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Jake Berman

@lostsubways.com

4.1K followers 340 following 910 posts

Wrote and illustrated "The Lost Subways of North America". Lawyer. Californian living in New York. Avid cyclist. Transport + housing nerd. Order the book at: http://lostsubways.com

lostsubways.com

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

the basic problem of suburban municipal finance, in a nutshell:

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 12h

Ehhh. Not really. For reference, this cartoon is from 1905, one year after the first IRT subway opened.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 13h

This is bad faith garbage from the Administration.

City Nolan @ndhapple.bsky.social · 13h

““It’s billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get,” the president said, referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, an ardent supporter of Gateway and its previous iterations. “Tell him it’s terminated.”” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/n...

Trump Says $16 Billion Hudson River Tunnel Project Is ‘Terminated’

www.nytimes.com

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 13h

Before 1925 or so, they really were a monopoly. A lot of the early city-owned bus competition, like the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, date to municipal efforts to beat the Red Car monopoly. (LA had one car per four households then, and that was the highest of anywhere in North America.)

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 14h

And the people voted for this! They wanted this! Didn't matter if the transit was publicly or privately owned. There was no conspiracy. Just a bunch of bad decisions that made sense at the time.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 14h

And those people who wanted all streetcars removed? Often it was the streetcar companies, because they owned the buses too. The Pacific Electric in LA in 1946 threatened to shut down all its trains in favor of buses unless they got a public bailout.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 14h

It wasn't a conspiracy or anything, Brent. The damn streetcar companies were shitty monopolies and public enemy number 1 for decades - even in Canada, where "Tubes for the People" was a slogan to build a publicly owned subway in Toronto ~1910, to break the monopoly power of the Toronto Railway.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 1d

Hey, remember when car and oil companies successfully lobbied governments to create car dependent cities and suburbs, and once we became almost completely car dependent, WE became the loudest, angriest champions of unhindered road space for cars, unnaturally cheap gas, and subsidized free parking?

Cartoon of a single-detached housing subdivision with a road jammed with cars

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 18h

Nope. And the site is six miles from the existing Suisun-Fairfield Amtrak.

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 18h

I know! My dad was one of those when I was in high school and it sucked. Would that these billionaires put half as much effort into building towers in Palo Alto or Menlo Park.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 18h

I could see this working well if you upgraded the Capitol Corridor to the standard of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway or the Madrid-Toledo AVE, with new right of way via 113 and 12 to stop at the new city.

That puts Sac 45 minutes away, and Oakland 30 minutes away. But that's not in the plan!

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 18h

I had my own look at California Forever's plans. I don't mind the design. The design is great.

But Suisun City is an hour from Sacramento, an hour from SF, and 1.5 hours from San Jose, where the existing jobs are. Really, who are we kidding here?

Louis Mirante @louismirante.bsky.social · 1d

Spent some time with the California Forever plans today and it's exciting. If they pull this off, I would absolutely consider moving. First off - they're really locking themselves into 30 du/acre, which is like triple San Francisco's (13 du/acre). That would be sick as hell.

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

...because the numbers are the numbers.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

It requires a ton of manpower for HCD to enforce existing law, and it's not working. A RHNA-based automatic builder's remedy is simple, and can be based on easily available permit data. If a city's behind on your quota, there's no need to analyze whatever bullshit rules they've ginned up...

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

Getting stuck in traffic on the 101 Freeway in LA, a decade and change ago, behind a guy in a Jeep with too many bumper stickers.

I was so mad about it, I ultimately ended up writing a whole book about why American transit went down the tubes.

John Moe @johnmoe.bsky.social · 1d

What meaningless thing/experience are you still mad about? Like it should not matter at all, DOES not matter at all. But you’re still MAD.

And how long has it been?

I bought some bagels at Hy-Vee four years ago. So bad. Too big. Hard. Bland. WORTHLESS.

I’m still FURIOUS.

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

The Santa Monica experience was a great natural experiment - but California politicians haven't learned the right lessons from it. /9x

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

There are a handful of cities trying to rezone in good faith - like Sacramento - but most of them aren't willing to pull their fair share. 8/

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

The law currently provides that while the zoning is void, a city must approve all projects that include 20 percent affordable (that is, rent controlled, income restricted) units. 7/

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

Which brings me to my long-ruminating idea: if a city is behind on its quota, that city's zoning gets voided until it hits its quota, because obviously the plan is falling short. 6/

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

Want to see what happens when the state nukes the zoning? It happened briefly to Santa Monica and the city had to approve more housing in a matter of weeks than they had approved in the 8 years prior. 5/

The first of many: spotlighting the 16 Builder’s Remedy projects - Santa Monica Daily Press

Matthew Hall SMDP Editor SMDP is continuing its coverage of the Builder’s Remedy projects with an ongoing series focusing on each project. In today’s edition, y

smdp.com

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

The theoretical penalty for a bad faith plan is that the State voids your zoning and anything goes until you produce a viable plan, but @gavinnewsom.bsky.social has been too chickenshit to enforce the law. 4/

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

But the quota system only requires cities to "plan" for new housing and often times the plans are bullshit and made in bad faith. State enforcement has been lackluster, so cities like Los Altos Hills are getting away with it. 3/

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

The background is, there's a state quota system called RHNA, where each city has to pull its weight - rich cities, cities with good transit and jobs get higher quotas. 2/

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

This kind of shit is rampant in rich parts of the Bay Area. There should be more teeth to state housing law. If you're not zoning in good faith, cities should face more consequences. I have an idea for how this could be done. 1/thread

Anne Paulson @annepaulson.bsky.social · 1d

Los Altos Hills CA is up to their old tricks, to get out of allowing homes for the people who can’t afford the $5.7M houses there. The rich exclusionary town has to zone for multifamily housing, but they don’t want to, so they’re weaseling. 🧵1/7

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

Here's an interesting question - if service levels decrease below the cutoff on a covered commuter rail station (say Anaheim ARTIC or Emeryville Amtrak) does it revert to pre-SB79¿

Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

next step: modifying the subdivision map act to allow as-of-right lot splits down to 2400 SF?

(fwiw that was standard a hundred years ago for large lot single-family!)

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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 1d

El Segundo has entered the chat