[rahimnathwani]

I live in SF. The resources you mention are not currently a limiting factor.

Medical: is provided by private companies like Kaiser, who have proven their ability to grow as their customer base grows.

Kindergarten: the school district has excess capacity, as # students has shrunk from 70k+ to fewer than 50k. They will probably need to close some schools to increase utilization.

Streets: the streets in San Francisco are way less crowded than anywhere else I've lived.

Public transport: the last few times I've taken the bus, it's been easy to find a seat. The last time I took the BART it was nearly empty.

Schools: see comment above.

[bosie]

I can't comment on Kaiser or SF, not familiar with either. But great if Kaiser can just create GPs and consultants localised in newly built areas like that. well done them. To be honest, I forgot the private aspect of health care in the US. I wonder how city planners are planning around that.

> Public transport: the last few times I've taken the bus, it's been easy to find a seat. The last time I took the BART it was nearly empty.

if that is the case, SF has either the most amazing public transportation already or the most under-used public transportation. or you are simply cheery-picking.

school, kindergarten and medical need to be in close vicinity though. the overall capacity is meaningless for the first two if you build housing for an additional 15k within a few blocks and then have no GPs (and to a lesser extend consultants) within a few minutes of walking or no hospital within a quick driving distance. and if that 70k to 50k (i assume it is not covid related) is uniformly across all kindergartens, it is pretty meaningless for housing

[rahimnathwani]

"I can't comment on Kaiser or SF"

The comment to which you replied was specifically talking about SF so I assumed (reasonably I think) that you were commenting about SF, too.

"if that is the case, SF has either the most amazing public transportation already or the most under-used public transportation. or you are simply cheery-picking."

Those are not the only explanations. And, given I said live in SF, maybe it's reasonable to assume I'm reporting actual observations, unless I've previously demonstrated some pattern of exaggeration.

[bosie]

Mind sharing some other explanations?

[rahimnathwani]

Some potential explanations off ghr top of my head...

- I happened to get lucky on my last 5 journeys

- Many people how have more flexibility about when they start/end work, even if they're not working remotely

- People are avoiding public transport due to worries about COVID and increasing crime

- Outside of peak hours, buses still need to run with some minimum frequency to be a viable option, so they often run empty or with only 1-5 passengers

You could come up with others...

[8organicbits]

How much of those stats are pandemic related? (i.e. were true in 2019).

I'm ex-bay area since 2016, but I recall standing room only BART and shoulder-to-shoulder CALTRAIN can't add another body when heading to south bay. Although I didn't take SF bus, or send kids to Kindergarten.

[rahimnathwani]

The stats I quoted (drop from 70k to 50k) are not pandemic related. The drop has been gradual, as SF has become less hospitable to people with kids (costs, safety, school quality).

The enrollment dropped from 2019 to now, but by something like 5k (on my phone and don't have the exact stats handy).

My anecdotes about the last few journeys I took are recent, not from 2019. But, even in 2019, my experience of public transport in San Francisco was that it was far less crowded than that in London, New York or Beijing.

SF's roads are not congested. If buses were to become crowded due to increased population, we could just buy more buses and increase the frequency. This would keep crowding at current levels, whilst reducing wait times, thus making buses far more convenient than they are today.

Regarding Caltrain: if SF had more housing, fewer people who work in SF would need to live outside and take Caltrain in.