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Benjamin Schneider

@benschneider.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.1K following 586 posts

Investigative and policy reporter at Remapping Debate. Previously at CityLab, SF Examiner. Author of "The Unfinished Metropolis": shorturl.at/PInVb

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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Really enjoyed reading and editing this PUBLIC COMMENT guest post on the true cost of California's high development impact fees: publiccomment.blog/p/do-impact-...
publiccomment.blog
Do Impact Fees Do More Harm Than Good?
Tallying up the significant cost and paltry benefits of California's development impact fees
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Idothethinking @idothethinking.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
The East Bay Times editorial against Measure RTM is so bad I had to refute it. Bad argument after inaccurate statement and then completely ignoring AC Transit's existence because it disproves their core argument that cuts over service improves transit. darrellowens.substack.com/p/voting-aga...
substack.com
Voting Against The Bay Area Transit Measure Is a Fatal Mistake
The East Bay Times and Mercury News Editorial Board write a bad column on the transit tax measure.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Over the past decade, bikeshare has become a quintessential part of the urban experience. Young urbanites couldn't imagine life without it. Total cultural victory — and hardly anyone talks about it. gothamist.com/arts-enterta...
gothamist.com
The hottest way to show you're an authentic New Yorker is… riding a Citi Bike?
Thanks to Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Timothée Chalamet and more, the rideshare program is having a moment.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
BART ridership picking up steam in the lead up to the vote on the regional transit funding measure
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
In the examples cited here, the tax exemptions were too generous, and the affordability requirements too meager, to make housing more affordable or benefit the public.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
There are a lot of different levers to pull in affordable housing policy — direct subsidy vs. tax exemptions, deeper affordability vs. broader impact, etc. But it's a subtle machine. Sometimes, if you pull too hard on one lever, everything backfires. www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
sfchronicle.com
Real estate investors are profiting off a California tax break
The welfare exemption has become a strategy for landlords to save money on taxes without necessarily giving tenants a discount on rent, a Chronicle investigation found.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It can't be overstated how unusual this project is. It's just so big and dense. There are a lot of unanswered questions about how the engineering, operations, and management will work. The closest precedents are probably some of the mega-complexes in Hong Kong.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Some more tidbits about 100 Gold St.: The project is looking at a 7 year construction timeline, from 2030 to 2037. A minimum of 25% of homes would be required to be below market, with an average affordability level of 60% AMI. (That's a pretty deep affordability level)
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
edc.nyc/sites/defaul...
edc.nyc
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The NYC EDC development at 100 Gold St. will rise 115 stories — more than any other building in Manhattan or the USA. It will have an FAR (density ratio) of 30. Until 2024, FAR in NYC was capped at 12. That's how you fit 4,000 homes on an 86,000 square ft lot.
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
California's ballot proposition system is not *only* a rent-seeking venue but it is largely for rent-seeking disguised as unmediated democracy
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The galaxy brain urbanist take on Waymo's transit discount is that the $2.85 should be a congestion pricing surcharge on every ride that does not begin or end at a transit station.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
According to the analysis cited here, Waymo's transit discount program is actually in the company's economic interest because train stations are efficient pickup/dropoff points for a taxi fleet. Also interesting how tap to pay makes a program like this much more user friendly.
avmarketstrategist.substack.com
Waymo’s 54% Fleet Growth in Texas & Wayve signs Mercedes-Benz
Meanwhile, Tesla's FSD sped through Brussels and Switzerland starts charging for robotaxi rides
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 28/09/2026
Jersey City reveals plans for the redevelopment of the Holland Gardens public housing, taking a moderate density, monofuctional, 192-unit complex and replacing it with a high-density, 753-unit project with commercial space, a community center, & a public library! newyorkyimby.com/2026/09/plan...
The current Holland Gardens siteThe new project, showing ground floor commercialMassing for the new projectSite plan of the new project
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
edc.nyc/press-releas...
edc.nyc
Mamdani Administration Advances Plan to Build Nearly 4,000 New Homes at 100 Gold Street
City-owned Lower Manhattan site will become mixed-income housing, including approximately 1,000 permanently affordable, rent-stabilized homes, an olde
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
New renderings of 100 Gold Street, a public-private development in New York that is now expected to yield 4K units, including 1K affordable homes. It will also fund a new senior center and new office space for the city, all without public subsidy. Really maximizing the value of public land here.
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Ben S @bensh3.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
In addition, the Reimagining Regional Rail master plan has been released! We finally might get the S-Bahn Philadelphia deserves. Read now: wwww.septa.org/initiatives/...
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Robert Prinz @prinzrob.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
SPUR’s new report details how catastrophic it will be for Bay Area transit riders if the public transit funding Measure RTM fails. But drivers will feel it too, w an estimated doubling of Bay Bridge crossing times and more than 3X longer through the Caldecott Tunnel. www.spur.org/sites/defaul...
“The Bay Area's Top Three Highway Bottlenecks After Potential Transit Cuts
The Bay Bridge, Caldecott Tunnel, and I-680 in Walnut Creek/Concord would experience some of the most significant travel delays in both directions if looming cuts to transit service are not prevented.
Bay Bridge
+33
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+43
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK
Caldecott
Tunnel
+20
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+27
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK
1-680
(Walnut Creek/Concord)
+15
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+20
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK”“EXHIBIT 4
Traffic Delays at Most
Current Highway
Bottlenecks Would
Double With Proposed
Transit Service Cuts
Line and station closures and reduced service frequency would compel transit users to drive, worsening current highway bottlenecks.
Source: SPUR-Jacobs.”
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This was a very thought provoking piece. I don't usually mind advertising posters on transit vehicles and in stations, even giant ones. But video (and certainly audio) can feel more invasive.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Good to see more homes on this giant lot, but come on! This is Ashbury Heights. A little ornament, color, personality, flamboyance, anything interesting please. sfyimby.com/2026/09/meet...
sfyimby.com
Meeting Tomorrow for Proposal at 1049 Clayton Street in San Francisco
The San Francisco Planning Commission will meet tomorrow to review information on a proposed redevelopment of parcels located at...
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
But some landlords say it makes it uneconomical to rent their units, leading them to hold tens of thousands of units empty and off the market.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NYC significantly strengthened its vacancy control policy — keeping rents at a similar level between tenants — with the 2019 rent law. It reduces the incentive for landlords to try to evict rent control tenants.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is interesting. SF and other CA cities could implement a rent freeze for rent control homes, but advocates there aren't interested. (A 0% increase vs. 1.6% isn't that significant.) The big prize for tenant advocates in CA is vacancy control…
sfstandard.com
Lurie declared a rent emergency. Could he freeze rents like Mamdani?
Even if he could, tenant advocates say, it wouldn’t address the root causes of displacement.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"'The Unfinished Metropolis' is the perfect read for a generalist planner who wants to know a little bit about a lot of topics." www.planetizen.com/blogs/138416...
planetizen.com
Reigniting the city-building revolution
Review: In “The Unfinished Metropolis," Benjamin Schneider argues for us to look abroad for help in returning to a long-lost American art: city-building.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Gotta evaluate technocrats on the substance of their claims, not just their claim to expertise!
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
That's definitely part of the equation. However, there's also evidence that wherever freeways were built, there were negative economic and population impacts. This study found that every additional urban freeway reduced that city's pop by 18%. academic.oup.com/qje/article-...
academic.oup.com
Validate User
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Reed Schwartz @reed-schwartz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.niskanencenter.org/new-york-sta...
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
So many cities could learn from this. So many urban leaders could learn so much from @benschneider.bsky.social's excellent book.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This is one of the wildest things I learned researching my book. Planners predicted that cities would be economically ruined unless they built freeways through the city center. In fact, the opposite happened: The cities with successful freeway revolts came out the strongest economically.
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Edward Russell @byerussell.com · 10/09/2026
I recently finished @benschneider.bsky.social's book, The Unfinished Metropolis, and very much enjoyed it. The book covers the range of urbanist issues from their roots, where US policy drove (pun intended) it in certain directions, and contemporary shifts to build more people-centric communities.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New podcast about The Unfinished Metropolis: We get into some of the things that have changed since the book was published, including the Road to Housing Act, the changing fortunes of downtowns, and questions about how far zoning reform should go. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
The Unfinished Metropolis
Podcast Episode · Booked on Planning · September 8 · 37m
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Mayor Lurie's silence on the rental market craziness in SF was starting to look out of touch. There's not much CA mayors can do on rent regulation, and these are pretty modest proposals, but it's significant that he's finally taking the issue on. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/u...
nytimes.com
San Francisco Mayor to Declare Rent Emergency Amid A.I. Housing Frenzy
Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to combat evictions in the city, which has the nation’s highest rent increases.
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Reposted by Benjamin Schneider
Sam @samd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
so much good stuff out there. intro books would probably be arbitrary lines: @mnolangray.bsky.social the color of law the unfininshed metropolis: @benschneider.bsky.social stuck: @yappelbaum.bsky.social paved paradise: @henrygrabar.bsky.social the affordable city: @shanedphillips.bsky.social
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Looks like a lot of this program will be geared toward fiber and fossil fuels, though it does mention electricity transmission. There's no mention of railroad electrification. It's very much a watered down, bad for the environment version of the Biden admin's ideas.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Building greenfield linear infrastructure in 21st century America is just a nightmare. If there's an option to use an already disrupted corridor, it's worth seriously looking at.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Another important infrastructure colocation concept: Highways and intercity rail. That's how Brightline made it from South Florida to Orlando on the (relatively) cheap. Brightline West plans the same. And it's, arguably, how CAHSR should've traveled through the Central Valley.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I wrote about these proposals here: benjaminschneider.substack.com/p/trains-and...
benjaminschneider.substack.com
Trains and transmission: A climate solution hiding in plain sight?
In its final days, the Biden Administration endorsed a plan to revolutionize railroads and electricity transmission. California just released a similarly ambitious rail plan.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The report also studied the potential for "discontinuous electrification," stringing wires over alternating segments of a given route and running trains on batteries the rest of the way. (This is what Boston's MBTA plans for its Fairmount Line electrification.)
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The Biden admin envisioned this co-location as an opportunity for railroad electrification. The thinking being that once electrical transmission lines are in place, it wouldn't be so hard to string catenary for the trains.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
USDOT has announced a program called America's Great Corridors of Commerce to colocate utility infrastructure along highway and rail corridors. It follows the Biden admin's "Action Plan for Rail Energy and Emissions Innovation," which looked specifically at electrical transmission and rail.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Really interesting tidbit in this article on LA DSA's endorsement of Raman for mayor: The 3 other DSA-supported LA City Council members have all endorsed Bass. www.latimes.com/california/s...
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This is a good question! Elevateds are typically cheaper to construct than subways. If SF were to pursue a large transit building program, it would be wise to at least study elevateds. But I think it would be very difficult to build political consensus in SF around elevateds.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A standalone line on 19th would be better than nothing, but definitely not optimal. Very little of the travel demand from the Sunset is going toward the Central Richmond, where this line would terminate. There are far more destinations further east along the Geary corridor.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
For a closer look at the big questions on the Geary subway, I'd highly recommend @infrastructureweak.bsky.social's analysis: bsky.app/profile/bens...
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A line up 19th would be much more useful and higher ridership if it was interlined with the Geary subway, providing one-seat rides to downtown. That also leaves open the possibility of stations at UCSF and at GGP's museums. Here's how planners envisioned have envisioned it:
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Subways down Geary and 19th (the G and A lines here) are widely recognized as a worthwhile goal, and the city is currently studying them. But why are they depicted here as two lines with a transfer? www.sfcta.org/projects/ge...
sfcta.org
Geary/19th Avenue Subway and Regional Connections Study
The study will focus on the first phase of planning and development.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The plan also fails to account for the planned Caltrain extension to downtown SF, which will relieve demand for fast transit service in this area. A planned infill station in Bayview, and better connections to existing stations at 22nd and Bayshore, would do the trick.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The T Line subway extension to the south is also redundant, tracing the exact route as the existing T light rail. The T should be made faster and more useful with intersection closures, signal preemption, and stop consolidation. No need to build a new line.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The J light rail train a few blocks aways is conveniently not depicted on this map. Meanwhile, the Geary subway and central subway extension could serve the northern parts of the line.
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Benjamin Schneider @benschneider.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
First problem is the Divisadero (or D) line. While it would be cool, it's more of a 22nd century priority. There just isn't that much north/south travel demand among those destinations. Plus, the middle part of the line is already well served by Muni light rail and BART.
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