I've been away from SF for a couple years now but I have a hard time believing that the average programmer is being paid ~200k. The salaries the GP listed seem about 80% of SF salaries to me.

Transit culture? Is that the idiotic 'I love sitting 3 hours a day in a bus going up and down 101 from my home to my employer in the South Bay and back'?

Seriously, the public transit is only great in San Francisco if you're only comparing it to the rest of California.

There are employers inside SF itself. If you live in suburbs, you need a car, just like Vancouver. There are many people who just live & work in SF and use transit the majority of the time.

SF salary is $180k intermediate/$220k senior?

Remember the currency conversion. 1 CAD = 0.8 USD.