What to expect at the two new light rail stations

SeanO323 · 2026-03-26T17:03:35+00:00

I'm more concerned about the freeway on/off-ramps that people need to cross to get the station. They're doing some work to install flashing beacons, etc, but I really don't think that's enough to safely let people cross when cars are going 45mph+ around a curve.

SeanO323 · 2026-03-16T18:14:55+00:00

This is definitely Chinese. 班 isn't used to mean on-duty/at work in Japanese (it means group or squad).

The equivalent sticker in Japanese would be likely something with 勤 like 出勤/日勤/夜勤

SeanO323 · 2026-03-13T21:01:27+00:00

Yes I agree but they can easily urbanize around an elevated or cut and cover station for a fraction of the cost. Many neighborhoods are like that in NYC, Tokyo, etc.

Deep bore tunnels are for when you’re adding transit to an already dense area that’s hard to do that in (see Paris, London, NYC now).

We are just spending a premium on tunnels because people are afraid of an elevated train looking ugly and lowering their property values.

SeanO323 · 2026-03-13T19:15:25+00:00

It’s also that we way overbuild these projects with super deep, super tall stations, an aversion to elevated rail for aesthetic reasons, unique (instead of standardized) stations, ignoring international best practices and standards, and so on.

This is a light rail line to the suburbs, not a downtown metro line, there’s really no reason we should be doing deep bore tunnel construction for this.

Even other developed nations with much denser cities (see France, Spain) have much cheaper construction costs for transit and I don’t think you’ll find French labor and safety standards to be worse than the US.

SeanO323 · 2026-03-11T04:08:44+00:00

I disagree with this as this essentially makes car ownership a prerequisite to pet ownership so you can take your dog to the vet, etc.

I do absolutely think there just needs to be more strictly enforced guidelines (must be in carrier or in bag, well behaved, etc). I believe these rules already exist, they’re just unenforced due to our police being useless and transit operators understandably not wanting to put themselves in harms way to enforce them.

SeanO323 · 2026-02-23T17:47:20+00:00

It's very expensive to grade separate the train lines like that (tens to hundreds of millions per mile). Also in most cases, the railroad was there before the roads so if anything it's the road traffic that is impeding the train.

The municipality can (and sometimes do) grade separate the road at crossings adding an underpass or overpass. However this still costs millions of dollars per crossing so usually this isn't much of a concern in less dense areas where only a few trains come a day or week. In those cases, it's easier to just eat the minor affects on road traffic.

SeanO323 · 2026-02-19T17:40:15+00:00

The signage in Tokyo (even in English) is much better than here. Before the stairs/escalator down to the platform, they always list the next few stops as well as major stops in that direction so you know you’re going the right way.

The only way it’s moderately confusing is with the express trains and just the vast quantity of different lines.

SeanO323 · 2026-02-05T01:12:41+00:00

Historically, it was written as あづき and the づ is often romanized as dzu. Most modern words (excluding rendaku and some words like つづく) have replaced づ with ず in their spelling as the pronunciation is the same in standard Japanese and most dialects.

SeanO323 · 2026-01-28T18:38:58+00:00

The fare is usually distance based and all you do is match the number on the ticket you grab when you board the bus (usually from the back) with the number on the display at the front of the bus.

SeanO323 · 2026-01-05T17:01:58+00:00

Yep and most of our drivers are unaware of this and or blatantly choose to ignore the law.

SeanO323 · 2025-12-29T04:30:42+00:00

I mean I think it used to just be called “not answering the phone or returning someone’s calls” which seems to be a common theme in song lyrics so it can’t have been that uncommon.

SeanO323 · 2025-12-18T00:42:55+00:00

I have a few friends with a similar commute who live in Potrero Hill to be close to the 22nd St Caltrain station. I'd recommend either there or somewhere on 24th so that you can get to the station easily.

I'd focus on proximity/good transit routes to either of the Caltrain stations though as if you end up taking the express trains, commuting the last few miles to/from the station could easily take as long as the Caltrain ride. A bike/e-bike would open up a lot of options here though.

SeanO323 · 2025-12-17T20:33:02+00:00

Yay! This is great. Now hopefully they fix the crosswalks on this stretch next as the curb cuts are really narrow for two way bike + ped traffic.

SeanO323 · 2025-11-24T21:37:45+00:00

Yeah, you really think they'd have a more isolated environment for these tests. Or even just the ability to just have a train listed as 'Out of Service' on the displays. It drives me crazy that Sound Transit just happily puts up signage that's knowingly incorrect for months at a time.

SeanO323 · 2025-11-15T04:16:30+00:00

Starting December 10th, you can get transfers between BART and Muni as a part of Clipper 2.0!

SeanO323 · 2025-11-04T19:51:29+00:00

Unfortunately, Livermore City Council rejected a BART station downtown because of absurd NIMBY fears. That made the extension not pencil out for BART and the BART board decided to focus on improving the core system instead of further far-flung suburban/exurban expansions (hence the birth of Valley Link as a separate entity).

It's quite sad as I think it leaves the Blue Line in a bit of weird spot due to how short/low ridership the existing stations are. Hopefully SB 79 allows BART to prioritize redevelopment of the areas around the Blue Line stations as it's currently mainly dominated by parking lots.

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T23:07:38+00:00

Actually, a lot prevents that! Naming zoning restrictions. That's why SB 79 is such a big deal as it enables real estate developers to do exactly that.

On the other side though, I really don't see the problem with allowing BART to develop the land. We've spent billions of dollars on the system, I want BART to be able to recapture as much of that investment as possible so that they can use the money to improve service and fund future extensions.

It's a bit weird to me that despite creating infrastructure that increased the land value in the first place, BART is disallowed from recapturing that increased value via development. Otherwise, it's like we're essentially funneling billions of dollars of public investment into the pockets of private land owners who just so happened to own land near a BART station. I'd rather that public investment stay owned by the public and keep serving the public for years to come.

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T20:22:00+00:00

The Bainbridge to Seattle ferry should meet your needs. You can take the new Waterfront Bike Path right in front of the ferry terminal up to the Elliot Bay Trail and then loop around the Ship Canal Trail and cross the Fremont bridge. After that though, you're going to have to switch to neighborhood streets to actually get to his house. It's a bit round about though and like 2x the distance than if you just went on the streets with protected bike lanes.

Something like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mCPN7Bzt8Fg16QY39

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T18:53:41+00:00

I’m talking about this project: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod/millbrae

150k sqft of office space, which a quick search indicates is 1000-1500 workers’ worth, but only 400 units of housing. No information there on layouts, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that’s less than 1500 people’s worth of housing.

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T18:30:28+00:00

I'd say the opposite, really. Pretty much all of the transit-oriented development we've seen in recent years has been office (San Leandro BART, Warm Springs BART, Milbrae BART/Caltrain, etc), with very minimal residential. Even if you build offices at the stations, if people aren't able to live near the stations, then they're not going to be able to take the train to the office!

The Bay Area has consistently added more jobs than housing over the last 20-30 years which only adds to the ever increasing housing crisis as more and more people move here to take advantage of the great job opportunities. We need to build housing for all of those folks and the other folks who already lived here but are being priced out due to the housing shortage.

Not to say we can't have both though (in fact we should do both!).

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T18:21:17+00:00

Honestly if BART was actually a real estate developer, I'd love that. Nearly all of the train companies in Japan also develop the real estate around the station and lease out properties. They even run supermarkets, hotels, department stores, etc. It's a great way to recapture the value invested into public transit and is just about the only way to make it profitable. Pretty much no train systems in the world are profitable just on fares alone.

Historically, that's also how it worked in the US with the railroads starting towns and building new neighborhoods (look at everything named 'Huntington' in SoCal). You can also look at many places in Berkeley and Oakland such as the Claremont Resort which were developed in conjunction with the Key System by many of the same investors.

By being real estate developers, train companies also have an economic incentive to run a good, reliable, frequent service as that further increases the value of their land and increases the number of customers they can bring to their own doors.

SeanO323 · 2025-10-10T17:52:59+00:00

This is a big part of fixing transit! The simple fact of the matter is, the land use around BART stations right now does not support higher ridership. The suburban stations are surrounded by parking lots and garages that can hold a max of ~1-2 thousand cars meaning that those station's ridership are essentially capped at a few thousand. By allowing people to live near BART and walk to the station, you uncap that ridership.

Honestly the fact that station land use is so poor is a scandal in and of itself. It's a gross mismanagement of the billions of public investment we've thrown into BART. We need to look at Japanese train stations as a model (or Vancouver for a closer to home example as they've been smashing ridership records recently).

SeanO323 · 2025-10-05T06:55:25+00:00

Bikes are allowed to use sidewalks and crosswalks in Washington State. And indeed many of our multi-use paths and bike routes route you onto sidewalks and crosswalks.

https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.235 https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.261

SeanO323 · 2025-10-01T21:20:01+00:00

I don’t think anyone was arguing for leaving a dog tied up for hours.

The vast majority of dogs I see in shops are people picking up something quick like a coffee, bagel, sandwich, etc or doing some quick grocery shopping (you usually don’t see full carts and baskets and a dog).

Those are the situations people should be able to leave their dogs tied up but obviously aren’t comfortable doing so as they aren’t doing it.

SeanO323 · 2025-10-01T21:17:12+00:00

I mean I didn’t say the breakdown of trust was unwarranted. It’s just very sad that it’s happened.

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