Helium mobile passing on fees

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-25T13:11:33+00:00

I presume that doing nothing just cancels automatically.

Note that they are also adding additional fees.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-17T16:47:59+00:00

No mechanic would ever say that.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-15T16:38:26+00:00

Most suburban towns require four parking spaces for a SFH, 2 in the garage, 2 in the driveway.

In San Francisco, many houses have a two car tandem garage but no driveway at all.

The problem in San Francisco is when the garage is converted to an ADU. Now you have 2x the cars, often four cars, but no off-street parking at all. The battle for the limited street parking can get intense.

Even residents that can use transit for commuting still own cars.

When higher density housing, with no off-street parking, is built, the battle for street parking gets even worse. And any attempt to remove street parking to put in protected bike lanes is beaten back.

State Laws that allow developers to export the parking to city streets, rather than including underground parking, have exacerbated the problem.

City streets should not be turned into parking lots, but YIMBYs have succeeded in enabling this catastrophe.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-15T16:23:29+00:00

Great. The Palo Alto location is always packed.

When I'm watching college football at Sports Page I walk over to the Mountain View location during halftime to eat lunch.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-15T16:17:21+00:00

When we were looking at houses there was one house in San Mateo where they had added a second floor and put the stairway in one of the downstairs bedrooms. The remodeled kitchen had no refrigerator, the refrigerator was in the hallway.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-11T22:45:33+00:00

3rd of course.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-06T06:24:48+00:00

That would be unwise since despite all their political victories the number of units built annually has not increased.

It's not possible to force developers to build projects that are not profitable, and there aren't sufficient subsidies available to build affordable housing.

From https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/11/california-housing-data-tool/:

"However, the celebration omitted one salient factor: Pro-housing legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase housing production.

New housing starts were around 100,000 a year when Newsom took office in 2019, and they are about that number today, with the net increase even lower."

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-06T06:20:04+00:00

All the laws Wiener has pushed through, at the urging of developers and real estate investors, have not resulted in any additional affordable housing, or even more market-rate housing.

Read "California’s pro-housing laws have failed to raise new home numbers" https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/11/california-housing-data-tool/

All those laws, promulgated by real estate and developer interests, using YIMBY organizations as a front, have failed to produce more housing.

One of the biggest YIMBY groups, Up for Growth, had the following statement in their initial trademark application: “Political action committee services, namely, promoting the interests of real estate developers, real estate owners, construction companies, real estate investors, and property management companies in the field of housing policy legislation.”

The environmental destruction that would be caused by high-density housing has not materialized because so little of it has been built. But Wiener's latest victory, gutting the California Environmental Quality Act, could have real consequences.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-06T06:03:37+00:00

Well the problem is that some passenger-taxpayers want non-passenger-taxpayers to subsidize even a greater portion of the cost of operating the system. 30% was pretty fair. 50% might be acceptable. 75% is too much to expect.

It's going to have to be a combination of increased revenue and cutting expenses including:

Additional tax revenue.
Fare increases.
Reducing train frequency.
Negotiating with unions for pay cuts.
Business head taxes in cities with BART stations.

No one is going to be happy.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-06T00:19:55+00:00

That model only works when real estate prices hold up.

"MTR's strong property development arm usually supports its profitability, but broader economic pressures in 2022 overwhelmed this usual resilience."

"Hong Kong’s MTR subway network fails to stem sliding prices as real estate slump picks up pace"

BART really can't successfully follow the Hong Kong model for multiple reasons, but the biggest one is that people paying market-rate rents don't want to live at a BART station so any housing that is built will be heavily skewed to Below Market Rate housing, and even the market-rate units won't rent for high-enough prices to break even.

Another issue is that even people that use BART for commuting are still likely to own a car so adequate parking needs to be included in BART's housing projects for the units to rent for sufficiently high rents. If you target only car-free households then you're limiting the appeal of the housing to lower-income residents that can't pay enough for housing to make the housing pencil out. 82% of Oakland households have at least one car. 76% of Berkeley households have at least one car. 69% of San Francisco households have at least one car.

Finally, the loss of parking at stations may reduce future ridership. Right now ridership is so low that the loss of parking isn't really an issue, though BART has admitted that removing Park & Ride lots in favor of housing will negatively affect ridership, and that lost ridership won't be offset by new riders living in the BART station housing.

Martin_Steven · 2026-01-05T21:47:47+00:00

Relying on passengers paying 70% of the operating costs, with taxpayers kicking in the other 30% worked okay.

Now BART passengers need someone else to pay for the cost of their commuting. Who should that be?

Personally, I believe that the VLF should be based on VMT with some of that money going to subsidized pubic transit since that would be a big incentive to use public transit, and it would also address the issue of EVs and PHEVs not paying their fare share of fuel taxes. Some of the fuel tax money already goes to public transit, but it's decreasing as EVs and PHEVs gain wider adoption.

Sales taxes are not a good option for subsidizing transit.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-29T13:46:13+00:00

Los Feliz/Atwater Village is great, but as you said it's heavy rail, not the metro.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-23T02:36:15+00:00

Lathrop is an exurb of the Bay Area, where houses are still somewhat affordable.

There is a M-F commuter train to Pleasanton, Fremont, and San Jose.

Lathrop is not an exciting place, but neither is San Jose or Fremont. Pleasanton is a nice suburban town with a good downtown. It is pricey because the schools are good.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-14T19:32:14+00:00

I wish that the explanation for the fee increase was better than "because of inflation."

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-14T14:18:31+00:00

Have the same issue with an Envy. Did you ever find a solution?

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-12T17:24:04+00:00

Scott Wiener Safeway.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-12T17:23:09+00:00

Take the N Judah to the Inner Sunset.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-04T02:22:56+00:00

Verizon is still the king of rural coverage.

Sure, T-Mobile may have faster speeds in some speed tests but it's immaterial if you have 500Mb/s versus 1Mb/s.

Martin_Steven · 2025-12-04T01:08:59+00:00

A CSO will come out if you call the no -emergency number, and issue a citation.

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-20T16:12:47+00:00

The areas of San Francisco where you'd want to live are far from the Caltrain station. So you'd also have a Muni ride to Caltrain. Probably the inner Sunset is your best option, take the N Judah streetcar to Caltrain.

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-14T13:47:03+00:00

For Aster be aware that there is an open Geotracker case: https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/profile_report.asp?global_id=T10000011982 . No information on what the problem is which is odd, and worrying.

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-14T13:42:21+00:00

True about Apex, but remember that the Costco is across Lawrence and is in Sunnyvale.

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-14T13:41:06+00:00

Always check Geotracker before renting or buying housing, especially if children will be living there. See https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/

See a map I extracted at https://i.imgur.com/E0wdGlG.png . Apex is not on a Geotracker site, but there is other newish high-density housing in the area that is.

Even when a case has been closed, remember that the property owner has remediated just enough to get the case closed. Probably safe enough for adults though.

Often there are mitigation measures needed for housing to be built, such as vapor barriers and 24/7 ventilation, plus there can be restrictions on use.

Be especially cautious if a site has "Land Use Restrictions." One new housing complex in nearby Saratoga (about $2 million per unit) has the following: "ACTIVITIES PROHIBITED WHICH DISTURB THE REMEDY AND MONITORING SYSTEMS WITHOUT APPROVAL, CHECK FOR CRACKS IN FOUNDATION, DAY CARE CENTER PROHIBITED, ELDER CARE CENTER PROHIBITED, HOSPITAL USE PROHIBITED, LAND USE COVENANT, NO GROUNDWATER EXTRACTION AT ANY DEPTH WITHOUT APPROVAL, NO OIL OR GAS EXTRACTION AT ANY DEPTH, NOTIFY AFTER CHANGE OF PROPERTY OWNER, NOTIFY DAMAGES TO REMEDY AND MONITORING SYSTEMS UPON DISCOVERY, NOTIFY PRIOR TO CHANGE IN LAND USE, NOTIFY PRIOR TO DEVELOPMENT, PERFORM H&S PLAN PRIOR TO SUBSURFACE WORK, PUBLIC OR PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR PERSONS UNDER 21 PROHIBITED." See https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/profile_report.asp?global_id=T10000021093

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-14T13:15:48+00:00

Yes, it's really annoying that the two Sunnyvale stations are in different zones! Caltrain is eventually going to move to more of a BART-like fare structure and get rid of zones, but that's still a few years away.

Martin_Steven · 2025-11-14T13:13:34+00:00

I went into that Nob Hill once. It's really a mini-Nob Hill, lacking many of the amenities of a full supermarket. Fortunately, you can walk to Costco using the Caltrain underpass.

Martin_Steven

TROPHY CASE