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I’ve watched this happen in my own neighborhood which is trying to build in additional transit options and build high density housing to ease the pressure on prices.

We have neighbors vehemently opposed to the transit, convinced that it will bring the “bad elements” to town. Then further fighting the housing complaining of how it would make traffic worse. Note that neither is even close to a problem… I just sit and sigh.

Honestly I think these developments will help our values but they don’t see it that way.

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In my experience... public transit in areas with poor transit options is overwhelmingly used by "bad elements" (homeless and petty criminals). People who aren't "bad" (i.e. they are of the same economic class as the homeowners in the city) generally can afford cars in suburban areas. So I can understand why they oppose public transit.

High density housing has no excuse though, if traffic is a problem then streets should be expanded. We need more 5+1 apartments and dense townhomes built.

> In my experience... public transit in areas with poor transit options is overwhelmingly used by "bad elements" (homeless and petty criminals). People who aren't "bad" (i.e. they are of the same economic class as the homeowners in the city) generally can afford cars in suburban areas. So I can understand why they oppose public transit.

So bad public transit systems are mostly used by "bad elements" because "Good" (rich) people can afford to not use shitty transit systems, which somehow means we shouldn't improve bad public transit systems?

If you improve the bad transit systems then suddenly they wont be overwhelmingly used by "bad elements" because many more "good" people will want to use them. The places I've been with good public transportation were never overwhelmingly filled with "bad elements". The trains and buses themselves were never overwhelmingly used by them either.

You really don't have to hold other people down just because you're happy where you are. You can have good public transportation services without turning your city into a slum and have everyone, including yourself, be better off for it.

>if traffic is a problem then streets should be expanded

Quite the opposite. Traffic will expand like a gas to meet the available capacity. You can only make the roads so wide, but never will it be wide enough to abate traffic congestion.

If traffic is a problem it's time to make driving less attractive by building bike lanes, subways/light rail/monorail, and investing in transit.

> Traffic will expand like a gas to meet the available capacity

Yes, but now the roads carry more people. You can't fix congestion, but you can make it so the roads can sustain the local population, even if they're traveling at 20mph during rush hour.

> bike lanes

Sure, but when's someone going to make an ebike that can carry lots of groceries? Or really anything more than 1 large bag. Even a Trader Joe's run for only myself is 4-5 bags, and those portions are small compared to Costco.

Also, bike theft is a huge problem. And coincidentally the places with the best transit and bike lane buildouts have the worst policies towards property theft.

> subways/light rail/monorail, and investing in transit

Until disruptive people are banned from transit (so everything doesn't smell like piss and weed) and light rail is permitted to go faster than cars by NIMBYs, transit will never be an appealing option vs. cars. BART travels at 20mph next to 65 mph freeways sometimes.

I'm all for transit and bikes if these problems can be fixed. But they are political problems, not engineering ones. So I have little faith they will ever be fixed.

> Sure, but when's someone going to make an ebike that can carry lots of groceries? Or really anything more than 1 large bag. Even a Trader Joe's run for only myself is 4-5 bags

Because you need to go less often due to the effort/cost of traveling to buy groceries. Here in Sweden almost everyone manages to get groceries with a backpack or a small cart, a few days of the week when needed. It's a 10-15 min walking distance for most people living in any part of a city.

Even then, 4-5 bags is completely doable on a bike with some panniers or a large cargo backpack. There are also cargo bikes if you ever have the need to carry larger loads often so there is your answer to when someone will make a bike that can carry loads of groceries. They exist but for most people who actually use a bike day-to-day, in the places we live we don't need to pack a full trunk-load of groceries because we can purchase groceries conveniently and do it more often.

> Also, bike theft is a huge problem. And coincidentally the places with the best transit and bike lane buildouts have the worst policies towards property theft.

Bike theft happens with bad locking practices: a bad lock (cable or small sized chains) and not properly locking your frame through the back triangle to a thick pipe/metal column. If you leave your bike unattended for a whole night with a bad lock you run the chance to have it stolen almost anywhere in the world. Get a good u-lock and learn the simple trick of properly locking your bike...

> Bike theft happens with bad locking practices: a bad lock (cable or small sized chains) and not properly locking your frame through the back triangle to a thick pipe/metal column

Clearly you don't live in the SF Bay Area. Thieves here have portable electric angle grinders and will cut through even the tough steel U-locks in 15 seconds. Not to mention if they can't steal your bike they'll steal your wheels, your seat, and your handles. Anything that's not bolted down is stolen. Not even exaggerating, ask anyone that lives in SF and they will tell you.

You cannot have a system where bikes are widely used when this kind of behavior happens.

>Yes, but now the roads carry more people. You can't fix congestion, but you can make it so the roads can sustain the local population, even if they're traveling at 20mph during rush hour.

Yeah and then the city grows and you are back to square one, with insufficient road capacity to support everyone driving.

Widening roads is a bandaid fix, treating the symptoms and not the cause.

The real solution is to treat the root cause by making it easier for people to not drive.

> Even a Trader Joe's run for only myself is 4-5 bags

A couple of large pannier bags will hold that. I cycle to the shops now for me and my partner and thats what I do.

You can also get cargo ebikes, but they cost a lot. Might as well just use the car if you need more space, but most of the time a couple of pannier bags works for me.

>Sure, but when's someone going to make an ebike that can carry lots of groceries? Or really anything more than 1 large bag.

Countless people here in Tokyo do this every day on regular bikes and e-bikes. They even transport their kids on their bikes (with groceries).

> High density housing has no excuse though...

Your earlier still argument applies: higher density housing is cheaper, and brings in "bad elements" - people lower on the socio-economic scale who can't afford to buy or rent the less dense homes present currently. It's class warfare.

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