GC: The Bay Area transit systems provide a lot of material. Why are you picking on a Bay Area project? GC: It’s based on a real rendering with four or five escalators. SB: It seems you started with a real rendering of it in fact? But yes, it’s a parody of the San Jose extension. Although once I tweeted it, people responded about a proposed subway in Seattle that’s also ridiculously deep. George Coffey: That is what it’s parodying, yes.

Streetsblog: So I assume the 300-foot-deep subway is a spoof of VTA’s ridiculous BART extension plans? Streetsblog thought it’d be fun to have a virtual sit down with Coffey and find out what inspired him to start the site, what it says about real transit, and how he became a transit nerd in the first place. The reason: “After feedback from multiple local businesses that Metro construction may inconvenience them, we’ve completed a new design for the central Downtown station! Building 300 feet below ground ensures the least disruption while adding less than 15 minutes to each rider’s travel time.”Īs with most good satire, the plan for this fictional subway wasn’t far off from reality: several readers of the Tweet took it seriously and were outraged by the proposal to build so deep because one or two local business owners “were still uncomfortable with the possibility of losing street parking for three weeks.” That’s why he built the website and social media feed “ Local Metro.” Streetsblog first became aware of his work after seeing a Tweet about a new subway being planned that would be ten stories below the surface. Los Angeles-based comedian George Coffey decided laughing was better.

Sometimes transit planning and the state of streets get so ridiculous, one doesn’t know whether to–as the saying goes–laugh or cry.

Rails dress