In order to protect the livability of our beautiful SF Bay Area for our future, we need to prioritize improving our infrastructure given the current stresses on:

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1) Water resources - It has been far too long since we have seen the planning and building of a new water resource project.  Too many politicians in Sacramento are constantly holding us hostage to drought conditions that we have the technology, but not the will, to overcome.  We can not allow politicians and certain private interests to limit our access to building new water resources as we experience too much demand growth combined with not enough supply (i.e. especially as will occur during future droughts).  Also, recall the recent embarrassment of the crumbling Oroville Dam that too many legislators in Sacramento allowed to remain in a state of disrepair by not allocating even minimal funds for maintenance so now tax-payers are left with paying for a much larger bill to repair it.  

 

2) Traffic Gridlock/Congestion & Transportation Alternatives - Travel times just to get across the city are terrible, and it will not take much more of an influx of new residents to make for a state of constant gridlock.  We don't have the underground public transit system like Manhattan, and implementing one may be too expensive or take too long to ever become a reality.  We need to study the impact of all transportation modes that are being used now (including taxis, ride-sharing services, bicycles, public transportation, etc) and how to optimize our roads to meet the growing demands.  

 

3) Road conditions - As we all know, these are in a terrible state in far too many places again because our legislators have failed to allocated funds for proper maintenance.  More density will further break them down and at a faster rate than the City can even keep up with now.  Accordingly, we need to first develop and implement a system to fix our current roads and properly maintain them in the future. 

 

4) Electrical and natural gas resources - SF Bay Area residents are facing ever increasing gas and electric bills without new capacity being added to help reduce our costs.  This situation leaves us all vulnerable to market manipulation as I recall having experienced the terrible "rolling brownouts" that were a costly embarrassment to California early in the past decade.  As we now face rampant population growth without proper planning to expand and maintain our electrical and natural gas resources will disrupt the supply and demand ratios causing our utility bills to sky-rocket thereby harming far too many of the low to middle income residents new housing projects are trying to help fix.  

 

5) Sewer system capacity - Even though there have been recent improvements, it is apparent that our sewer system would need to be substantially up-scaled in order to handle so many more residents coming to the SF Bay Area.  In the meantime, research needs to be conducted to determine the actual maximum capacity of the current system and how to cost-effectively improve it so we don't over-load it and turn it into a public health problem.

 

6) Seismic Stability - Nobody seems to be talking about this danger any more in recent times.  People have apparently forgotten that only 1 home sold in the Marina District in the year after the 1989 quake!  Moreover, SF has its own Leaning Tower ... the Millennium Tower ... that is a real embarrassment to the City.  There is a huge implication in this example that many other large and mid-rise buildings are also in similar jeopardy and risking public safety.  How can we believe that new large housing structures will be safely constructed when even the most luxurious condo structure West of the Mississippi is leaning and sinking into the ground with its multi-millionaire owners who are lining up with large lawsuits?

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