Comments on: poverty and the suburbs: a short commute

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:23:33 +0000

indeed there are working class residents east of the hills. A counterman at my favorite Mission District eatery lives in Antioch. That said, eBart will if built be a sprawl generator and provide VERY FEW seats per hour. As such it is a poor allocation of scarce funds. we are approaching ‘max out’ in the Transbay Tube @ rush hour. As that happens we need more core capacity NOT more low usage tentacles at the extreme ends.

By: Bruce De Benedictis

Bruce De Benedictis — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:46:13 +0000

Not as quickly.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:04:29 +0000

Bruce, are you suggesting that developers won’t build the houses without eBART?

By: Bruce De Benedictis

Bruce De Benedictis — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:13:58 +0000

eBART is not about helping the non-driving population get around, in any case. It is being promoted so developers can convert agricultural land in East Contra Costa into sprawl development for commuters. Operational money for eBART will come from raiding the Tri Delta Transit budget, reducing service and further isolating the non-driving population.

Perhaps non-driving population is the real term that should be used. Many, if not most of that group are non-driving because of age or disability, not poverty, by the way. Driving is so heavily subsidized that few people do not drive because they cannot afford it.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 01:08:02 +0000

David, I agree that more specific data would be useful. As for Pittsburg/Bay Point trains being whiter (that’s what we’re dancing around, right?), I’m not sure that that disproves the need for the denizens of Antioch to get to their jobs in Walnut Creek or Hayward.

Perhaps a lot are going to work at Joe’s Body Shop and Best Buy rather than Visa and Transamerica.

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:24:08 +0000

the data is worthless unless it is more route specific. Stand in SF in PM rush hour. The PBP trains ARE discernable from the Richmond trains. Ride back from SFin the evening, watch the change in demographic as Richmond and Fremont line destined riders leave the PBP train @ 12th St.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:16:43 +0000

Bruce and SBR, I added a table to show you the figures I used, namely, 6.7 percent black for the Bay Area overall. Three times that is 20.1, which I admit is more than 19.2 percent, or black BART ridership. I should have said “nearly triple,” or better yet, just gave the numbers.
And Bruce, you’re right to question the survey. I can’t speak for its accuracy, but I don’t have any reason to doubt the conclusion that black riders are better represented on BART than they are in the Bay Area’s overall population.

By: Bruce De Benedictis

Bruce De Benedictis — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:23:07 +0000

It could be that was what they were comparing it to, or to California’s ethnic make-up. You cannot really tell without more information. For that matter, most of the black riders may be through Richmond and East Oakland, enough so that there may be few black riders through any other parts of Contra Costa county, which would mean that BART is not really serving ethnic diversity.

I would be interested in what you think defines “the bad parts of Oakland or Richmond.”

By: South Bay Resident

South Bay Resident — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:31:27 +0000

Bruce,

You don’t think that, maybe, just maybe, the survey of BART ridership might compare the ethnic composition of BART’s ridership with the bay area in general, do you? For what it’s worth, the Bay Area, like California is around 7% black 19% is not too far away from 21%. As far as those who depend on transit, I suspect that most of them are pretty interested in transit near them and if you’ve spent any time in East Contra Costa you’d know that it is pretty poor – not as poor as the bad parts of Oakland or Richmond, but a large step down from solidly middle class areas like Concord.

By: Bruce De Benedictis

Bruce De Benedictis — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:43:39 +0000

Strange how we worry about the definition of transit dependency. Most people feel that they are dependent on their automobiles, and yet officially, there is no such thing as automobile dependency. On the other hand, there are people who cannot drive who never set foot in a mass transit vehicle, who I suppose are counted as being transit dependent.

The US population is a bit over 12% black, and 19% is not three times 12%, so I wonder how accurate the Godbe Research Transit Survey is.

In any case, I suspect that if a survey of the “transit dependent” population were made, most of them would be more likely to want transit that takes them from their home to work, shopping, schools, entertainment, and their friends’ homes than a eBART system that is too far away from any of these places to be useful. Next time you go to one of these meetings, ask the people pushing it how well they could do without their cars for a few months if eBART were built.