[basedgod]

BART (and all subways in the US) costs $2 billion per mile to build a few years ago (somebody posted a while back BART + other subways recent construction costs), probably close to $4 billion per mile now due to inflation and higher materials costs

I don't think spending $100s of billions on subway into the suburbs will even make a dent on housing prices

[onphonenow]

But if you built housing out near these extensions you can build for a relative fraction. Contra costa zoning / permitting is much easier to deal with than SF for example.

Concord avg home price is in $600K range. SF avg home price is in $1.7M range (3x higher).

And it's easier to do different stuff in Concord. My guess is you'd be 5x cheaper per person unit in concord. 10x cheaper if you get out to places like modesto.

[bobthepanda]

There is plenty of space to do this around existing BART stations. Shouldn’t be necessary to build even more.

[andbberger]

you're thinking of the second ave subway. that's where the $2B/mile figure comes from. and that's nothing compared to what we're about to blow on the gateway project. portal bridge was coming in at $10B/mile last time I checked, making it by far the most expensive bridge ever built. and it's just a normal bridge.

but if VTA gets it's way and builds the SJ BART extension i'm sure they can put out some impressive numbers of their own (this extension should not be built at any price btw).

the insane cost of transit development and housing in the states are two sides of the same coin. to a first approximation they are caused by the same thing, and cause the same problems in our cities.

[onphonenow]

I'm looking forward to the extension if it happens. Then I'd hope you'd get more of a city downtown maybe in terms of feel? Right now there is a bit less of a there there to actually go to and hang out so getting around san jose city is still pretty car intensive in my experience.

I'm for anything transit oriented that gives people options to skip the drives on the highways.

At least San Jose and San Francisco can afford the insane costs of these things. For what it costs to build 2 miles and a station here you could probably do a whole network in africa and asia. Building a train track, while hard, is not totally new tech and has been done before.

[andbberger]

or for the cost of the SJ extension you could build the geary subway

[dntrkv]

Why don’t you think that extension should be built?

[andbberger]

downtown SJ is _already served_ by the transfer to VTA at milpitas (which itself probably should not have been built).

extending BART is subsidizing suburban sprawl with transit dollars that are urgently needed in the urban core. it's an s-bahn, and we've got more than enough s-bahn in the bay area. what we need is a proper u-bahn.

SJ is a glorified suburb with delusions of grandeur, whose politicians consistently sabotage regional and statewide transit projects. I am of the spiteful perspective that that alone should exclude SJ from receiving big transit bucks, but even from the more level headed perspective the density simply does not justify it.

why on earth would you trust an organization that built and operates a light rail system that is so poorly designed and operated that it is amongst the least ridden and most subsidized systems in the entire country? in what is supposedly the heart of silicon valley.

san jose is a bad joke, and if you live there I am sorry for you.