The housing crisis is fundamentally a transportation problem. The bay area has intentionally made it impractical to own a car, so everyone is forced seek housing within walking distance of a limited number of public transit lines. The "war on sprawl" and lack of affordable housing are two sides of the same coin.
Owning cars is quite practical in the bay area.
You might argue that COMMUTING in a car is impractical, but then again, I just commuted 20 miles down 101 in the heart of silicon valley in under 20 minutes this morning, so, I don't know.
I'd say relatively few people commute on the limited number of public transit lines you say everyone has to live near.
More investment into transportation will accelerate the demise of san francisco.
It can only be funded by higher sales taxes that workers pay, that end up rising the value of land and thus rent. It falls doubly on workers and renters.
Forcing people to live near transit is a good thing. The problem is thebat are doesn’t allow building dense hosuing near transit lines (common sense!) and so very few people can actually let people live near transit.
