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.
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.
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.")
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.