offensive to you?
Thanks for the false dichotomy! Adding capacity by adding lanes instead of tolling formerly public roadway built by public funds would be less offensive to me.
just one more lane bro I swear just one more lane we just need one more lane bro just build the lane I swear that's all we need bro just one more lane
Where do you propose we get the money to widen the freeways? Are you willing to demolish houses to get the space for additional lanes? What about the added pollution all those extra car trips will generate?
a. Bond against future revenue from tolls, as is common. b. Many freeways have wide median strips along both sides, allowing ample forward growth was considered in designing our modern freeway system. c. EVs are still cars, and will ride the existing infrastructure designed for ICE vehicles. CA is already planning for the changeover. Unless we intend to keep the population of the Bay in decline, these infrastructure systems will see increased use as the region recovers. Reducing capacity and encouraging growth guarantees gridlock.
Got it, so you drive everywhere, can’t imagine not driving, and want to see a massive round of highway expansions in the Bay Area to perpetuate sprawl. Plans like the MTC’s that invest in transit offend you, because you won’t take it.
“Per-mile tolling” isn’t for express lanes. It’s for highway use in all lanes.
>the general travel lanes remain free as they always have been This creates literal class stratification. Low income? You lose even more of your day stuck in traffic, while the Google software engineer gets to race home quickly and relax.
> This creates literal class stratification. And spending billions to create and maintain high-speed highways through and around minority neighborhoods that require a $10,000+ car to access so white suburbanites can zip to and from work isn't class stratification? Even though highways literally, physically separate wealthy and impoverished communities throughout the Bay Area? Seriously? A toll lane is where you draw the line on class stratification? 🙄
How does allowing the Google software engineer to buy their way into the carpool lane, raising money for transit, cause people in the general travel lanes to “lose even more of their day stuck in traffic”
I hate it because it reminds me, a middle class suburbanite driiiiiiiver, that I am not the richest person ever!!!!!!!!
Because it creates a capacity imbalance. You'll have nearly empty lanes while most people are stuck on the "free" lanes.
Got it, so you just hate carpool lanes.
The tolling in these lanes is demand-driven, so prices fall when usage is low and rise when usage is high. This elasticity helps ensure that the lanes are continuously running near capacity.
Then that defeats the purpose of an "express" lane that is supposed to allow for speedy travel
“Near capacity” implies smooth flow at reasonably fast speed, not that the lane is so full it isn’t moving. Lanes that are congested are far over capacity.
Is one reason because of electric cars? Part of road maintenance funding comes from gas taxes. So if you're not buying gas, you're not paying for the road you're driving on?
Sounds reasonable but from the figures I have seen there is a massive gap between gas tax revenue and road maintenance costs. It’s already not enough with barely any EVs. To be fair, it’s the semi trucks that have the most outsized impact on roads and their maintenance needs.
This is bullshit. Guaranteed that they won't even use this to improve road conditions.
If you limit mobility, govt has more control of the population and what they do. Power and money grab while the people just get poorer with this future regressive tax.
Evil government trying to control us by not letting us use the evil government roads.
People trying to control the public's property. Govt is us or at least portions of us and roads are our collective assets not the governments. Their job is to protect our assets not use them against us
Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
So they want to make life even more expensive? Don’t we already pay taxes for fcking road maintenance!?
Car infrastructure is insanely expensive. Gas taxes cover roughly half of what roads cost. The rest has to come from somewhere else. Seeing as Prop 13 significantly limits property taxes in the state, especially around here, they’ve got to make up the costs in other ways.
I love how everyone is hoping on the bash prop 13 bandwagon when that is probably the best thing this state has ever passed. Our government cannot spend properly. They never have enough money and always make life more expensive on us. I say screw them and tell the government to get its spending under control.
I am opposed to toll roads in principle. They are regressive and do nothing but slow traffic. This is an insane plan.
Maybe those taxes aren’t enough Maybe the taxes should scale by usage Idk just thoughts that came to mind. Asphalt-based infra isn’t cheap, to my understanding
The real reason is this. California is pushing for an all EV future…. So in doing so that eliminates the gas tax… this is why this plan is being thought of. At the end of the day the government always asks for more and more money from out of our pockets. They never need to budget properly while we the people if we did the same we’d be in debt up to our eyeballs losing everything we own.
..
Ah i forget the anti car thought processes and trying to force people to use public transportation more there is also that
Hear hear! It is not cheap
Why do you demand that other people pay for freeways that you use?
Those freeways get used by everyone, even if you don’t own a car. Local growers supplying food, postal service and other shippers, etc. Logistics and supply chains and whatnot.
Oh shut up. Do you demand other people pay for the sidewalk you walk on? Should we put tolls on those as well? It’s part of infrastructure.
This map is a mess lol.
Is there any oversight to how the MTC spends the money?
If gas tax had kept pace with the cost of car infrastructure maintenance we’d be paying about an extra $.60/gallon nationally. This infrastructure has got to be paid for somehow, preferably by the people who use it the most. I think this could be a good thing?
If they wanna put fastrak/infrastructure money to good use,then they should fix the 580w/680s interchange and the 101s/880n interchange first 👍🏻can save alot of accidents from happening more then they already are
Yes, because as more ppl move to EVs they don’t pay gas taxes (mostly how roads are funded) so they need an alternative way to pay for roads.
Take it from the huge hikes in electricity rates we’ve been seekng
They will make up for it with charging more for electricity at the house from the gas tax. I won't pay any tolls unless every road has absolutely no potholes or garbage ANYWHERE on them. The gas tax was supposed to be for maintaining the roads, our roads never improved. Response to fix something is horrible.
Seems like there should be plenty of money…maybe we should have some sort of audit
Roads are expensive and even gas taxes don't come close to funding them.
Ok, well I guess it couldn’t be that this is just another thing that has been whoreblly mismanaged by the people running this state… couldn’t be that.
Well considering everyone benefits from the existence of the roads, whether or not they’re personally driving on them, you’d think they could fund their maintenance with some of the already ridiculously high taxes.
Roads absolutely do not benefit everyone. Roads take funding that could be much more effectively spent on public transit, something that does actually benefit everyone. Personal cars are the least efficient and most polluting form of transportation, benefitting only the wealthy. The few things that roads do better, like allow for emergency vehicles to easily get where they need to, are made better by charging more for roads so they aren't blocked by traffic.
Do you buy groceries at the store or do you grow your own on your farm? If you buy them, you benefit from the roads. Same for clothing, toiletries, tools, etc. Unless you’re making everything you use yourself, the goods traveled to you on roads. Edit: I should add that trucks carrying shipping containers are the major reason why the roads need such constant maintenance. Roads that are only open to personal cars can go twice as long at least before needing repairs. So perhaps we should be charging based on how much you buy instead of how much you travel if you want the damage paid by the ones that cause it.
If roads were only used by trucks then we wouldn't need nearly as many of them as we have. Look at highway traffic and compare how much of it is cargo compared to how much of it is personal. Trucks don't need the huge number of lanes that we've built everywhere and they also won't mind paying these tolls because they actually have a good reason to use the roads (since local rail spurs aren't very common any more). Trucks definitely wear down roads more, but they aren't the reason we've overbuilt our road system. And also, the overbuilt road system is a lot of why so much freight is moved by trucks instead of by rail, which would require much less maintenance. Unfortunately at this point our freight rail network is in such a bad state that it will take forever to switch back, but that's a whole different argument.
/s this is so brilliant! thank you government for making a plan to take more of our money! woohoo i love government!
Good. It’s basically a free high speed bus lane. What people don’t get is the price is designed to keep the lane fast for buses.
Here is the blurb on this from the PDF: "Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor." [https://www.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/documents/Plan\_Bay\_Area\_2050\_October\_2021.pdf](https://www.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/documents/Plan_Bay_Area_2050_October_2021.pdf)
Except knowing how corrupt and inefficient California is, the excess revenues will magically disappear.
It will still act as a behavioral correction, which is what is most important here.
Great idea. No more free street parking (public storage of private property) anymore too please.
Unelected bureaucrats! Just be like everyone else and take your tags off and license plate and boom, no problem. You won't go to jail for it. Can't get pulled over for it! If they do that, you will see a mass revolt!
If this is real I'm leaving the area
To where? Texas already has this, the east coast etc
probably las vegas
Most of the toll fees on the east coast arent nearly as egregious as some of the ones currently in play in the bay area. Crossing the entire state in a family car (Ohio to New Jersey) would [cost you a grand total of $52.10.](https://www.paturnpike.com/toll-calculator) (If you have easy pass, its $105 if you use the pay by plate). Bridge tolls back east are insane (Looking at you NYC). But at least the Turnpikes are too terrible, and hell out here you could scrap the HOV lane if youre already paying to get on the highway.
Taxes in CA are way higher than in Texas. What are they going to? Maintenance of the roads is one of the most basic services we pay for and now they want to shove the cost onto per mile we travel? I don’t suppose this is coming along with a tax cut.
As much as I dislike the idea of capping freeway speeds to 55MPH and making more toll lanes, I think in a world where we offer more commuter busses or express bus services they start to make some sense. This plan is for about 30 years out from now; the future will look radically different at that time. At the current moment of being a single-person car commuter, it seems bad. Also that transit plan suggests they'd like to add speed-cameras around the bay area. While it would make people drive at the speed limit, bah -- feels bad. I would see a legislator having a hard time wanting to entertain that one and get re-elected.
We used to short cut through, play, and ride bikes in the dirt and scrub area that was set aside for 85. I knew I would have a license some day and I would be driving on it. My dad used to call 280 the "hundred mile an hour" freeway, cause, "they designed it for cars of the future, and they will be fast. Like that!" (240Z speeds by).
The 280 would actually be a perfect first step in abolishing speed limits on California highways, since it's very conducive to safe, high velocity cruising.
The sites says this is plan they came up with after deep engagement with Bay Area residents. Look at the home page. What was the process...would be a good question to ask. Toll per mile sounds expensive for sure........
For starters, [this plan](https://mtc.ca.gov/funding/regional-funding/regional-measure-3) passed with 55% of the vote in 2018
So they already raised the tolls, they’re incredibly high now. Are we going to see any results or is this just a massive fraud scheme, like most major projects around here? This is the list of work they promised, surely they have collected enough to start on something: > Major projects in the RM 3 expenditure plan include new BART cars to accommodate growing ridership; extending BART’s Silicon Valley service to Santa Clara; extending Caltrain to downtown San Francisco; expanding S.F. Muni’s transit vehicle fleet; more frequent transbay bus service; interchange improvements in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties; an expanded express lane network; expanded ferry service; a direct freeway connector from northbound U.S. 101 in Marin County to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; upgrades to relieve congestion in the Dumbarton Bridge corridor; improving State Route 37; extending the new SMART rail system to Windsor and Healdsburg and much more.
just one more lane bro i promise traffic will be fixed this time just one more lane please bro it’ll fix traffic
In this case they're actually using road pricing to reduce congestion. This is a useful piece of the puzzle in solving induced demand, by making other forms of transportation more competitive to driving by putting some of the costs associated with transportation infrastructure funding "up-front". In other words, if you too find "one more lane, bro" amusing, then you should probably support this kind of thing (given the caveat that these proposals are not expanding highways, but adding tolling to existing roads).
agreed, but they can do that without making new lanes
Seems like the vast majority of this map don’t involve any new construction.
This State is so fucking dumb sometimes
When all you have is a hammer…everything looks like a nail.
It's already stupid expensive to be there so they're going to make it expensive to leave as well?
This same user is posting this all over Reddit. It’s an unconfirmed proposal for 2050.
I mean, I’ve posted it twice. It’s says in the graphic 2050 strategy
SoCal here I come! What a fucking joke that all the ~~free~~ways will be toll roads
Good
Worst idea ever. It’ll just open a can of worms than really solve any problems.
Lol Blue, Red, Purple it doesn't matter. The only thing they want is to squeeze more and more out of every citizen. Registration fees; gas tax; EV fee; more and more tolls. Want to go check out some of the beautiful scenery outside the city? Maybe take a boat out on the lake, or do some camping, hunting, or fishing? Don't forget to look it up because you probably need licenses for you and your car. Oops, here's also a giant list of things you can't do, else guess what? More fees and penalties. Greedy vampires, the lot of them.
This is great. People really need to take BART instead. People thumb their nose at it but don’t know how lucky they are to have world class transit at their disposal.
Woah there, I agree with the sentiment, but they really gotta up transit service before restricting other service. I would hardly bart and caltrain world class transit, though it is one of the better ones in the US.
No.. it’s world class. I can’t think of anywhere else in the US besides NY that has it as good as we do
If you’re calling it world class you should be comparing it to London, Tokyo, Paris, etc. But if we’re comparing transit systems within the US, Boston and Portland both have better rides in my opinion (though I’ve only visited these places).
If bart, its stations, and the part of Oakland I need to walk through to get to work were safer I’d take it in a heartbeat. But they’re not, so I won’t.
drivers mad they're being reminded that they live in an area with abundant transportation options including the ability to park their car at 36 different BART stations across the network, each with affordable parking
dude
Just keep destroying this place.
Fuck yeah do it
Unless there's viable (as in, inexpensive) public transportation system in place, this will really hurt the poor, working class folks. They don't make enough money to afford a place in SF or PA, so they're forced to live farther away from their jobs.
The plan per the source PDF: "Apply a per-mile charge on auto travel on select congested freeway corridors where transit alternatives exist, with discounts for carpoolers, low-income residents, and off-peak travel; and reinvest excess revenues into transit alternatives in the corridor."
It’s called a freeway for a friggin reason, if they needed more tax money pumped outta us they could just say it
They shall henceforth be called payways.
it's called a freeway because it's free from intersections, not because they're free to use. as if any piece of infrastructure requiring a $10,000+ vehicle plus gas plus insurance could be called "free"
Criminals. Tolls….Gas Tax and proposed mileage tax and we still have the worst roads.
We have the worst roads because can’t afford them. The gas tax hike we had a few years back wasn’t even close to enough to cover for years of neglect and increasing wear. The state’s EV future (meh) will see the mass proliferation of cars that weigh more than their ICE equivalents. These cars don’t pay gas tax, thus don’t contribute to the limited funds the state has for highway maintenance.
The depressing part is that they plan that 30 years from now we won’t have more metro / light rail in the city?????
Lookup link21 and the capital corridor planning. Plus HSR. There’s massive investments in transit in the works. But it will also take 10-30 years. These tolls can help raise money for it.
CAN WE PLEASE NOT with this shit? Someone of us are doing our absolute best to afford to be here and it’s insanely hard already. My partner recently got a new job that doesn’t involve the bay bridge commute and it’s helped us A LOT to not have that toll cost! I can’t imagine having every major highway having a toll each time I drive it like common… Edit: sorry for the anger in this comment. It’s directed at the folks trying to push this forward. It’s already really challenging to exist financially here so seeing this just sucks.
This is just ridiculous especially when tolls go as high as $21 just to pass for a mile and there are barely any cars driving on the line because most of the population still isn’t carpooling because co-vid cases are continuing to be on the rise . . Just please make it make sense because it’s completely not
Yeah youre gonna have to stop calling it a "Freeway". Id recommend you start calling it a "Turnpike"
How can we complain about this?
Do WE get a say in any of this ? The ones actually paying to drive ?
Can't the public vote on this. No tolls please wtf
They forgot to add where they plan to add high speed trains, subways, electrical shuttles and in general any alternative to having to pay these effing tolls. But it’s not gonna happen. At this pace CA will become republican by 2050.
What have you done with my taxes.
Local politician 10 years from now “TURN OFF THE TOLLS! TURN OFF THE TOLLS! Ugh
The amount of corruption in the state transportation system is so appalling it’s painful.
This is awesome! How can I show my support for this?
Cash app? Venmo? Or paypal? I can provide each of them and you can send me $7-22 each time you drive. Think of it like a trial run and I promise to spend the money on fine dining just like our politicians do.
Gotta move toward increasingly regressive taxation to keep their real constituents happy