Meltdown II: Cognitive Dissonance in 2011

[Gurn Blanston]

There was no Caltrain back then?

I can only reply that since I never heard of that, it must not have been so. You could take the PCH (I 280) up the west side, and they had a bus that ran that route through Daly City, South City and San Bruno. Also you take the 101 from <> the airport back up into the city on the east side. IIRC, BART ended in Daly City back then. Is that where Caltrain starts? 

[Gurn Blanston]

I've lived in a number of places in the U.S. and have visited many different European locations.  I have enjoyed all of them.  The most important factor is that I take myself wherever I go; my nature is to reap the rewards of every location, not grouse about the negatives that each possesses.

Thank you, Don. Ultimately, who you are dictates what you see to enjoy or criticize in any place you go. True, there are places that are universally acknowledged as sucking badly, but the reality is that some people are unhappy anywhere, and others are happy everywhere. The vast majority are somewhere in between.

[owlice]

I live in a suburb of Washington, DC, just outside the Beltway. My neighborhood was built in the early 60s. I have within a mile a grocery store, liquor store, drug store, three fast food places, three or four sit-down restaurants, and a very popular ice cream store. Another perhaps quarter-mile away, there is a multi-screen movie theater (big screens, not the little screens which are common in the downtown movie theaters), and another sit-down restaurant with a bar. This is all within walking distance.

A little farther away, I have more options for shopping and dining. My son has often walked to this shopping area; I drive when I go there because I'll be hauling back a month's worth of canned cat food or some such, and that's just too much to carry/fit in my bike panniers.

I live in a single-family house. There is an elementary school at the bottom of my street along with a neighborhood park which includes tennis and basketball courts, a field used for both soccer and baseball, swings, slides, and other playground equipment. Also picnic tables and benches. On the other side of the elementary schoola and park, there are townhouses and a large apartment complex. Go just a bit further from the townhouses, and there are several large office buildings; behind the apartment complex is an office park. (I regularly see geese, ducks, heron, vultures, and hawks around, in addition to many songbirds.) When I walk, bike, or drive to the grocery store that is a mile away, I go past townhouses, apartments, and office buildings; the grocery store is directly across the street from the office park with the pond (the one behind the apartment complex).

It's just hell living in such a place, with raccoons and oppossums and groundhogs and rabbits and foxes visiting my quarter-acre of turf, with restaurants and ice cream and groceries so nearby.

My commute to work -- I usually drive; the traffic is horrible, and I work downtown -- is about as long timewise as my commute was when I lived in Manhattan on the Upper West Side in the 90s and went to school and worked on the East Side in the 20s. (For the record, I loved living in Manhattan.) I also worked for a time in Long Island City, in Queens; took about as long to get there, too, so long as there were no problems with the subways. Taking the subway to my current job usually takes longer than driving does.

Yes, please pity those of us who live in the awful, soul-sucking suburbs! Neither city or country, just stuck in the middle, with nary a pleasure around. Too noisy for the country, too far from decent eats for the city.

Hell, pure hell!

[Scarpia]

I can only reply that since I never heard of that, it must not have been so. You could take the PCH (I 280) up the west side, and they had a bus that ran that route through Daly City, South City and San Bruno. Also you take the 101 from <> the airport back up into the city on the east side. IIRC, BART ended in Daly City back then. Is that where Caltrain starts? 

I've never ridden on Caltrain, but it is a commuter railroad which runs (I think) from San Francisco to San Jose.  There must be a stop in San Bruno (that's where the airport is) and there are others in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc, on south.  I don't know where the station in San Francisco is.

[MishaK]

I've never ridden on Caltrain, but it is a commuter railroad which runs (I think) from San Francisco to San Jose.  There must be a stop in San Bruno (that's where the airport is) and there are others in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc, on south.  I don't know where the station in San Francisco is.

The BART has a San Bruno stop.

[Gurn Blanston]

The BART has a San Bruno stop.

So it has been extended then, and not inconsiderably! Cool. Light Rail is the way to go, rather than becoming part of the 100,000-wheel-worm. I used to drive the 101 with a book on the steering wheel...

[Scarpia]

The BART has a San Bruno stop.

I see Caltrain goes all the way down to Gilroy (far south exburb/rural town) 30 miles south of San Jose.

http://www.caltrain.com/stations/systemmap.html

[drogulus]

      Although I usually take the view that people are entirely too eager to attach moral significance to suburban sprawl, when it comes to sidewalks I'm a Jacobin. That's because I've lived in and visited in various 'burbs around the country for decades and it's the case that cities, towns and the right kind of suburbs have sidewalks leading everywhere on all the streets and roads and lanes. If you have sidewalks only on the main roads no one uses them. It's an eerie feeling walking in a "town" like that.

[MishaK]

      Although I usually take the view that people are entirely too eager to attach moral significance to suburban sprawl, when it comes to sidewalks I'm a Jacobin. That's because I've lived in and visited in various 'burbs around the country for decades and it's the case that cities, towns and the right kind of suburbs have sidewalks leading everywhere on all the streets and roads and lanes. If you have sidewalks only on the main roads no one uses them. It's an eerie feeling walking in a "town" like that.

In fact the cops sometimes stop you if they see you walking in a town like that because you look so odd and completely out of place.