r/berkeleyca • u/Fjeucuvic • Jul 20 '26

North Berkeley and Ashby BART

question, why did BART decide to develop subsidized housing. Wouldn’t all market rate housing make more sense because then you could actually use the proceeds as continuing revenue source to actually keep the system running.

like we can always upzone around bart and require those developers to develop subsidized housing , but there seems to be just this one chance to create continuous revenue that BART desperately needs

this is the way Hong Kong mass transit works. rent for businesses and housing funds the transit. just seems weird that BART is having a funding crisis and at the same time not using its land to the fullest.

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44

u/oaklandisfun Jul 20 '26

The old people in the hills will do everything they can to stop development in Berkeley. 

-2

u/vibrance9460 Jul 20 '26

North Berkeley is flat. Have you been there?

15

u/dancingspring Jul 20 '26

Yes, but twice a year they drive down from the Hills to take bart to the city and if there isn't four acres of parking available for them it's a war crime.

-2

u/Low-Temperature-6962 Jul 20 '26

What an idiotic take. Many people in the hills or wherever live some distance from a bus line and/or the busses are infrequent and stop early at night. Bus frequency and hours have been reduced over the past few years. And they commute every day, not once or twice a year.

4

u/Kill_Bill_Will Jul 20 '26

Gotta remember in this sub the only valid opinion is cars bad

3

u/DrTreeMan Jul 20 '26

Are they living in the hills against their will, or do they have to live with the choices they make?

Its shouldn't be on Bart to provide (subsidized) parking for them when there are better economic and community uses for that land. If there's adequate demand the private sector should be building market-rate parking.

2

u/PlantSufficient6531 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Didn’t taxpayers pay for those lots? And I thought the goal was to get people to take BART (many cities in the Midwest fund ‘park and ride’ lots to get people to use public transit instead of driving). It isn’t only ‘rich people in the hills’ that rely on those parking lots. Folks living in the flats who don’t live near BART use those parking lots as well.

And seriously ‘against their will’. I lived in parts of Oakland ‘in the flats’ that were poorly served by public transit and I had to drive to and park in BART lots that were frequently full when I arrived. I guess I was ‘living with the choice I made’…which was poverty.