Sam Gould
@form67
Emeryville based game dev at Obsidian Entertainment. Planning Commissioner in Emeryville ADEM in AD-18 Housing + transit + bikes Opinions are my own
Wow the T Third's signal improvements in SF made a noticable difference from 23rd to the tunnel. Only 4 minutes 12 seconds spent idle including station stops and the slowest doors ever designed. 11mph moving speed still isn't exactly fast, but at least it's progress.
We made it to Vancouver via Amtrak Cascades from Seattle. It was a beautiful journey on funny looking trains that will be scrapped in the next few months for much nicer ones. Border crossing was completely painless, although Vancouver's station took 45 minutes for the train to navigate.
The transit network was also very impressive, tons of ferries of all sizes, polite busses, and the fully automated skytrain. I only wished skytrain had a bit more coverage, which is something it will be getting soon with two new extensions under construction.
Finally made my own urbanist pilgrimage out to the amazing Sen̓áḵw development in Vancouver. Aside from the buildings themselves, I was extremely impressed with how well integrated it was in the city's bike network. Various road diets and new protected bike lanes were installed along the site.
Oddly the new map at the Huichun Park Bay Wheels station doesn't have the Greenway, South Bayfront Pedestrian Bridge, or even the park it is placed in. 🤔
Love the random Elvis, Statue of Liberty, and Alien and Predator for some reason.
If America is know for one thing, it is guns apparently. It was stocked with extremely realistic airsoft replicas of real weapons.
I was recently in the small town of Kitakami, Japan where they have an entire mall called "American World", complete with American sized surface parking lot (although this one has a ferris wheel as a bonus).
Spotted in the Berkeley Ironworks bike lot, a regular Bay Wheels bike and an awesome tandem bike. Only in the bay would people take a tandem bike to the climbing gym, I love it here.
Thanks to @dereksagehorn.bsky.social for leading a fun and informative ride about the history of prop 13
This Bike to Wherever Day we had 350+ bikes pass by our station on the Emeryville Greenway. I got to do what I do best, yap excitedly about future bike infrastructure for 3 hours straight.
For everyone that thinks the Mayor of San Jose, Matt Mahan, would be a YIMBY governor, this is from his official mayor website bragging about opposing the elimination of single family zoning. www.sjmayormatt.com/meet-matt
Multiple buses being cancelled on a route that already only runs every 30 minutes is painful
Moving to Emeryville in 2023 is clearly visible here. When shopping, restaurants, parks, and activities are closer; it meant way less time trying to get places. It's impossible to really compare on such a short timeline due to COVID, switching jobs, visiting family etc. but I found it interesting!
On a larger scale, I spent way more time in a car while living in Dublin than I do now. When I took transit, those journeys were also much longer distances. We sold a car shortly after moving to Emeryville, making me much more reliant on transit and walking/biking.
After living in Dublin CA and Emeryville CA for similar amounts of time, I decided to compare my mode share living in a car oriented suburb vs. a more urban city. This very unscientifically uses miles travelled data from Google's Timeline Insights every month.
Went on a bike pilgrimage to the most beautiful Taco Bell in the world, which only exists because its construction predates the California Coastal Commission.
If you carefully frame a picture between parking garages and freeways, Emeryville almost doesn't seem American with its car-free greenway and railroad running along dense housing.
This item has appeared before council 23(!!!!) times over the course of almost 10 years. Speeding up project planning-> delivery will hopefully be a priority in the future.
What people don't understand is that Little Tokyo gets little buildings but Big Tokyo gets big buildings.