I know a few things about mistakes. I have made my share of them, sometimes before rather large audiences. In the last two weeks I have noted two doozies that deserve to be nominated on this year’s list.
I wrote recently about the opening of the Guadalupe River Park as a great day for San Jose. It was. What was not so great was the fact that those who tried the walk the next weekend after the glossiest public relations campaign in recent memory, would have found the park closed in several key places. For instance, passage on the trail is barred by a locked gate at the railroad crossing, and there are construction crews and blocked access at Santa Clara and Julian Streets and all along the stretch where Highway 87 is being widened. It is a tremendous disappointment to all those families – including mine - who thought they were taking an uninterrupted stroll at our city’s newest park on our beautiful river – think it through next time, planners.
A second blunder that can still be fixed is being made by the powers pushing the BART extension to San Jose. Contemplating a new campaign to curry voter support, they have neglected one critical issue: ensuring that the small businesses that line the route are not the first casualties of the construction war. It is easier to neglect to feel someone else’s pain when it isn’t your life savings that are evaporating.
I have seen one of my mistakes, the light rail line on First and Second Streets, devastate the small businesses of our downtown. The current plans for BART construction will bring much greater calamity, as Mark Twain said, “…the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.” With trenches running 600 feet in length and sixty feet or so in depth through the heart of our city and at the HP Pavilion/Diridon Station area, the problems cannot be overstated. It will be horrific. And no one, not the City, the Downtown Association, or the VTA bigwigs have come up with a plan to mitigate the economic terror that will be visited on these largely unsuspecting merchants. Not another meeting should occur until a plan is presented to save these unsuspecting and trusting souls. Time is not on our side – there is a train running down the track and it’s running at a full tilt.
If this is banned book week, can San Jose Inside declare this week banned e-mail week? Mayor Gonzales won’t release e-mails about Norcal. See this morning San Jose Mercury News for details.
Lets balme The chupacabras
Do oil and water can be mix together?
Probably no
The agricultural political power will never let the political Silicon power grow.
They don’t share the same economic interests. The farming industry is not willing to lose more territory for silicon factories and nobody is willing to block that mentality. Politicians are powerless to the trillions of dollars that emanate from this industry; no even Bill Gates can push these guys aside. So, the only way to defeat this territorial control is by slowly building the north south railroad, accommodating industrial zones and affordable housing for the employees. Real estate regulations and banking caps is one possible solution but not necessary, we can do it the way we are doing it now.
So, we can’t grow side ways but we can stretch up-dawn to reach the space that we need to breath the new fresh air that we need.
The farmers will keep their farms and technologist will keep their silicon, nobody will get hurt if we state on our corresponding sides.
If California does not invest on its businesses, then somebody somewhere else will do it.
No guts no glory
Think BIG and you will do big things, let Gonzales be.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Educating the world, one city at a time.
Evaristo Guerrero II
are you related to James Rowen?
Enough already
It so nice to know that Loser is also known as coward, as he likes to shoot from behind the cover, and cannot give out a name. As we have also said before, keeping it confidential is necessary for tips and insight from city employees, but with losers, it is always easier to quip and avoid being tagged.
hey rowen or evaristo
whichever name you are going by right now
how can anyone prove who they are on this website. It doesn’t have the structure or security of a bank’s website. there is no way to confirm anyone is who they say they are even if they give a name and email address.
So how can you prove you are rowen, evarista or santa claus for that matter.
keep up the dribble!
KRON’s Phil Matier noted yesterday that Evaristo’s numbers are starting to slip. He cited voter concerns around Evaristo’s voluminous and increasingly incoherent postings at SJI.
Matier mentioned that the rumour mill has Joe Trippi taking over as Evaristo’s campaign manager replacing James Rowen.
Finally, the latest polling data shows the gap between Evaristo and Steve ‘objects in the mirror are farther away than they appear’ Westley has closed slightly.
I’ll probably get flack for this, but I do think the article in the Merc a while back that looked to the future with BART running through downtown SJ did capture some of the realities of the situation. And last weekend’s back-to-the-future article on commuting behaviors made some good points too. With gas prices only going higher, good public transportation is going to be a necessity. Emphasis on “good.” The trolley system is a joke until it offers a bybass around downtown. BART had Market St. in SF torn up for years but now that it’s there, it’s an asset. What needs to be in place if BART does come to downtown is a solid plan to minimize impacts of this major construction project and a commitment not to let one business go under as a result. They are building the apartment and condo towers downtown right now. The riders for BART will be there by the time it’s done. Might as well get this job started while there’s less of a business district to disrupt.
I’m not talking financials here. The cost of BART is huge and deserves serious scrutiny. I’m just saying that if it’s going to happen, the sooner the better so once it’s done our downtown won’t have anymore disruptive activity that negatively impacts businesses and hopefully will then be able to grow unimpeded into the thriving district it’s supposed to be.
Build it an they will come – but if and only if – there is free wi-fi.
If no free wi-fi then all bets are off on this multi-billion dollar venture. Otherwise full speed ahead!!
And while we’re at it lets put Pat Dando in charge.
Given her past experience with lightrail, she now knows that we need to place transit systems near places that people actually want to go – like the work, live, and play mecca that we all know as downtown SJ.
BTW, last I checked the roads leading to downtown SJ were choked and the parking lots full to overflowing. Only BART can save us from this downtown gridlock.
The riverpark is a huge and tremendous disaster, and the politicians, along with Puc., are absolutely retarded, taking us for a lied ride! What an incompetent goons! There are pedestrian railroad crossings all over the city, and they don’t want us to cross our failed riverpark. The construction of Hov lane is a wasted snufu! What an utter lie. The park is absolutely a disaster and filled with incompletion. The park is a joke and unfinished. San Jose is a little city kicking itself in the bud. What an embarrassment!
Dear San Jose:
Gonzales has “nothing to hide” except his e-mails.
On BART, why not just build it to North San Jose and spend the rest on the other methods of transportation that actually move people?
Can’t help but think that BART is more of a make work project that will justify more “affordable crowding” around identified transit corridors.
It’s all a game, and the citizens of San Jose are losing. Ten years from now, San Jose is going to be one crowded place!
Pete Campbell
Smurf # 10: Did you start taking English writing lessons from Evaristo?
I experienced BART construction as an SF resident. A complete disaster for Market Street merchants. But on the other hand, many were sleazy joints that didn’t need saving. Unfortunately, the baby went down the drain with the bathwater, and lots of otherwise viable merchants got the shaft.
To contend that BART’s success in SF(and I don’t concede that it is one) can somehow be transalted to SanHozay is a horse of a different color. SF is vertical. MUNI once succeeed there as a transit system, until the union stranglehold made a bunch of ignorant and belligerant drivers in charge of the asylum. Now its a %$^&ing; mess. Hell, even Willie Brown admitted it’s a mess when he was still Mayor. If Brother Willie won’t stand up for the drivers and their union who will? Well, maybe Ted Kennedy, but thankfully he’s in no position to do anything about it there. The system is as dysfunctional as VTA here. Of course VTA beats the hell out of MUNI in the percentage of revenue from the fare box. I think it’s the lowest % in the entire nation here in Silicon Valley.
The biggest problem with BART’s name and reality is what they call the letter “R”—Rapid. It ain’t rapid. Change the name to reflect the “R” as “Regional” and it would be accurate. No system where every train stops at every station will ever be rapid. CalTrain has just now figured that out, and instituted mini-bullets. Mayor Tom may have figured it out, too. If every light rail train passes through the downtown transit corridor (who thought up THAT joke of a name??) at 5 mph, why would anyone ride it? And it still goes from kinda somewhere to absolutely nowhere.
We also got the transit mavens who want light rail to go to the Norman WHY?? Mineta Int’l (??) airport. Who wants to schlep the wives and kids and bags to the airport on public transit? How would they get to the station nearest their home to board it to go to the airport—walk?? Can’t leave cars in the lot for your two week vacation. Hey, look at The City’s BART extension. Empty. Who could have guessed? Any rational person, but not the “professional” transportation-types chasing federal transit funds.
NYC figured it out from the git-go, by having parallel local and express lines built. That way if you need to traverse the length of Manhattan, or the other boroughs, you can actually do it in some reasonable amount of time by transferring to the express line at the nearest opportunity.
That requirement is even more necessary in a horizontal housing environment like the Bay Area. BART to SanHozay should be DOA until we get a whole lot of what Pete Campbell calls “affordable crowding” planned and approved and funded on the entire line.
Big hoopla over the airwaves for the last coupla weeks about the Vasona Light Rail Line opening. I’ll skip the party and Rod Diridon’s inevitable self-aggrandizing speech. I’ll bet most people will skip riding on it, too.
Oh, and the Guadalupe River Park. Jeez, why did they open it when it isn’t near finished? Why are there like four or five guys mostly dawdling the day away “working” on one small section at a time for the last several months, instead of putting enough guys on the job to get it done and actually making them WORK all day every day? I walk there frequently, and most of the time I see a few guys standing around not even pretending to work. That’s government contracts for you. Private contractors become just like public employees when they take on a government job—no-one actually works at some reasonable pace more than two or three hours a day. But they draw eight hours pay plus major benefits.
But we have no money to fix our horrible roads, we fuss and fume about library hours, we keep hearing about police and fire cutbacks, the courts are underfunded; but we can subsidize the Arena Carousel, have an entire office devoted to “public art” and a separate one for our airport; and we can build the single most expensive municipal building ever constructed in North America for a mayor who does not believe the public’s business should be public, and refuses to release emails regarding public business.
Time for another Boston Tea Party!
We will continue to have very poor local city and regional Silicon Valley land use, transit, transportation and public policy planning as long as we accept as our principal planners –
our local politicians and their inexperienced political staffers – the “gang that can’t plan or implement right” who frequently
-Ignore – the professional advise of experienced city or county professional planning transit and transportation staff.
-Hire – political campaign workers as their staffers since unquestioning loyalty is more important than experience or competency
-Have – their large business and developer campaign contributors be the primary source of general plan amendments and public policy proposals where the primary purpose is greater profits / campaign contribution support not consistent Smart Growth planning
-Are – more interested in how much tax revenue and campaign contributions will be available soon to spend and ignore the intermediate and long term problems since it will be someone else
Gang#14: Great Post!
Time for another Boston Tea Party?
JMO, you are right about ridership, it’s low and the systems we have aren’t an attractive enough alternative to the car.
I commuted to Oakland from Los Gatos for over a year. After having a big rig kick up a piece of Nasty Nimitz road junk that managed to dent my front fender one day, I decided to do my nerves and my car a favor and start driving to Fremont to hop onto BART. I never regretted this decision even if it took a little longer. I’m going to have to commute to Oakland again for two weeks in October. Even without a BART station in San Jose or Santa Clara to use, it’s still worth it to me to drive to Fremont and catch it there. If the Vasona line was built out to Los Gatos like it was supposed to be and BART was already here (like it could have been if people had voted the right way back in the 60’s, and for soooo much less money) it sure would be slick for me to hop on the Trolley and hook up with BART.
But I’ll admit that this has been the only situation where I’ve felt public transportation was the better choice. And that’s the problem we face. The car still wins 99% of the time.
We forgive you but we have enough problems already
Lets Focus on solutions
The idea is to level the cost of living, stabilizing house prices and accommodate affordable labor so that companies don’t have to move somewhere else.
The infrastructure should be design around business because that is the bread of the system. With the idea of promoting a balance between family life and workload, the way nature intended to be.
We all need to reconsider the transportation issue, that is the main gate to the solution.
To bad I can’t make drowing on this site but we can plan the whole Guacamole and meke it the main goal.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Let me be your Amigo
Mal: BART above ground in SanHozay?! Everyone knows such projects are only built above ground in the ghettos. So, what are you saying about our beautiful RDA downtown, Mal?
What a counterpoint to The Taj Gonzal!
Hey John, I can get it a 100% write if I look at the dictionary or have the will to do it, but I’m very expressive; however, sometimes, I see make several grammar errors. This is not an English class. I don’t carry dictionary books with me or a refresher book with me. We are all human, ah.
Smurf:
OK, just checkin’. I was startin’ to get worried.
There are some good points here but there is another alternative that many San Joseans seem reluctant to discuss.
While any BART construction is going to be expensive and disruptive both problems could be reduced if the downtown SJ section were built above ground.
In considering the issue of cost a BART sales tax is more likely to win support in the communities outside of San Jose if more is done to keep the price down. The above ground option is frequently mentioned among BART’s lukewarm supporters in places like Sunnyvale and Morgan Hill, but it’s a topic BART boosters are quick to dismiss. The rationale seems to be: You can’t be a world class city without some a subway.
Regarding the Guadalupe River Park, what’s the hurry? They’ve only been working on the project since the 1940’s…probably the same few guys JMOC sees on his frequent walks. If and when they ever finish the trail, it will be one of the best features of downtown. I sure wish they’d get ‘er done.
yeah, all a loser can prove is what he is everyday
I feel for you Single Gal!!! I was fortunate enough to meet my husband in college so I can’t imagine navigating through the “modern” dating scene! Call me old fashioned or naive, but I just gotta believe that your prince charming is out there somewhere!! Even in San Jose…
If BART is coming to San Jose, it should just stop in Milpitas at the light rail, or maybe Berryessa. There is only enough money for that. Light rail connects to First Street and downtown, close enough to SJSU, and has a bus shuttle to the airport. Light rail also connects to businesses like Cisco. Why dig up downtown again?
If a baseball stadium is built, it should be close to both light rail and BART. Berryessa, maybe?
SAN JOSE INSIDE is just another place for the poor white man to gather and complain about how bad its going and how worst its going to get. Boo Hoo The Irish guy O’Connor cries about how it is going get crowded, well if the situation is so bad their always the option of returning to the emerald isle. Where the hell do you get off calling Willie Brown, brother?
Good post Tom,
It’s time our planners accounting for their actions. On a personal level, my parents lost three thriving businesses because of poor planning, or planners that just didn’t care.
In the 70s, my mother lost her restaurant next to the Liberty Theater to make way for the redevelopment of Market Street.
In the 80s, after rebuilding her business, she lost it again to make way for light rail and the (Torino Towers?) on First and Julian Street.
My mother then moved her business alongside my stepfather’s business at 101 N. San Pedro Street. In 1989, a suspicious arson fire temporarily closed the business. The fire inspector said we could reopen our business because the damage was minimal. However, after a couple of months the city condemned the building and evicted Manny’s Cellar and my parents, thereby, allowing the RDA to restore the Fallon Manson.
My stepfather suffered a mild heart attack from all the stress. Fortunately, he was able to save enough to live comfortably until he passed away in 2002.
#13, JMO’C, good reading.
As for the Guadalupe River Park: I understand that the water district is in the final phase of their flood control project. By completing the bypass channel from 280 south to Alma Street, downtown San Jose will be accessible by trail from Los Gatos, Willow Glen and the Almaden Valley; imagine that!
I agree with you, the city will have to take another deep breath in and hold it’s chest while the bart is being built. Afterwards, the city can exhale as the tens of thousands of bart riders breath economic life into this struggling downtown. If the 49’er stadium gets built, imagine the economic gains the bart riders will bring.
I dream that one day, San Jose will have a public transit system worth taking. As a former San Francisco resident I can speak with great ease as to how wonderful it was to have several bart stations within quarter miles of one another.
San Jose is growing, and we’ve passed San Francisco’s population count since the 1990 census. It’s time we modernized and had a world class public transportation system that people will want to use and enjoy.
I dream of a day where San Jose can have an efficient and fast public transportation system. Lightrail with it’s slow speed that averages 16mph, has been such a big letdown. the VTA is like the SF trolly it should be put to rest in favor of a faster, more efficient metro type system.
San Jose is the biggest city in the Bay Area, and 10th largest in the nation. It’s time for us to swallow the pill and get bart over here. The longer we wait, the more it will cost.