Cap on Growth
If the Bay Area’s growth is to be sustained, thousands of new workers will need to be housed and will begin their commute’s in the near future on our all ready grid locked roads to staff the Bay Area’s growing companies or new Start-Ups being formed.
With all the new jobs created in 2017 for example, only 14,900 new housing units were added in the Bay Area which is 30% less than the the 57,000 new jobs created in the same nine county region during the same year.
One of the results is that an estimated 24,000 people moved from the Bay Area to Sacramento in 2017, and 27,000 moved in 2018, according to the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. The Greater Bay Area Council estimates that up to 100,000 people commute from the Sacramento area to the Bay Area to work each day.
Super commuting is compounding the traffic grid lock problem as it is not possible to build enough roads or use more cars to connect the Bay Area’s outlying, lower cost cities like Sacramento, as alternative places to live for this ever growing number of Silicon Valley workers. The result is that California is seeing a reduction in the growth of its population, an exodus of commerce and people to lower cost locations and an estimated 250,000 super workers enduring 90+ minute daily commute times.
The approximate 1,000 sq miles of San Francisco and Silicon Valley behind the bay “moat”.
Prices sky high
Housing Affordability is at a historic low in the Bay Area. Even tech workers — some of the Bay Area’s highest-paid residents — are having a hard time achieving the bedrock of the American Dream: home ownership.
A prospective home buyer would need to earn at least $345,000 in San Francisco to afford the $8,600 a month in mortgage, taxes and insurance payments to afford the median priced home in San Francisco.
This level of income is more than six times the income needed to buy a median-priced home in the entire U.S. and paying these kinds of salaries puts our employers at a serous cost disadvantage compared to their competitors.
In comparison, Stockton has some of the lowest priced housing in the Bay Area, yet local workers still find house prices out of reach. “The median income in Stockton is $43,000, and that doesn’t equate to being able to buy a house for $300,000,” said Tubbs, the Mayor of Stockton.
A high speed, low cost, air metro, would enable residents of Stockton and other greater Bay Area residents to access the higher paying jobs available in the Silicon Valley, yet not have to endure the eye watering housing costs commonly seen in Silicon Valley, or endure a life sapping super commute via car like the approximate 100,000 daily commuters going into the Bay from Sacramento.
Sacramento to the Bay in 30 minutes compared to 2 1/2 hours by car?
Gordian Knot
Low noise, zero emission, high speed transport is one of the keys that can be used to unlock the puzzle that this vexing problem poses.
High speed, air transport could be one of the keys to unlocking this Gordian knot as an “Air Metro” transit system would bring most Northern Californian residents within commuting range of the Bay Area’s higher wage paying employers.
By using a high speed “Air Metro” transit system for commuting to work everyday, a resident of the greater Bay Area can change their work location to a higher paying geography like the Silicon Valley without having to change their home address.
As a citizens income has increased due to the higher wages on offer in Silicon Valley compared to the wages in one of the outlying cities like Sacramento, these Californian residents can now access non-economically stressing housing options that are readily available in their existing home town, even though this housing is offered at market rates.
An Air Metro would ensure that all homes in northern California can become affordable homes, all at a fraction of the cost of building affordable homes in high priced areas or relocating businesses to low cost areas.
The “Greater Silicon Valley” area that an air transit system enables expands the Silicon Valley’s worker’s potential home location from approximately 1,000 sq miles to more than 12,000 sq miles.
