Quote:
Originally Posted by mrnyc
we laugh, but that do not build past here is what much of europe and elsewhere looks like when you fly in. thankfully.
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With the exception of Marin County, much of whose land is protected by having sold development rights or because it's parkland of various kinds or zoned agricultural, the "do not build past here" line is usually topographical meaning it's mountains that have only a few passages through them and those passages are already hopelessly congested. Basically, there are 3 routes from the Central Valley into the Bay Area: I-80, I-580 and Highway 152 (north to south). They all rank high in national rankings of congested highways and you can't really cram many more people into the commute from land available for SFH in the CV into the Bay Area. As I said above, expansion of rail transit offers some possibilities: Right now there are 2 commuter rail lines more or less paralleling 2 of the roads: The Capital Corridor in the north (Sacramento to SV via Oakland with options to cross-platform to BART in the Bay Area) and ACE (Altamonte Corridor Express) in the center paralleling I-580 (Stockton to SV, also with some options to transfer to BART at the Trivalleys stations). If CA HSR gets built, it will add a third rail route in the south parallel to Highway 152.
These 3 roads and potentially 3 rail lines are the 3 mountain passes--there aren't any more.
Although Marin does restrict development by law and zoning to a large degree, even if it didn't Highway 101 is pretty packed now and the ferries from Marin to SF don't add that much capacity.
So what appears to be "do not build past here" lines are really practical barriers that exist because in practical terms you can't get from one side of them to the other.