Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

As someone that takes a few long trips in the car every year (family/kids, friends in different states), I like to drive well beyond 160-200 miles between stops. I usually go from tank of gas until almost empty between stops. And even then, I stop long enough to fill the tank and use the restroom, then it's back on the road.

OK. I think I can say we're friendly. But on like three of these posts, you've basically capped by saying "You know who likes walkable nice urban downtowns? Entitled jerks." I don't think you're a buzzkill. But that read a little buzz-kill-y.

And you described density being "forced" on people as people look to reinvigorate downtowns. I get that it's working toward a goal that might be inefficient, but for better or worse, there's a general sense that having a hollowed out downtown like Detroit's was (or Times square was) is bad. And it might not be, but I don't know I'd get too worked up about people feeling that way. (Also, in the Bay Area, your central areas are often more expensive than the suburbs, which is a curveball)

The SF example is an excellent and interesting one and I think cuts to the core (also, we're conflating rails. BART isn't light rail, MUNI is, though it has non-light rail parts). Efficiency can mean different things. Rail travel like BART is more efficent on a time front. This we know. We know this because you didn't take a bus from San Jose or the airport even though it's cheaper. Now the argument might be, time saved isn't worth money, but it's a factor that at least has to be acknowledged. And poor folks, just like rich folks, appreciate getting home 40 minutes earlier because they're on a train instead of a bus (I've ridden BART, plenty of diversity on those trains).

Now, don’t read this as a full-throated endorsement of all kinds of light rail everywhere. Phoenix is a place without density. Houston too. It’s tricky because you’re kind of projecting down the line. If you project density, you’re rather build that earlier rather than later. A Bay Area with no BART isn’t more efficent to get around. It’s just cheaper to get around slowly.

I don’t know the answer and kinda waffle. But I’m unconvinced that if we could convert all of BARTs ridership into bus riders that we’d be worlds more efficient in the kind of mid-range people-moving that BART does (now perhaps the answer is to be more like LA, where mid-range people moving is an hour in the car or not at all, I dunno).

• No traffic: 20-25 minutes
• Normal rush hour traffic: 1 hour
• Light rail: 1 hour
• On a motorcycle with lane splitting, regardless of traffic: 20-25 minutes

Since Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system doesn’t allow your car to drive itself, you always have to be ready to take control of the steering wheel. The video shown above starts quite well with the system effectively navigating through moderate traffic. However, once it encounters additional obstacles such as stopped cars, it quickly becomes confused. Eventually, the EV loses its place on the lanes, switching back and forth quickly.
Later on, in the video, we see Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system begin to struggle with poorly painted lines on the road itself. As a result, the driver has to intervene as the system gets confused continuously. One of the scariest portions of the video comes as the EV approaches a set of parked cars. The system mistakenly reads a turning lane as one of the normal lanes and proceeds forward, coming to a stop directly behind a parked car.
Thankfully, the driver in this video remained very vigilant while utilizing the system. Given its major mistakes, a distracted driver could’ve easily created a serious accident.

I wasn't trying to be contentious... It was perhaps a reaction to the "sometimes people want to do something nice where they live" i.e. I must not want to do something nice where I live. Probably an overreaction on my part.

I used to take the light rail back when I lived in San Jose in 2001. Oddly, it wasn't faster. My commute was from the very south end of San Jose up to the north end of San Jose.

• No traffic: 20-25 minutes
• Normal rush hour traffic: 1 hour
• Light rail: 1 hour
• On a motorcycle with lane splitting, regardless of traffic: 20-25 minutes

I enjoyed it because I didn't have to fight traffic... And also because it was free... Subsidized by my employer--and maybe even the city? Not sure.

If it had cost me $200+/mo I probably would have stayed in a car. My roommate was a coworker, so we could carpool when needed. I also had flex time, so I could have shifted work hours a bit to avoid some of the worst of the traffic.

I kinda view the light rail in San Jose as an unnecessary luxury, as San Jose is much more "sprawl" than SF. Traffic can suck, but parking doesn't.

SF is definitely one place where the density makes sense. Especially because the cost of living in SF means that many SF workers have to commute in from elsewhere, and parking in SF is madness.

Oddly in SF we've got workers who can't afford to live there coming into the city via BART to work, while tech employers on the Peninsula operate buses to bring folks who can afford to live in SF down to their jobs on the peninsula. What a system!