Friday, April 1, 2016

Growth Bay Area: cozy communities, efficient transportation


San Mateo Patch/Renee Schiavone, 3/29/16. "Bay Area grows faster than 370 other US population centers.

Image result for Transportation hubs San Mateo County picture
Bay Area population is growing in other cities.
Will our City accommodate growth, if not what?
"SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA - The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan statistical area added the 11th largest number of people between 2014 and 2015 among the nation's 381 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last week. The metropolitan statistical area (MSA) consists of Marin, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Alameda and San Mateo counties.

....  The population growth is causing or exacerbating a couple of the area's challenges. Population has grown faster than the number of housing units, Hing Wong (Association of Bay Area Governments Senior Regional Planner) said, leading to what some have called a housing crisis.

Another challenge is the crowded transportation network, Wong said. BART, for example, has been breaking ridership records every year since 2012, BART spokesman Jim Allison said. That has led to some crowded trains. Between 2011 and 2015, average weekday ridership grew from 344,647 to 412,284, or 19.6 percent, according to Allison."  Read more.

Related article. NBC/An Phung, 6/18/14, "Bay Area's Population Boom is a Bust for Housing Market." “ 'The biggest challenge for policymakers right now is ensuring that people can afford to live in the Bay Area and move around,' said Ratna Amin, Transportation Policy Director at SPUR, a Bay Area think tank. Amin points to a long-term plan that officials adopted last summer to drive housing development towards urban areas near mass transit systems to stymie suburban sprawl. The MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments approved Plan Bay Area to put most of the 2 million additional people expected to move to the region in the next three decades near public transportation. 'We need to focus on building more compact communities where people can walk, bike, or take transit systems for more of their trips instead of building more highways,' Amin said. Real estate experts agree."

Note photograph rendering from San Mateo City Insider News and Events, "Community Development."

Posted by Kathy Meeh

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