Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexmedearis.com/why-is-san-franciscos-public-transportation-so-bad/ <comment><USER2> > Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

You should try Los Angeles.

Btw, decades ago, Los Angeles had a perfectly good commuter line system (aka Red Cars which was electric trolley car) that went EVERYWHERE including right on the beach. The bike lane on the famous Venice beach was actually where the rail used to be. One pic I saw showed the rail didn't run to the beach at a perpendicular angle. The rail ran parallel to the beach for some distance.

Check this article: [http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los- angeles](http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los-angeles) In 1920s, Los Angeles had the most extensive interurban railway system in the world, comprising 1,164 directional miles of track which, at its height, moved over 100 million passengers a year. In 1920s.

The rails however went into decline. No, not just decline. The rails were purposefully ripped up, mostly at the behest of the tire/auto/oil lobby. And the land that could've been kept around for possible use again as public transportation was paved over and forgotten.

Now it costs a billion just to build a few miles of subway that goes no where. Buying land is expensive due to real estate cost. Tunneling underground is expensive because of earthquake fears. And of course because it's so expensive, the 'rails' don't actually get to go where they need to.

They are talking about building a rail extension to LAX (main airport at LA) but the rails probably will stop a few miles from airport and passengers will have to switch from rail to shuttle bus. Part of reason is building cost (not cheap real estate and soft underground soil near LAX) and another reason is taxi/shuttle lobbies. And don't forget there's not much rail in LA anyways.

It's a madness.

Update: I know everybody hates LA but really nobody can beat LA. Who rips up 1000+ miles of perfectly good commuter rail line for no good reason? Nobody can beat LA in the field of short-sightedness.

<comment><USER3> Hah! you should all come to Mexico some day.

<comment><USER4> Well, the Twin Cities when I lived there built a light rail that didn't really follow the commuters and killed a couple of people every year because they removed roads to build the tracks but didn't ensure that people wouldn't turn onto the tracks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Public transportation is bad within San Francisco for historical reasons. In the late 1940's, the voters passed an initiative to save the streetcars, but what happened was that Muni used revenue bonds to purchases buses in a sweetheart deal with the motorbus companies. As a result, the there was a voter backlash, and Muni lost the ability to issue revenue bonds.

Since the agency was now cash strapped, without a modern way to raise money, it could only do so through the general fund and fares. Being a public agency, it also became under the whim of the political motivations of whoever was mayor or in the board of supervisors. To help modernize the system, Muni put a parcel bond measure on the 1967 ballot. It failed.

In the 70's, Muni wanted to exit the streetcar business completely. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system was to replace Muni, and run nearly where all the light rail goes today. Again, politics and public backlash killed a planned system, and we have the strange Bart/Muni/Caltrain/SamTrans/Golden Gate/AC Transit fragmentation you see today. To further complicate things, all of these agencies battle each other for state and federal grants.

Things are changing. Under 2007's Prop A, the voters granted the SFMTA, or Muni as it was called before Prop K, to issue revenue bonds once again. At the end of this year, there will be a bond measure, which at no expense to parcel tax payers, will begin to reverse the nearly 80 years of deferred maintenance across the agency's infrastructure. Further, a ballot measure to increase the VLF (vehicle license fee) will be on the ballot, which will create a sustained revenue source to purchase new vehicles over time.

There is still billions of dollars of deferred maintenance and a legacy of poor planning, but with the boom and growth in the city, we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city. Not too far from now, we'll have electric Caltrain. Is it too little too late? Certainly, but you can call and write your public representatives and let them know if they don't do anything, you'll vote them out for sure.

<comment><USER6> I'm really skeptical about "we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city".

Specially if I have the New York public system to look forward to. Its not exactly a success.

<comment><USER5> I think you have every right to be skeptical. The track record for our city employees and elected officials is abysmal. It is up to us, as voters, to maximize pressure on our political leaders and dole out consequence for failure.

I've outlined the tools we are using today to move forward, and I am still optimistic we will move to a world class transportation system in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coming to SF and Expecting world beating infrastructure is a very naive expectation to begin with.

Keep in mind the kind of politics (and hence policies) that SF is known for. It is not know for ruthless efficiency and well oiled policies, it is instead the "WORST run big city in the US" [http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big- ci...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the- u-s/)

Do not expect things to get better either unfortunately.

<comment><USER8> Yeah well, we also have our city council people arrested for gun smuggling to terrorists in the Philippines...

<comment><USER2> WHAT? I didn't know that!

I knew of Calif. state senator (dem known as gun-control advocate) getting busted for gun-running and money laundering.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/ca...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/calif- state-senator-arrested-for-alleged-gun-running-was-gun-control-advocate/)

<comment><USER9> He was on the SF city council until he was term-limited out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who doesn't live in the SF bay area, the sheer number of transportation systems confuses and puzzles me. Caltrain, BART, Muni, SamTrans, Golden Gate Transit, etc. Why aren't these systems unified under a single system map and timetable? In the Boston area we have the MBTA, in New York there's the MTA. Why does San Francisco need 5+?

<comment><USER11> In New York you have MTA Metro North, PATH, MTA Subway, MTA Select Bus Service, NJ Transit, etc.

Plus things like JFK AirTrain, Amtrak.

It's not confusing though --different names for different things. commuter rail vs intra-city transportation. Metro North doesn't share ticketing with the subway even though they're both MTA

<comment><USER12> NYC and SF aren't comparable at all since NYC is so much larger. But even then, NYC is more well-organized. The majority of the services you mentioned move commuters between NYC and surrounding areas, so it makes sense that they don't fall under MTA. SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), and there's more than one train service within the city alone.

EDIT: Bear in mind it wasn't always this way, and NYC went through a painful process to unify its transportation services - something SF might have to do at some point. Competing train companies (IRT and BMT) were nationalized and folded into the city's separate system (IND). That's why you see numbered vs lettered trains. Those trains have entirely different systems - even the tracks have different widths.

<comment><USER13> > But even then, NYC is more well-organized.

NYC is a single political entity and the primary metropolitan region of the state in which the city is located. The former is true of the City and County of San Francisco -- but that's, by itself, not even a particular big city -- but not the 9-county Bay Area which is smaller, in population, than NYC despite having more than 20 times the land area. And the latter isn't true of SF at all.)

> SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), > and there's more than one train service within the city alone.

San Francisco's bus and train service are both labelled "Muni".

BART also has stops in San Francisco but is a separate multicounty agency (the Bay Area Rapid Transit District) of which SF happens to be a member, it isn't SF's.

<comment><USER14> > the 9-county Bay Area which is smaller, in population, than NYC despite > having more than 20 times the land area.

LIRR, NJ Transit, Metro-North and the Port Authority easily cover more land than the Bay Area – note that these are all state-run agencies. AFAIK California has never taken an interest in creating its own state level transit agencies? The states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and the city of New York have been able to cooperate perhaps much better than SF and its surrounding counties.

<comment><USER13> > AFAIK California has never taken an interest in creating its own state level > transit agencies?

It has (e.g., through longstanding cooperation with Amtrak, and more recently through the High-Speed Rail Authority), but not of the same style as those centered around New York or Boston, because California doesn't have any metropolitan areas _like_ New York or Boston to support (even like New York or Boston _before_ they had developed their strong coordinated public transit systems.)

California's urban areas are _nothing like New York or Boston_ in density. Sure, the New York-centered services may cover a land area comparable to the Bay Area -- but the reason for an intense transit system in that area is that there are a lot more _people_ there. New York City _alone_ , has more people than the entire 9-county Bay Area has spread out over 7,000 square miles.

And, of course, while New York City is clearly the economically dominant metropolitan area of New York State (and politically dominant in the State, as the City itself has nearly half the State's population) and a considerable center of gravity even for surrounding states, and Boston has a similar role -- that the city _itself_ isn't so much of the state, the metro area is -- in Massachusetts, the Bay Area _isn 't_ the dominant region in California, by population, economic power (despite being pretty strong in _per capita_ wealth), or political influence.

<comment><USER14> What about NJ Transit? It's about the same total area and population as the bay area

<comment><USER13> What about it? I've never heard it described as a better _internal_ transit system than the Bay Area has, just a better system as part of the multi- authority feeder into the transit system for the New York City metroplex.

If there was an adjacent New York City-scale metroplex into which the Bay Area fed, it would have very different transportation demands and needs -- and likely a very different transit system -- than it does.

<comment><USER14> Is BART an "internal" transit system and not a feeder system to/from SF?

NJ Transit is not solely a feeder system into NYC (that's what PATH is for), though that's probably most of it: [https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf](https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf) . Is Oakland not analogous to Newark in this system?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is some great history here but I wish he were not so dismissive of BART. I complain about it all the time -- yes trains get delayed sometimes -- but in the big scheme of things BART is simply magnificent. There's nothing quite like it in the country -- a high speed inter-city under-water under-ground train system. New York has the LIRR to Long Island and the Acela to DC, but it's got nothing on BART.

Yes, BART "fails" to reach the North and South bay, because those areas withdrew from the project in the early 1960s. But it links the peninsula down to Milbrae, including SFO, and all of the East Bay into San Francisco. Soon Oakland airport via direct rail, too.

And yes, intra-city transit in SF needs fixing. The Muni Metro points the way. But as long as companies like Twitter are being handed tax breaks that's not going to happen. Subways require a lot of capital and maintenance. (You may notice NYC has an income tax.)

<comment><USER16> What is so sad is that your are right. BART is a wonderful way to get around when you compare it against the mass transit options of other cities in the US. And yet there is so much room for improvement with BART.

I just want to throw this in: Dallas has some of the worst mass transit options. Many of the trains won't even run on Sunday. And every time you cross the street you feel like you are about to run down by some oversized, overpowered vehicle that could hold a dozen people but only holds one.

<comment> aaron-lebo What is up with the Dallas hate in this thread?

It doesn't have public transit comparable to Chicago, New York, or even San Francisco, but it is a much younger city than those and has much different dynamics both historically (was really built out in the 50s and 60s with suburbs in mind) and politically (fiscal conservatives are huge here).

I typed pretty much the following paragraph in another comment, so forgive me for being annoying but I want to stress it:

Despite that, and despite that the DART rail to to the best of my knowledge didn't exist 20 years ago, you can take the rail to the far northwestern suburbs (Carrolton), the far northern suburbs (Plano), the northeastern suburbs (Rowlett), the west (DFW airport), and all of the lines reach into different parts of South Dallas and connect areas like Oak Cliff, Fair Park, Deep Ellum. The TRE connects Irving and Fort Worth. Buses cover a much wider area.

The trains do run a less frequent weekend service, but they still run to every single one of those areas. Considering the political culture here and the fact that DART loses money I'd say that is a damn miracle.

You can make the comments you want about the car culture here, but that is true for any suburban city in America. People will say the same thing about LA drivers.

I wish Dallas was better but it is doing damn well for itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The whole Bay Area really needs leadership that is serious about investing in growth, both in transportation infrastructure and housing. It's frustrating that a world class city is consistently held back by NIMBYism that stops progress.

</comment><comment><USER18> Glad I live in Chicago, which has comparatively (for USA) awesome public transport.

<comment><USER19> I completely agree. I moved to Chicago about a year ago, and have been very happy with how great their public trans is!

<comment><USER20> I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and find that San Francisco is significantly easier to get around in.

The public transit is worse, but the city itself is smaller, and Uber/Lyft/etc rates are low due to competition, which effectively means personalized pickup/drop-off throughout most of the city is <$10. For an individual, that's often worth it. For a group of 2-3, when compared against the sum of their total public transit costs, it's almost always worth it.

<comment><USER21> I think most people are interested in public transportation to commute to work. I know I am and Uber/Lyft doesn't really help that situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The common argument against overnight service in non-New York cities is "only two tracks! no time to do maintenance!": [http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight](http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight)

This seems to just completely ignore the existence of the 14th Street-Canarsie and Crosstown lines (L and G services), both of which are dual tracked, yet provide 24/7 service most of the time. The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately).

<comment><USER23> > The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately).

When I worked in NYC, it always amazed me that people 100 years ago had the foresight to build a 4-track system to allow for express trains. A century later...

<comment> T-hawk Thank the invisible hand of capitalism for that one. The NYC subway started as multiple private companies, who had to compete to offer customers good service, which included express trains.

A century later, transportation is de facto a centrally planned command economy, with no competition to create any incentives towards quality service.

<comment><USER23> Most of the NYC subway was built under a series of four contracts. Generally, these contracts involved the city designing and building (or contracting to build) the lines, and leasing to the IRT and BRT for operation. The four-track design dates to the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioner's original plan for the IRT. The IND was always built and operated by the city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's the thing about the bay area, and California in general: everyone that lives there says "not in my backyard" to every infrastructure project ever. Nobody wants more infrastructure.

Why is the N so slow? Because it stops every block and runs in traffic. It's a smoother bus, not heavy rail.

California firmly embraced the automobile, and that's the state it will be in for a long time.

<comment><USER25> People say "not in my backyard" everywhere. What makes Californian special is that we empower individuals to obstruct their neighbors too easily. Here, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

<comment><USER24> That's what I sort of meant to touch on. Everywhere else in the country, the NIMBYs are usually ignored. (In New York it's like: "I don't want a bike lane on a 4 lane one-way street through a quiet neighborhood!" "You're dumb, we're building it anyway.")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

You should try Dallas.

<comment><USER27> But at least you can park in Dallas, right? In SF public transport is poor and if you drive it is impossible to park and the hills make cycling and walking places hard work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Strange. I honestly wouldn't say it's bad at all. I can easily get from downtown SF to SoMa, Stonestown Galleria, Chinatown, the Cannery Area/Pier 39, Golden Gate Park, etc using just a handful of Muni buses/lightrails and probably no more than 2 transfers. That's just using Muni.

For the rest of the Bay Area, I travel from San Jose to the northern Peninsula very often via some combination of Caltrain, Bart, and Valley Transport Authority. Sure it's slower than it could be, but it's hardly inconvenient or _bad_.

Not sure what the real issue is here after reading the article. However, I found the facts about unused tunnels (like the one in Fort Mason) pretty fascinating. There are some areas that could be better and more directly connected.

<comment><USER6> Dude seriously? San Francisco is a couple of miles wide and yet it take as long to get from one side to the other using public transportation as it does for me to drive 10 times the distance.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, seriously. I'm not really sure how you can compare public transportation and driving a car in San Francisco.

<comment><USER6> It's because I wasn't comparing public transportation to driving in San Francisco. Just driving on a regular highway. Given that railway systems don't need to deal with traffic, there really isn't any excuse for it to slower than driving ever. Even with multiple stops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Because most of the transportation operates on public streets (busses and muni). This forces them to deal with traffic and pedestrian crowds, which make them no better than driving. If SF had a real subway system, things would probably be different.

<comment><USER22> The Green Line in Boston runs down a protected center path in the road for a significant portion. Is there a reason that SF can't carve out those lanes for exclusive Muni use?

<comment><USER14> There's actually one case where they're trying to do this:

[http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary- brt-c...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-come- into-focus/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone explain why on earth do busses and Muni trains need to stop on every single block? I get that this is convenient and there's probably some disability law behind it but it makes public transportation even slower in SF.

<comment><USER31> This is normal for any city I've lived in (London, UK and Dublin, IE). Doesn't make it any less annoying though. I noticed in London that the expected travel time by bus was reliably 2x walking speed and 1/2 driving speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> SF transit is poor partially because they have managed to make car movement so miserable that people feel compelled to use transit. By making all the alternatives worse, you can seem decent.

Compared to cities outside the US, it is a mess.

<comment><USER33> Because car use in Europe is more convenient? I don't get the argument, cars are even more expensive to use in much of Europe than even NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone interested in this topic should check out the book "Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco". It's a great look at the history of San Francisco's transit network and the political battles that continue to shape it (usually for the worse).

[http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility- Francis...](http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility- Francisco/dp/1558499997)

</comment><comment><USER35> Best cities I've been that has the most decent public transportation ever: Barcelona and Berlin. Period. The rest of the cities it feels like a Mad Max movie.

<comment><USER36> Even New York?

<comment><USER35> Never been there. But from what I've seen from my buddies traveling there, there's no comparison. Public transport in Barcelona is really awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> One major challenge in the Bay Area often boils down to the lack of a government with the authority to collect taxes and impetus to spend them on Bay Area infrastructure. You either need three city governments and a pile of local ones to get on the same page, or persuade a state government that is not particularly keen on Bay Area spending and hamstrung by ballot initiatives.

<comment><USER22> This is true, but there's no reason that San Francisco itself couldn't have proper rapid transit instead of street cars. Even just removing cars from those streets and creating dedicated lanes (these exist in some places, of course) would be a huge help.

<comment><USER38> The streetcars that remain mostly are still there for the Market Street Subway and the Sunset Tunnel. In other words, they are demonstrably better than an equivalent bus route in as-the-row-flies distance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is a great overview of the history of SF's mass transit systems, but honestly, it's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Was it better when the streetcars ran everywhere? Of course. But compared to cities like Boston or Dallas or Atlanta, SF's Muni and BART are amazing, though Caltrain is admittedly the weakest link of the system.

<comment><USER40> It really is terrible. What you're saying is like saying having 5 pennies is amazing compared to having 1 penny.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. The "americans should feel great about where they live because, hey, at least its not as bad as Sudan" argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There are multiple reasons, not just one. Each of them, like drops in a bucket, contributed to fill the bucket.

As has been alluded by the OP, till the 1940s SF actually had competing train operators. They would advertise their performance ("shortest time to inner sunset!"), for example, and riders voted with their dollars. Then all but 1 got consolidated/wiped-out, and we ended up with the MUNI (aka SFMTA). The problem is: as a monopoly, and a government-subsidised one to boot, they have absolutely no incentive to improve service. Regardless of how badly they fail, they know that the public can do A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. nothing! In 1999, the voters gave more resources to SFMTA, in return asking for a modest 85% on-time performance. 15 years later, we're still waiting for it[1]. I am not an anti- union guy, and I strongly believe that unions have been a huge boon to society as a whole. But even I feel that the various MUNI unions are an impediment to performance. The slightest change in working conditions must be approved by the union. And if you piss off the union people, there's hell to pay[2]. The MUNI drivers, with barely any qualifications other than having a drivers license, make as much as starting teachers in SF _excluding_ overtime. At one time, they got language into the City's Charter (basically, the constitution of the City) that they would be guaranteed to be at least the second-highest- paid operators in the country! Thankfully, this was repealed in 2012.

And let's not get started about BART. Their latest bargaining debacle with the unions[3] shows how inept the management is.

But the bigger question is: why are these agencies not accountable? The answer to that is: elections. Elections for the posts of politicians who are supposed to provide oversight are heavily influenced by the unions, who are a massive voting bloc. Every politician seeks out the unions' endorsement, and would not dare oppose them if s/he stands any chance of being re-elected. It's the fox guarding the chicken coop.

The solution, IMHO, is privatization (and again: I'm no libertarian or "small ogvernment" nut). But I see the service I get at the local grocery store by employees making minimal wage, and compare with the shitty attitude from the overpaid MUNI employees, and wonder if privatization is the answer?

[1] [http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive- quest-...](http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest- for-85-on-time-performance-computers-are-displacing-eyes-on-the-s)

[2] [http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for- th...](http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-the-bus-and- waiting-and-waiting/)

[3] [http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra...](http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra- costa-times-editorial-bart-directors-have-no)

<comment><USER42> Well... if they have to live in SF, the operators probably _need_ to be at least the second-highest-paid operators in the US, just to have a roof over them.

That doesn't mean they should be payed higher than teachers, though...

<comment><USER43> I work in SF, and I don't live in SF.

Why should SF subway operators need to live in SF?

<comment><USER42> Fair point, but are there places within decent commuting distance that have decent living costs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> You should try Marin County Transit--you could walk faster. When I worked on SF--I quickly bought three beater bikes and chained them up. They were so crappy no one stole them. I chained them in strategic spots around town and used them. This was 10 years ago, maybe the thieves have gotten desperate?

<comment><USER45> Huh? I consider Marin County's buses vastly superior to SF's. I am really confused by your statement!

With the exception of one route (the 35 serving the Canal Area, which has very heavy passenger loads), if I show up at a bus stop in Marin County 5 minutes before the time indicated in the schedule and wait for 10 minutes, the probability that the bus will fail to come some time in those 10 minutes is less than 1 percent. On non-rainy days, the probability goes down to about 0.2 percent.

In contrast, when I lived in SF in the late 80s and early 90s, the probability was about 50% (and higher than that in the Mission District). There was no sense in consulting the timetable: the best strategy was to go to a bus stop that has buses that go where I want and wait an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes it would take 3 hours for a bus to come, then 3 or 4 buses would show up in a 3-minute interval. This during non-commute hour when the (useless) official timetable has the buses coming at regular intervals.

Marin County resident since 1995; car-less most of that time.

When the traffic along a route is uncongested, Marin Transit buses will wait at some stops so as to avoid leaving any stop before the time printed in the schedule. Most of these waits are only a few minutes. Are these waits at bus stops what you refer to with your "you could walk faster"? Well, if so, it still seems to me like the best way to do it, since the bus's not going as fast as it could at times of less traffic congestion than usual is made up for by the rider's having to wait less time at the stop. And except for the ones on Route 35 and Route 17 (the ones without upholstered seats, that is) the buses are much more comfortable than Muni's buses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the argument that "because there're even worse public transportation systems, its okay for the SF transportation system to be shit".

But hey, as long as were busy dealing with our shit transportation system it means we have less time to complain about the other shit the government is slipping up on.

</comment><comment><USER46> It is? I had little problems getting around SF when I was there. Especially the bus network is quite good.

</comment><comment><USER36> If they had the incentive to, could the tech giants of Silicon Valley work together to lobby local governments to get their act together to improve public transportation? Seems like it would be a more long-term solution than private corporate shuttles.

</comment><comment><USER47> Low density. Without enough population density it's impossible for transit to be economically viable. Tokyo has it. London has it. NYC has it. SF is... simply not dense enough to support a good transit infrastructure.

<comment><USER48> Huh? SF's population density is 17k per square mile. Only 60% as dense as all of NYC, but still extremely dense.

If you meant the SF Bay Area, then yes, it's not dense at all.

SF itself could afford a much better transit system, and, as the article mentions, the situation may actually improve in the next decade or so!

<comment><USER47> So you have 60% of X. If you need X, you have to subsidize the difference. Where does that money come from?

Anyway 60% is probably too high, because it's misleading to compare SF alone with NYC. You might better compare SF with Manhattan, or better still compare the greater Bay Area with greater NYC.

Having used transit pretty extensively in both areas, I also think NYC is less balkanized. If we could reduce the number of different agencies running transit through the greater Bay Area, I think there would be less waste and less misplacement of resources. Today there are multiple agencies even within SF proper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Lets get real. The infrastructure problem in this country has to get solved at the federal level. Since we know here on HN that the federal government is an issuer of currency[1] and state and local government are users of the currency, like households and business, the only entity that can fund the massive infrastructure is said Federal Government. And, unlike China, all federal spending is underwritten by legislation. With the political climate being what it is, the only way this happens is another major recession (which may be on the horizon) or some kind of 3rd party grass roots movement. Depressing indeed.

[1] [http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt- pe...](http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt- perspective.html)

<comment><USER6> I think federal level is definitely at fault but it shouldn't be.

We should have more understanding of our local governments, more insight and voting power. We put so much authority and responsibility at the federal level that by the time the system reaches to the local governments its just a mindfuck of bureaucracies that no one can deal with.

<comment><USER49> Agreed that spending decisions should be more localized but funding has to be federal. They own the money spreadsheet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the parties!

(second degree comment)

</comment><comment><USER51> because no one disrupted it yet.

</comment><comment><USER52> Because the taxi lobby, supported by the oil lobby, has a firm grip on municipal government?

</comment><comment><USER53> Thank republicans who block infrastructure spending every chance they get.

<comment><USER9> Wrong! There are very few Republicans in the Bay Area and none in SF city goverment.

<comment><USER33> There are a lot of republicans in the Bay Area, they just seem to be the very wealthy kind (and are more moderate). Source: I used to hang out at the San Carlos Starbucks and a group of old guys would come in everyday to praise Bush (they were really cool, however, one was a B29 pilot in W2).</comment></comment></comment>


Container Native Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.hyper.sh <comment><USER2> This looks really nice, I always hate managing servers when I really just want to run containers.

Does it connect easily with Docker Hub?

And what about running databases? How would I do that so that I don't loose any data?

<comment><AUTHOR> Founder is here.

Yes, "hyper pull" work seamlessly with any Docker registry, public or private.

For persistent workload, Hyper_ provides the EBS-like volume, e.g. "hyper run -v vol:/path", but the volume is not local, instead it is distributed and replicated. And similar to EBS, you can create snapshots and restore to new volumes.

<comment><USER2> Okay, and how you authenticate against private repositories?

Sounds pretty cool with distributed volumes, so they can unlike EBS be mounted to multiple containers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Same with Docker, you can just "hyper login", then pull the images.

Yes, currently no shared volume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's the difference between existing VPS providers like DO?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the website states it well:"Say goodbye to VMs Unlike traditional IaaS where containers run in VMs, you will only work with containers in HYPER_. However, containers are protected by hardware-enforced isolation, meaning that they are as secure as a VM."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> the prices are attractive. the basic instance is just one dollar for a month.</comment>


Build a custom PC rig at any price point - <AUTHOR> https://www.logicalincrements.com/ <comment><USER2> Cool site, however I don't like that you have to spend $2000 to find an Intel CPU in your computer. I know that AMD is cheaper and (at some point) faster, but if one works with Container (Docker) one must cross-build everthing to run on both processor architectures.

<comment><USER3> Huh? They are both x86 cpu architecture. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement. Are you confusing "arm" the architecture with AMD the company?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many GPUs do you train deep models on? - <AUTHOR> I've noticed that most of my colleagues will only use up to 4 GPUs when training deep models (tensorflow & pytorch).
Why is that?
Do you train on multiple machines? <comment><USER2> It's always going to be about time and money. With more GPUs, it'll take less time to train. You're also not locked into a cloud provider like AWS or GCE if you plan to do this long term.

</comment><comment><USER3> Setting up infrastructure is hard, and the costs can add up. I don't want to spend cloud GPU money to debug my crappy tensorflow code.</comment>


AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/12912/amd-zen-2-update-7nm-epyc-in-labs-now-launching-in-2019 <comment><USER2> I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded benchmarks like cinebench (when using same number of cores and clocks).

At the moment Intel has a slight edge in IPC and quite a bit better clocks.

If they can close the IPC gap or even overtake Intel and GlobalFoundries 7nm process really can clock around 5ghz this will be an interesting matchup.

       Q17: Does the first generation of 7LP target higher frequency clocks than 14LPP?

       GP: Definitely. It is a big performance boost - we quoted around 40%. I don't know how that exactly will translate into frequency, but I would guess that it should be able to get up in the 5GHz range, I would expect.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/12438/the-future-of- silicon-a...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12438/the-future-of-silicon-an- exclusive-interview-with-dr-gary-patton-cto-of-globalfoundries)

<comment><USER3> The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.

<comment><USER4> Case in point, Apple's ARM chips are huge (and hot) compared to the stock ARM chips and that is because they are throwing transistors at the problem.

<comment><USER5> Would you have a particular reference for this? I have read that the Apple ARM chips are more power efficient than comparable ARM chips powering Android devices.

<comment><USER6> SD835 was 72mm^2[1], A10 was 125[2]. A11 and SD845 are actually very similar in die area[3]. However Qualcomm integrates their modem on the SoC and Apple does not, and Apple's CPU cores are still significantly larger as can be seen from die shots.

Phone SoC makers don't really publish TDPs and there is a lack of good data about it, but Apple clearly has high peak power draw (and very good idle efficiency). Battery life and thermal throttling observed under a sustained heavy workload is probably the best proxy for measuring SoC power. For example, see GFXBench battery life/throttling results in Anandtech's review[4] of the iPhone 7/plus. Much higher power consumption (and performance, but this is resolution-dependent because it's a graphics benchmark) than the competition.

[1] [http://www.techinsights.com/about- techinsights/overview/blog...](http://www.techinsights.com/about- techinsights/overview/blog/qualcomm-snapdragon-835-first-to-10-nm/)

[2][https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/236091-new- apple-a10-tear...](https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/236091-new- apple-a10-teardown-sheds-like-on-quad-core-soc-confirms-intel-won-the-modem- contract)

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/KBw8K8N.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/KBw8K8N.jpg)

[4] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/10685/the-iphone-7-and- iphone...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/10685/the-iphone-7-and- iphone-7-plus-review/5)

<comment><USER5> This is a great answer, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I missing something here or is Intel starting to lag behind on Fab Tech?

I thought they were years and billions ahead?!?

<comment><USER8> The most likely cause of Intel's lagging is a wall of cost/benefit to being both designer and fab. This hit AMD earlier by being smaller(and arguably, with a different management style, AMD could have held on to their fabs longer) but each node only gets more expensive and harder to keep busy with orders which in turn means a greater need for external customers to fund R&D.

Intel had a reprieve of almost a decade with a weak AMD that let them coast along with the desktop monopoly and extract a yawn-worthy 5-10% improvement per generation, but now that they have the incentive to compete again they're struggling to get their house in order - the chip design hasn't had a major refresh in a long time and they have been very late with their version of 10nm.

So they're really at a crossroads now where they can't rely on old tactics and their long-term prospects are in serious doubt, since they didn't position themselves to counter the efficient small-core/big-package architecture that AMD is pushing with the Zen chips. For now, they can still put out competitive flagship product launches simply by binning extremely expensive parts and running them hot(e.g. compare i9 and Threadripper) but that advantage might erode within one more generation.

<comment><USER9> Intel's biggest mistake over the past 10 years was not to open it's foundry services sooner now it's custom foundry services are nearly irrelevant outside of a few niche markets.

Mobile SoC design and being answerable to a huge number of very large customers forced fabs to evolve their processes in a way where market forces and customer demand forces requirements rather than office politics.

Intel has still an edge on many parts of the manufacturing process but as far as the lithography goes they've lost this round.

Luckily for them their 10nm was much more ambitious than any of the 7nm designs and they are facing problems that other fabs will not face until their 5nm and beyond processes.

Intel is also fighting a much tougher fight now TSMC was always good (better than AMD/GloFo) but now you also have the Alliance which is IBM/Samsung/GloFo which combine resources on process R&D.

GloFo botched their 20/22nm process and had to scrap it completely and if they couldn't use Samsung's 20nm process and call it 14nm AMD's Zen would likely would never have materialized because of the WSA.

And this is essentially the gist of things GloFo/Samsung/IBM are essentially a united front, TSMC is as capable as ever and what all of these 4 (and more) share in common is that they answer to external customers so if something doesn't work there is a much bigger pressure to drop it and find something that would instead of sinking more and more cost into it because of internal politics.

<comment><USER10> Aren't all manufacturers dependent on ASML's stuff, anyway? As far as I know, none of the big guys are developing their own EUV tech. Where's the edge?

<comment><USER11> Got told once* that they have specific teams working with Intel, etc. with pretty strict rules, where if you ever work for one of those teams you can't ever work for one of the others. So if I got it right ASML develops their EUV tech, etc and then those teams build things on top of that with Intel, TSMC and so on.

*at an ASML booth at a kind of job fair at my uni

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So there was a rumor last year there might be a dual socket Threadripper/EPYC mobo, and that the CPU's would be capable of it, but now that I search for it, it seems that it only was 'some guy on Reddit says' style rumor. Despite that, anyone knows if there is any chance for that?

<comment><USER13> But there are mobos for dual socket epyc... [https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-H11DSI-NT-Dual-sockets- Mot...](https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-H11DSI-NT-Dual-sockets- Motherboard/dp/B074CNPT5G)

<comment><USER12> Sorry misspoke there, meant only Threadripper. I would exhaust my budget buying cores on just a single Epyc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How is the quality and stability of AMD chips lately? Although I've always purchased AMD chips everytime I upgraded my desktop, the segfault problems reported with Ryzen made me cautious about further upgrades (on Piledriver now).

Are the latest Zen/Zen+ CPUs stable enough now, or should I wait for Zen 2?

</comment><comment><USER15> I am hoping we see some Epyc SKUs clocked to be closer to the threadripper equivalents.

<comment><USER16> With water cooling and 400 watts per socket, why not?

<comment><USER15> Well if Threadripper 2 can do 32 cores at ~4GHz@250W is there a good reason we cant have an Epyc SKU that does the same? (So that we can take two of these and put them in a machine).</comment></comment></comment>


Sydney's plan to split into three cities in as little as 20 years - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/12/asia/sydney-three-cities/index.html <comment><USER3> As a former resident of Sydney, this will change nothing. Sydney is fucked because of a number of interrelated circumstances, none of which are easy to change:

\- The first is its geography. The harbour is a giant wall through a big part of the city, with only a few chokepoints where people can cross. These are congested, and constrain the entire road and rail transportation network. The Pacific ocean constrains growth to the east, the blue mountains to the West, and the national park to the south. The only growth corridors are towards the southwest, and northwest - a long, long way from the CBD.

\- It's not nearly dense enough. Australians love their free-standing houses, both the McMansions in the new suburbs, and the trendy terraces in the inner city, beloved by Baby Boomers who have a convenient lifestyle while living in an "urban village" \- of course, they all bought back in the 90s when it was still affordable. These two types of housing make it incredibly inefficient to build a workable rail public transport network, so a lot of the PT is forced to use busses, which are not as popular, and suffer from the same congestion at the chokepoints as well as the additional car traffic from everyone who isn't well-served by PT. This is a lot of people.

\- Any attempts to build higher density housing, particularly in the sainted inner suburbs will be met with cries of "Over-development", even by people who should know better such as the Greens.

I moved to Berlin a few years ago, and it's a comparable city in size to Sydney (3.5m vs around 5m in Sydney). It works far better because it's far denser, and the level of infrastructure provided makes living here a breeze by comparison. Berlin came of age before the motor car, and was geographically constrained for quite a period there by an actual wall. Sydney really started to grow just as the car become popular and widely-owned.

<comment><USER4> Berlin also has the advantage of only becoming a large single city in the 1920s. Beforehand, there was "Berlin proper" and a number of cities nearby nearly equally large and locally equally relevant (e.g. Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf and Spandau in the west, Köpenick in the southeast and Lichtenberg in the east). Due to there being no cars, travel between those cities was impractical on a daily basis up until the rise of mass transport. This lead to these cities setting up their own city centres with residential areas formed around those city centres.

After extension of the city of Berlin in 1921, this lead to it having many "city centres" around which life was formed in a similar way Sydney attempts to achieve now by this artificial after-the-fact split. I'm doubtful it'll be successful.

<comment><USER3> The same thing happened in Sydney - Parramatta was a separate town until (I'm guessing here) the 1850s or so, Camden was until recently a separate town, but it's being swallowed up by the outwards expansion of Sydney.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a Sydneysider, I see it as the state government giving up, and trying to sell their ineptitude as a good thing. Successive governments have botched transport to the point where it is no longer possible to commute between large sections of Sydney. For years now, I've had to accept that the locations of my potential employment are limited within Sydney, if I want to have any waking time overlapping with the rest of my family. Now we are being told that it's our own silly fault for expecting that if we live in Sydney then we can have a job in Sydney.

I'm guessing that this declaration will have little real effect. The government will try to create new job centres out of Parramatta and Liverpool, as they have been for decades, but the new efforts will he just as effective as the old and people will continue to commute to the CBD and North Sydney arc, where a big chunk of the jobs will remain.

It's not a world leading bit of town planning, but the results of poor planning.

<comment><USER6> Is the problem with transportation in Sydney really that unique in Australia? I've only been there once for a couple of days, but I've spent a few weeks total in Melbourne, and it seems to have a similar issue - <USER2> transportation seems almost exclusively arranged to get people to and from the CBD. I have a friend who lives in Kingsbury, and going to the airport can take him more than 1.5 hours compared to driving there which can take less than 30 minutes.

<comment><USER7> Melbourne's transport system is indeed largely built around getting everyone along spokes into the CBD.

Sydney is a slightly different beast though. Its transport problems stem from a mixture of geography, history and lack of/inept planning.

Its roads are generally thinner and crazier due to being a more "organic" in its early planning compared to melbourne (which is built in a planned grid). Sydney literally tore up and destroyed one of the biggest tram networks in the world and converted the roads to automobile.

Meanwhile the combination of the harbour, sea to the east, blue mountains to the west create an increasingly geographically constrained city. Transport options are severely limited out to the eastern suburbs (cynically, partly by desire, they are also the wealthiest suburbs in general). Contrasted with melbourne, which is built on a massive flat plain around a bay, Sydney terrain encompasses hills and valleys to a far greater extent further limiting the engineering options.

Finally, sydney's main airport is comparatively close to the main CBD (almost half as close as melbourne's) which is further limiting the available land within the central area, and resulting in requirements to build a second airport out west to try to increase air capacity to the city.

The result, along with australia's cultural and historical proclivities is a city almost in constant congestion, highest house prices, and with easily the longest commutes in the country. (keeping in mind when viewing comparable stats, that although sydney is out in front, I felt many sydney-siders will rationally try to compensate/substitute their travel times to avoid the congestion).

Lived in both myself. All major cities have congestion, but its at another level in Sydney compared to the other Australian cities. The culture in the office of "accepting crazy travel times to get into work" was insane.

<comment><USER8> I keep hearing how Sydney has the most expensive housing.

In my experience, I found renting to be much more expensive in Melbourne compared to Sydney.

This may be driven by affluent areas such as Rose and Watsons Bay.

So while these new measures could potentially lower pricing in the housing market for buyers, I could see this having negative affects for the renting community.

<comment><USER7> I say this not only as someone having lived in both, but as someone who has had some past professional interest tracking rents and the like: Sydney has by far been the more expensive between the two cities in terms of rental and house prices.

There may be a subjective element in being present in Melbourne while rent prices took off which makes Melbourne seem to have become more expensive, but it's not even close.

Edit: for instance, I live within walking distance of Melbourne cbd in a modern 2 bedder with 1 car space. Market rent approx $650 - $750 pw (not even including aberrations like docklands). In Sydney, you have to draw a substantially wider radius and transport time around the city centre and employment hub before you start hitting comparable properties and rates.

<comment><USER8> This site here backs up what you said, and as you mentioned its really not close. My personal experience was based on short term rentals (<1 year).

[https://www.bedssi.com/rental-price-guide-for-australian- cit...](https://www.bedssi.com/rental-price-guide-for-australian-cities)

I did find that Sydney had more availability and options (at least during the market period I was searching). Lower Supply and High Demand should drive up Melbourne's price, but as you said, real estate in Sydneys CBD is just more valuable than Melbourne.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For people from the US - we do "cities" differently here.

If you superimposed that map of Sydney onto San Francisco (and lets mirror flip it to get the coasts on the same side) - it'd extend from say Mill Valley in the north down to somewhere past Cupertino in the south - and east (away from the coast) to about Pleasanton.

What we think of as "Sydney" is about 40 miles north/south and east/west. The area GoogleMaps tells me is "San Francisco is about 7 miles by 7 miles.

Not saying either is right or wrong, just that you might not know just how large a piece of ground what is meant by "Sydney" represents. We call Sydney a city of 5million people. You say San Francisco has a population of ~850k people. The "San Francisco Bay Area" with 7.8 million people is pretty close to what we call "Sydney", and I think that's 8 or 9 "cities" the way the US divides things up...

<comment><USER10> Well, just as San Francisco has a population of only ~850k, the City of Sydney only has a population of ~200k.

In both cases there is a distinction between the city proper and the metro area. Both Sydney and San Francisco are extreme cases, other cases, like Brisbane, Australia or New York City the disparity between city proper and metro area are less extreme.

San Francisco is also somewhat unusual in that its metro area has a different name ("Bay Area"). But that isn't universally true of American cities (it is not uncommon, but not universal either.)

I'm not convinced that there are any fundamental differences between US and Australian usage here.

<comment><USER11> > I'm not convinced that there are any fundamental differences between US and > Australian usage here.

Technically that's right, but culturally there is a big difference in my experience (as an Australian who has spent a lot of time in SF Bay Area).

In the Bay Area, when people describe where they live they'll refer to their local city/town first - i.e., Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland, San Mateo, or indeed San Francisco the distinct city. Sure they might refer to the "Bay Area", as a general descriptor of where they live to an outsider, but they wouldn't normally say "I live in San Francisco" if they live in Menlo Park.

In Australia, people will primarily describe themselves as living in "Melbourne" or "Sydney", and only if the conversation progresses to which part of that city they live in will they refer to the suburb. Even then they'll talk about the local suburb, which is normally distinct from the municipality, particularly now that the municipalities are quite large and encompass several suburbs.

<comment><USER10> How people describe where they live depends on who they are talking to.

If you live in a given metro area, and you are talking to someone else who you know also lives in that metro area, you are not going to answer "Where do you live?" with the name of the metro area – you are going to describe the part of it in which you live. Conversely, if you are talking to someone who lives on the other side of the country (or the world), you will just name the metro area, because they presumably don't know the geography of that metro area well or at all.

And that's true both in the Bay Area and in Sydney too. If you are sitting in an office in Palo Alto, and the person in the next cubicle asks you where you live, you won't say "Bay Area", you'll be more specific. But if you then come on a business trip or holiday to Sydney, and people ask you where you are from, you probably will just say "San Franscisco", because "San Bruno", "Daly City", "Belmont", "Milpitas", "Fremont", "Hayward", etc, means nothing to the average Sydneysider.

In the same way, if you are sitting in an office in Sydney CBD, and someone else who you know is local asks you where you live, you aren't going to say "Sydney". You'll say "Castle Hill" or "Bankstown" or "Hurstville" or "Penrith" or "Turramurra" or "Dee Why" or "Woolloomooloo" or whatever. Or maybe you'll give a more regional descriptor, like "North Shore" or "Eastern Suburbs" or "Sutherland" or "Inner West" or "Central Coast" or so on.

So I'm unconvinced that this cultural difference you perceive between Australia and the US is actually real.

<comment><USER11> I agree with all of what you're saying except this:

 _But if you then come on a business trip or holiday to Sydney, and people ask you where you are from, you probably will just say "San Franscisco"_

No, people from the Bay Area don't say that, and indeed it's considered by purists to be a faux pas to ever say you live _in San Francisco_ if you live in a different city in the Bay Area.

In the context you've described, someone who lives in Mountain View would normally say "I live in the San Francisco Bay Area", or "I live in Mountain View, near San Francisco", but not "I live in San Francisco".

Whereas someone who lives in an outer suburb of metropolitan Melbourne or Sydney would just say "I live in Melbourne/Sydney".

Let's just remind ourselves why we're having this discussion: the root commenter was explaining for US readers what Australians mean when referring to "Sydney", in this context of discussing the possibility of breaking the city up into three parts.

The point stands that the valid US equivalent here would be "San Francisco Bay Area", not "San Francisco".

<comment><USER10> To what extent is what you are talking about a feature of American English in general, or a feature of Bay Area usage specifically? Is it universally true that in American English, if a person lives in X metro area but not in X proper, they would never say "I live in X"?

<comment><USER11> I was going to expand on that but didn't want to go overboard on the comment length!

This custom is not confined to the Bay Area, but it does vary from place to place. It's not a function of American English, it's about the culture and governance structure of the area in question.

Someone from Brooklyn, New York might describe their home locality as "Brooklyn" or "New York City" (or indeed their neighbourhood in Brooklyn, e.g, Williamsburg). But it's perfectly valid for a person from Brooklyn or Manhattan or Queens to say "I live in New York City" as the five boroughs are all contained within the municipality of NYC.

In Los Angeles, someone from Santa Monica or Beverly Hills might just say to a foreigner "I live in Los Angeles" for simplicity, even though they're separate municipalities from the City of Los Angeles, though they're all within Los Angeles County. Whereas someone in Pasadena or Malibu would more likely name that as their home town, even though they're also in Los Angeles County.

I'm not so familiar with specific customs in many other major metropolises, but certainly the metro areas of Seattle and Boston are collections of separate cities - I.e., Redmond, Washington and Cambridge, Massachusetts are referred to by name as distinct from Seattle and Boston respectively.

But I'll again remind you of the whole point of this discussion: in Australia we have a fairly straightforward understanding of what is meant by city names like Melbourne or Sydney for the purpose of discussing a topic like this news story: it refers to the greater metropolitan area.

In the US it is less straightforward and sometimes quite different depending on where you're talking about, e.g., SF Bay Area, hence the root commenter's helpful clarification for US readers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sydney has had a huge influx of population and the lack of infrastructure to accommodate this growth is a major issue.

I just don't see how splitting into three cities solves any of these problems. Now they are three separate governments with different amounts of funds/budget.

The Easter Harbour District with the CBD should garner the highest budget and thus have more runway to build infrastructure, but what about the other two cities?

Will they still be able to benefit from the tourism revenue from the CBD and Harbour?

<comment><USER12> I recall listening to an LSE presentation by the mayor of Lagos, where they split the city into several CBDs so people could commute and work around one of those rather than having to come into the single centre. I think this is the general idea where a city would have several central areas so that each of them becomes a functioning city in its own right and it would lessen the peak hour intensity of travel for each of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Parramatta already is a functioning CBD with infrastructure issues that have been present for the last few years as its become more and more popular for realtor companies to develop. This is the one area that I could see benefiting from this plan.

I'm most skeptical of the Western District becoming its own thriving and independent CBD.

<comment><USER12> Something more west than Parramatta?! I would have guessed the next main CBD would be North.

Granted I was lucky when I lived in Sydney, I was able to afford to live close enough to walk everywhere. I hated driving though, the traffic mainly but always fearful of accidentally turning onto a toll road. I'm still dismayed about the governments insistence on big toll highway projects.

<comment><USER13> The NSW Government is so crazy that they're adding new tolls to a previously free highway to pay for a ridiculously expensive new toll road.

Sydney and Melbourne's populations are both growing way too fast for the Governments to keep up with infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. even if they were competent... (The Federal Government sets the skilled migration rate, which is unusually high compared to other OECD countries, but the states have to pay for the infrastructure. At the same time, there's huge slack in the employment market with up to 20% unemployed or under-employed).

I'm so glad my family moved away from Sydney when I was a baby... If you can find a good tech job, life is much better (and cheaper) in Brisbane.

<comment><USER14> > If you can find a good tech job

Finding one job is easy. However what's the contingency if that job goes (bust, relocate, get fed up with the politics, etc)

People seem to flock to major tech hubs because they are more likely to be able to find a replacement job. There's less competition for jobs in Brisbane, but there's fewer jobs available, and it's harder to leave one job on Friday and start a new one on Monday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The divide aims to tackle problems such as major population growth, sky-high housing prices and increasingly congested commutes."

All three problems are self inflicted. Some have labelled Australia a "Population Ponzi". We could just stop doing it to ourselves. But then house prices might collapse, followed by the banks, and no land owner wants that. Apparently just reducing the intake is not an option. [1]

[1] [https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/03/four-corners- fails-...](https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/03/four-corners-fails-big- australia-report/)

</comment><comment><USER16> The NSW government abandoned a forced amalgamation of 14 city councils in Sydney in July last year. My question is this; are they proposing amalgamating existing local councils into three major cities or are they proposing three major urban planning "zones"?... hence the "split" of Sydney into three. If it's the second option, I wonder how local councils will cooperate considering the animosity toward forced amalgamation in the past?

</comment><comment><USER17> "By creating three cities out of one, officials are hoping to persuade residents to live in a more diverse range of locations."

Do residents of an area actually behave like this? Those who can afford to may live anywhere they want. But only those who own their own businesses can determine where they work - the rest _have_ to work in a particular location. And the choice of where to live involves many trade-offs including commute distance.

My intuition would say that splitting up Sydney will have no effect on resident behavior but that having three governments will be less efficient than one with taxes going up accordingly.

<comment><USER18> _> having three governments will be less efficient than one_

But it will provide three times as many jobs for the class of people that decides on these matters.

It's hard not to be cynic about politics when institutions "self-reform" by _expanding_ in non-obvious (and likely more expensive) ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sydney is already a number of cities, Sydney, Paramatta, Blacktown, Ryde, Liverpool, Canterbury, Blacktown, Penrith, (and a veritable stream of smaller "cities" like Fairfield) and various counties / shires as well, Hornsby, Sutherland, Hills Shire. The issues has never been the names or appellations, the biggest issue since WWII has been the sheer vast size of the suburban sprawl and relatively little coordination and NIMBYism that goes with it.</comment>


Google Interview Questions - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/ITProfessionals/EthicsIT/google-interview-questions

<comment><USER2> Blogspam. Questions appear elsewhere.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manager boilerplates? - <AUTHOR> So, how do you manage your boilerplates?
The possibilities that come to mind:
- Clone a repo and it's ready to go; - Clone a repo and run a script to setup everything; - Use tools like yeoman, create-react-app, etc;
What's your setup? <comment><USER2> For Python I use cookiecutter.

<comment><USER3> I think cookiecutter could be used for any project. Python happens to be the language its implemented in. Looks neat, simple.

<comment><USER2> You are right.</comment></comment></comment>


The most popular PHP framework in 2017. How to start with Laravel? - <AUTHOR> https://belitsoft.com/laravel-development-services/laravel-5-tutorial <comment><AUTHOR> Laravel is the Most Starred PHP Framework on Github: more than 30 000 developers from all over the world (mostly from the USA) greatly appreciate robust features of this platform.</comment>


Apple building 171 acre solar panel farm to power NC data center - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/apple-building-171-acre-solar-panel-farm-to-power-nc-data-center.ars <comment><USER2> > No details about the planned solar panel array or its potential power output > are known at this time

Taking the 171 acre figure we can compute at least the limits of what it could do.

171 acres is about 700,000 square meters. At a solar incidence of about 1 KW / square meter and an efficiency of 23% that's 161 MW peak power and an average of 4.7 sun hours per day will give about 750 MWh of usable electricity every day.

This calculation ignores shading effects and assumes that the panels will be stationary rather than tracking, you could probably easily deduct another 50% to account for those effects, so say 375 MWh give or take and 80 MW peak. Likely these figures are _still_ very high, think of it as the maximum amount of solar power that you could extract at that location from incident sunlight without further accounting for conversion losses (solar panels produce DC, you'll need inverters if you want AC power, some data center equipment can run on 48V DC but you'd still need a conversion step for that) and so on.

I wonder how big a chunk of the total power requirements for a datacenter that size will be covered by this PV system, to be 100% effective it would have to be sized _at least_ 6 times larger than the total power consumption of the DC, using the grid as a storage system.

<comment><USER3> I think you dropped 1,000.

(I would expect 161 nominal megawatts to produce more than 1 megawatt-hour in an hour)

<comment><USER2> Ah, yes, apologies. KWh should have been MWh, I'll edit the comment above. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the curious, here's a link to the Google Maps satellite view of the plant: <http://g.co/maps/sk9vn>

</comment><comment><USER5> > > [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international...](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/dirty- > data-report-greenpeace.pdf)

I can't imagine any scenario where Greenpeace would actually be happy besides companies never using any sort of energy at all.

To replace coal (7PWh) with solar energy, you'd need the entire state of New Jersey (~22e9 m^2) filled solar panels averaging 20% efficiency and the equivalent of 4 peak hours of sunlight over the year. With the area of Pennsylvania you could start to approach the total energy consumption of the US. Maybe those environmental impacts would be worth it?

<comment><USER6> You know, I recently rode my bike through some villages in Germany. Just about _every_ house had solar panels on their roof. My parents have solar panels on their roof. They produce more electricity than they use and only need very little oil and some wood for heating in winter. And they are no exception.

Germany currently produces 20% of its energy using regenerating resources (water, sun, wind).

It's not like you have to put all the solar panels in huge parks. Just put them on roofs. My uncle works at a big company and they just put solar panels on their roofs. That company now produces more energy than they need. Solar panels are already efficient enough to usually provide more energy per area than people or businesses consume in the same area.

The next step would be to have batteries in every household, to save on energy losses during 'transportation'. Also, solar panels are getting more efficient and cheap every year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This would be a great trend, datacenters becoming their own utilities. It would help them better control opex and reliability. I wonder if utilities will try and prevent this sort of self-sufficiency from otherwise potentially lucrative customers.

<comment><USER8> Sunlight is one of the _least_ reliable forms of power out there. If the grid goes down then... well, you're screwed unless it just happens to be daytime and sunny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Knowing Apple's recent interest in glass and materials science I can't help but wonder if even their solar farm will be awe inspiring and functionally ahead of the curve in some way.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't know enough about this project, but are the putting them on the roof of this datacenter as well? Seems like a no-brainer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Comparing it to the installed Sarnia plant at roughly the same latitude.

That is 96.6 ha (239acres of cells) 80MW capacity and (estimated) 120,000 MWh over a year.

So this plant should achieve around 70% of that, so 85,000 MWh /year or 235MWh/day

<comment><USER7> I actually drove through Sarnia a couple of months ago trying to find the site, but couldn't find it. Has it been completed yet?</comment></comment>


Offer for Chinese Repos on GitHub Trendings - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/us/english-please <comment><USER2> To me, I like surfing on GitHub's trending page but for two or three weeks there are some repos in the trending but their readme files are other than English. Therefore, I support this project and I believe repos in the trending section should support English. This project made me feel I wasn't alone.

Of course, this is the repo owner's decision and his/hers free-will whether or not supporting English.</comment>


Show HN: Digital Gift for Programmers Day - <AUTHOR> https://hacker.gifts/products/space-invaders <comment><USER2> It was an intriguing enough concept to get to me their website... but then not enough of a hook.

Perhaps having a complete example - i.e. one page walkthough for an example experience (w/ clues and solutions) - would be helpful.</comment>


Ask HN: Fastest IDE on macOS? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently using vs-code which I really like but I'm done with my laptop sounding like a jet engine and making my hands sweat.
What IDE could I use that:
1) Doesn't require me to switch to vim or emacs key bindings 2) Has strong auto completion for web development 3) Is more performant than electron style applications <comment><USER2> This is a bit of a loaded question. It greatly depends on what kind of IDE you need. iOS/Mac apps Xcode, Android apps Android Studio, Web stuff vs-code, atom or anyone of another handful of apps. Each one has specific markets.

<comment><USER3> +1 for VS Code for general purpose dev.

I used Atom when it first came out and loved it, despite people's constant complaints about it crashing and being unstable. It just ran so smooth for me.

Then I moved VS Code so I'd be using the same editor for my personal development that I used at work. About a year ago (3 or 4 since I moved from Atom) I decided to give Atom another try, and was miserable. It crashed constantly and when it didn't crash it would run at a snail's pace.

I've installed VS code on multiple machines and haven't had any issues, despite both Atom and VS Code are Electron apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What language are you using? I use codelite for developing firmware in C. Supposedly supports JS and node.js but I cannot vouch for that because I don't do web stuff.

I have noticed that IDE's based on Scintilla are very responsive. Much better than ones based on Java frameworks and vastly faster than VSCode. The memory usage is much smaller. Current medium sized project I have open is using 45mb of memory.

A suggestion is to do the brain dead thing I did and look at the lists of IDE's on Wikipedia and try the ones that might work for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try JetBrains. They feel snappier to me than VS Code. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sublime text</comment>