malch

Glad you avoided the latest trouble on BART:

Two pepper-sprayed in teen robbery on BART – The Mercury News

Giantaxe

Clearly we need more BART crime to reduce the number of people using the system.

Alternatively... there are more ways than driving to get to a BART station, for example being driven there - as Steerpike was - or taking public transit/uber etc. Or, as in my case, walking...

johnwoo

Absolutely correct, and that's why I'm getting disillusioned with the Bay Area.
Life is becoming more and more of a hassle, I find myself restricted to a
10 mile radius because of traffic, parking and general over crowding. BART is just a symptom of the overall problem. I guess the reason I feel this way, having lived in the Bat Area since 1970, the quality of life here has diminished on an exponential scale.

malch

Same here. Plus the cost of living (driven by but not limited to housing costs). On a limited retirement income I could enjoy a materially higher standard of living if (when) I move away.

Crime rates are also rising. Not just on BART. I live in a nice neighborhood but almost every day someone is subject to petty crimes like mail theft, car windows smashed and the like. Such events were rare when I first moved here 15 years ago.

johnwoo

This Road is now a four lane busy road with houses on either side.
Taken circa mid 1990s

Giantaxe

I very much doubt that any major metropolitan area in either the US or UK is much different in having sprawled over the last quarter of a century.

That's certainly true of where I live too.

johnwoo

Of course you are right, and it's been going on for generations. When I talk about this I'm reminded of my Father saying the same thing about West London. "All this use to be fields and farms"

malch

I think the photo is from somewhere near San Ramon.

The population there has grown from about 4,000 in 1970 to almost 80,000 today. And it's a similar story in neighboring Dublin and Pleasanton too.

I consider that more than the usual "sprawl".

Giantaxe

It's not very meaningful to take places that were on the edge of the conurbation and look at their increase in population. If you look at the Bay Area as a whole, it's grown from 4.6m in 1970 to 7.68m today.

Bay Area Census -- County Population, 1860-2000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area

It would be interesting to know equivalent figures for the population of London and its surroundings.

johnwoo

I wasn't aware of those figures, but it doesn't surprise me, and it's getting worse. Now I'm really getting depressed.
Oddly enough my wife said a few minutes ago, she we go to San Francisco this week, I said how are we going to get there? She thought we might go just after 9:00am and wait for a 10:00am spot. Really is that what we have to do just to catch a freaking train.

Giantaxe

No, you can uber/lyft it to BART...

malch

I'm guessing you'd see comparable population growth in Milton Keynes.

But I don't believe there's been anything like that kind of growth in the towns that I lived in around Surrey, Bucks and Berks.

malch

To be honest, we rarely make the trip anymore. We have a couple of friends who make the daily commute into the city and they do NOT enjoy it one little bit. I think both are looking for new jobs closer to home.

Giantaxe

What about the overall population growth of, say, a forty mile radius of London compared to the population growth of the Bay Area?

malch

I don't think it's Bay Area large. No published numbers for a 40 mile radius but there are some for "Greater London". e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London

Of course, the population did fall in around the 1980's. But 1970-current is something like 7.5 to 8.5m, well short of Bay Area growth.