It’s my turn to complain about traffic. Traffic: another reason to keep jobs in San Jose.
I join over 50 percent of San Jose residents who leave their homes every day to travel to their jobs to earn a living outside of San Jose. Those of us who commute, trek highways 101, 880, 85, 87 and 280 mostly north to the “land of jobs.” I am getting back on the road and joining my fellow residents on our neighborhood streets as we try to snake our way to the freeway entrance—a feat in and of itself. I hesitate to say this, but now I am reminded why people cut through neighborhoods. Saving a few minutes commuting is a big deal to many with all the traffic congestion to slow us down.
As I mentioned last week, I thought it was important to keep my private sector job so that I would stay in touch with “reality.” Well, reality includes the severe traffic problems that residents face every day while commuting back and forth to work. Over half of San Jose residents leave the city with long commutes, which equates to time away from their families and communities.
For me, my commute wasn’t so bad when I first started with my company because they were located in San Jose. Unfortunately, my company didn’t see any advantages to growing in San Jose and moved its offices away. Now, any route I take north usually has standstill traffic. It doesn’t matter whether I take 87 to 101 or 280 to 85 to 101. There seems to be no alternatives—no short cuts—to escape the traffic. I marvel at all these San Jose drivers who travel to their respective destinations for work and then travel back to “the Capitol of Housing: San Jose,” spending much time waiting in traffic. Thank goodness for books on tape!
Often my work takes me onsite to client locations which include new venture capitalist funded companies. This month I have visited companies in San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Dublin, Hayward, Cupertino, and Menlo Park, among others. At every company I visited in these cities, I met people that live in San Jose. In addition to their commute, they also spend their money close to where they work on items such as gas, lunch, dry cleaning, etc. Their sales tax then generates money for the respective city’s public safety officers, parks and libraries.
In my opinion, San Jose has done more than any other city in the Bay Area with regards to providing housing. The council recently passed the five-year housing budget for the first time and included “extremely low income” (ELI) opportunities. Although it is important to provide housing opportunities for people of all income levels, I do believe that we need to be proactive in retaining land for future employment in San Jose. We don’t need to convert every piece of open space to housing. In fact, I think it is a good idea to let land sit for a while. San Jose has many attributes, including our diversity, neighborhoods etc., to which we should also add “land for jobs.”
It is important for our city’s future that new companies start in San Jose, grow in San Jose and, finally, stay in San Jose. Commutes are not going away; they are getting worse. I look forward to our 2040 General Plan where we can discuss and define what net loss means to San Jose, and hopefully somewhere in those conversations, we can also show how keeping jobs in San Jose will equal less traffic and more time with family and friends.
Hey PO—Infill. Retail. Not every San Jose budget problem and revenue problem is solved by hoping that every available lot everywhere could be used for R&D. Or for open space. Infill is still not a priority, though there’s much talk. Planners will not give you a bouquet if you give them an infill project, unless it’s a monster, nor will they reduce big fees for trying to improve your small vacant lot. I think you and Sam should get a little lot downtown and try to build on it, using different names, of course. I’d let you use mine. When seeking projects that produce jobs, what about a BIG retail push downtown—instead of more low rise residential wherein tenants have to go to Santana Row for safe fun and shopping—commuting, just a short distance, however, down San Carlos (since light rail doesn’t go there). And SR even has free, convenient, often covered, parking. Why is such a model close at hand ignored?
George Green
Pierluigi – another good discussion of serious San Jose problems but typical day on San Jose Inside – #2 don’t get it and #3 attack others
#1 makes good point Planning 2-3 x too long
PS where did you get – 50% residents leaving San Jose for jobs – thought it was 25-30%
“what about a BIG retail push downtown ” – in your downtown retail dreams
1) No private retail developer or retail stores will invest any money in downtown because they will lose millions
Retailers will tell you – ” I have more great locations than stores, only an idiot or government would put millions into a sure loser – downtown San Jose when other cities make it easier than San Jose”
2) RDA spent $2-3 billion on downtown with millions wasted, what went wrong?
3) Downtown businesses groups, out of town property owners / business owners, neighborhoods and city have not and will not work together, have unrealistic expectations and each expect others to invest millions to fix their problems
4) San Jose will not be wasting more millions on downtown retail dreams except for a few political projects (Coleman is example) Private retail developers and retailers have made decision NOT to invest in downtown San Jose for years.
5) Why would you expect downtown to get better when
a) most downtown business, developers and property owners do live in or near downtown
b) most downtown resident’s drive to do their shopping at Santana Row, Coleman, Santa Clara Campbell, Milpitas and Los Gatos
Identify major Silicon Valley firms who are not located in San Jose (Intel, Google, Yahoo, Hewlett Packard) and confront them. Warn them that they are pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Tell the CEO’s of these companies to move their operations to San Jose or they will be dealt with in a swift and stern fashion. Have city employees using “nazi discipline” and “mafia techniques” to force these companies to move their jobs to San Jose.
Pierluigi,
I have the utmost respect for both your service to your community, and making yourself available on this forum. The traffic situation is severe and getting worse. Roadways are inadequate to handle the traffic, neighborhoods are being used as thoroughfares, and drivers seem to be getting more and more aggressive. Having said that, the “reality” of your commute and job, is in my opinion, not a “reality” for many others, and you appear to be out of touch with a large segment of the community.The majority of my friends, family, and colleagues are in the complete opposite situation of yours, in regards to jobs and commutes. They work in this area, and are commuting 1-2 hours each way to Hollister or Tracy, or even further. They do this because it is virtually impossible for them to buy a house in this area, where a shoebox of a condo runs at least $400,000. These people include a nurse, two teachers, and a police officer. The truly unfortunate thing is that these professions make up the fabric of our society, and aside from working here they have no vested interest in this area because they will never be able to afford to live here. From the public information I got off of your campaign website, you are truly blessed in regards to your personal housing situation. According to your website, you live and own your house in a well to do Willow Glen neighborhood, and the value of your house is probably well over a million dollars, and you are only in your mid to late thirties. How you did that on a teacher’s salary is beyond me. I think you are an extremely fortunate person to be in this situation, and you have, to borrow a good Yiddish word, major “chutzpah” to complain about your commute. In my opinion, your reference “the Capitol of Housing: San Jose,” is not reality for most of us in the 30-40 year old range trying to get together a $75,000 down payment, and then being able to make a $3,000 mortgage payment as well as a property tax bill of $8,000 a year to buy a starter house in a so-so neighborhood of San Jose. That is why so many of us commute at least an hour into the San Jose area for a job, and drive 1-2 hours back to our homes. Thanks again for having the courage to making yourself available in this forum.
Or we could spend the billions of BART dollars on expanding light rail. That would ease traffic, too, and go a lot further in helping residents of Santa Clara (not Alameda) County.
Dave, #8
Your points are well taken. Buying a home in San Jose is difficult for most and impossible for many and well out of reach for young couples and average income families. However, blanketing the valley with affordable homes will only increase the financial drain on the City’s ability to support public safety, traffic and education needs. A thoughtful long-term solution is desperately needed to bring San Jose’s financial viability back into balance. Hopefully our Mayor, City Manager and Council, and City staff can find and implement the changes necessary to bring more long term manufacturing, service and professional career opportunities back to San Jose.
Dave has the very best entry today, truthful, thoughtful, insightful—and respectful, not just another name-calling anonymour blogger. It’s terrific that PO puts himself out there every Monday, and is often vulnerable because he reaches, doesn’t cover his ass like our other politicos, AND ISN’T CYNICAL. He may not always be right, but he’s always interesting. That being said, Dave’s problem, a really big problem, shared by so many others, and the toughest problem of all: affordable housing in San Jose. How does that happen? Who’s working on it in any real way? Who lobbies for it? What council member even talks about it seriously? Housing in San Jose, new housing, benefits just those in it for monster profits in a McMansion market (no backyard, no front yard, thousands of square feet, and no architectural merit, chock full of McMansion market features like granite counters and bamboo floors and great feng shooey). And now the dirt huggers are fighting the Sierra Club and needy old folks over 17 affordable infill housing acres in Santa Clara. There’s a speck of Section 8, but not for SJ Workers, a drib of teacher housing, a drab of Federal Tax Certificate Housing. It’s not a pressing issue for those who have a place to live in San Jose. Too bad. Really too bad. It’s not an issue in anyone’s campaign for office. Not an issue for the fact cats in the union when it/she can sit on the board that hires the chief fiscal officer for Team San Jose, and waste taxes paying prevailing wage for the labor to build the City Hall. I’d bet most of those folks dont have to live in Tracy and drive to San Jose. George Green
PO,
You and your council miss a more important reason that jobs are leaving.
Your planning and building departments torture businesses (of all sizes) that try to open.
They also make it really hard on the contrators and archetects.
It can take years (not months like normal cities) to get through the red tape and tangle mess of a city hall you people run.
So you are so correct in assuming commercial land can sit for a while!
Other benefits senior management gets at the City of San Jose? Help in buying a house! The people who have the income to buy get help while the rest of us don’t. And as far as affordable housing? You either have to make such low wages that you can barely feed your family or know how to work the system. We who make o.k. money but not great can never afford a house or condo here. The city also gives assistance to SJSU professors help. But not regular people. I guess we don’t want them here.
I just read you post and I’m not sure what your point was ? I am glad to see that you are on top of things. One question for you are you realated to Nora Campos.
My money say that you are?
You remind me of the Tin Man, so follow the Yellow Brick Road for a congestion-free commute. You, the Scarecrow (Sam Liccardo) and Cowardly Lion (Pete Constant) can only get to the Emerald City (Palo Alto) by taking this path. If Dorothy (Chuck Reed) would click his ruby oxfords, he could go back to Kansas. The Wizard (Forrest Wlliams) and the Good Witch (Nora Campos) are our only hope for going over the Rainbow.
Nam Turk is correct in saying that the BART extension to SJ is inappropriate. Read VTA Rider’s Union’s analysis of the BART project here:
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/bartsjx/
I’ve heard the “unaffordable housing” criticism in Beverly Hills just like San Jose. A person has to be willing to sacrifice to buy a house. To save for a down payment, you can’t be going out to dinner and movies every night. A person can still buy a pretty good house with a good size lot on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills for 7 to 10 million dollars. Sure there are houses for 20 million dollars but those are more suited to the super-wealthy.
Two things:
John, G-D-L-R is so correct. I am so sick of sitting on N. 1st St. waiting to turn left, NB stop across the intersection and SB stop to my left. The green arrow goes red as the trolley passes through the intersection. The train makes the stop then proceeds along, the cross traffic now gets a green, and the pedestrians who have just de-boarded push the button to cross but never wait for the “walk” signal, they simply cross when it’s clear and then those of us who were robbed of a green arrow STILL waiting to turn left sit through the “walk” cycle that lasts long enough for a 90-year old to get across the entire intersection when 99.9% of the people crossing are only going 1/2 way across to get to a platform. A trolley traveling in the opposite direction rolls up and the cycle described above repeats itself. How much fuel is being wasted and greenhouse gas being emitted by cars waiting to turn left? As much as I’d like to embrace mass transit, this system really stinks. They should have called it “SCAT” after all.
As for major retailers downtown, that is a long way off. Just last week downtown LA got its first supermarket, a Ralph’s, after being without one for decades. Sound familiar? The reason Ralph’s went in there? LA has built tons of condos downtown and the demographic there now reflects people in their early 30’s with average income of over $100K. If we get that kind of energy and spending power in downtown SJ, the retailers will be coming out of the woodwork.
It isn’t reasonable to blame housing for city services. San Jose is not a pure housing center. It neither imports nor exports significant numbers of workers.
San Jose’s budget problems are caused by signing overly generous deals with their unions. Such as allowing police and fire to retire at 50 years old, but keep 90% of their pay.
I concur wholeheartedly with J.S. Leyba when it comes to BART. We have to think regionally Nam Turk, not “what’s in it for me?” It is that thinking that will keep San Jose from moving forward and becoming a great city. FYI, there are future plans to extend BART along the 680 corridor from CoCo County into San Jose. Bringing workers into downtown San Jose corporate headquarters/offices from Berryessa, Milpitas, Alameda and CoCo County’s…that’s what the future is all about!
Mr Turk: Expanding Light Rail in lieu of BART is a joke. BART takes over 300,000 people where they need to go each day, including me: I drive from East SJ to pick it up in Fremont and I ride to San Francisco. Light Rail, with its dozens and dozens of miles, carries about a tenth that amount. Maybe that’s because I can drive to downtown San Jose and park for cheaper than taking light rail there—and I can do it in 1/4 the time. Or less.
Light rail is all the downsides of a bus (traffic delays, no grade separation, accidents) with all the downsides of a train (immovable track, high capital cost, noise, etc.) Ding ding!
What we need here is a robust system of public transportation—not commuter chuck-trucks like the ACE train and the G-D-L-R, which is what I call light rail when I wait at the McKee and Capitol stoplight for 10 minutes while consecutive trains cross.
In Boston, NYC, Berlin, and Mexico City, the transit network will take you everywhere. Try living life here with public transit. It’s a joke. Even the people who leave their cars at home come back to them at the end of the day so they can go to the grocery store, dry cleaners, dentists… or Fry’s.
Bring BART to San Jose now! And run a line from San Jose to Livermore too.
And some day, let’s build a real subway system for greater San Jose, Santa Clara, etc. Base it on the one in Mexico City. Their system blows away anything we have here.
I feel #18’s pain. The intersection of San Carlos & 1st is equally as messed up, as the traffic going northbound gets completely shafted and loses an entire green light cycle every time the lightrail turns the corner. And then after the lightrail passes, the cross traffic gets to go first. ??
2nd & San Carlos is the same, except that the west/eastbound traffic loses a cycle and the sounthbound traffic gets the break.
Here’s a great dissection of the whole lightrail mess, if y’all have some downtime:
http://www.ti.org/vaupdate32.html
Mr. Dominguez says we have to think “regionally” about the proposed BART project. Well, Santa Clara County voters are already doing their share for transit. This site:
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/ffa/taxme.html shows how much in taxes we already pay to VTA:
[quote:]
1976 – a permanent 1/2-cent sales tax to run 250 buses in Santa Clara County. It is VTA’s primary source of operating buses and light rail today.
1978 – a permanent 1/4-cent sales tax charged by the state of California for building transportation projects with 100% of the revenue goes back to the county. Approved by voters throughout the state in 1972 and is known as Transportation Development Act (TDA) funding.
2000 – the Measure A .5 cent sales tax passed by voters in November 2000 (whose campaign slogan was “Traffic Relief NOW”).
Mr. D obviously didn’t follow the link to the VTA Rider’s Union page I posted earlier. On that site is a good analysis of BART ridership:
Quote:
How many people will ride BART to Silicon Valley?
VTA Says: VTA is projecting that more than 111,500 weekday riders will use the 16.1-mile extension of BART to Silicon Valley in 2030. The project will attract more riders because it will save them time and money. These numbers are based on modeling data required by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). FTA requires that VTA use the region’s official population and employment forecasts produced by the Association of Bay Are a Governments (ABAC). VTA used ABAG’s 2003 Smart Growth projections.
The Rest Of the Story: VTA is projecting 111,500 daily riders, but it is a questionable projection. To put it into perspective, what VTA is projecting is about 1/3 of the total BART ridership today, which half of its transbay ridership, a corridor that has limited highway competition (one toll bridge). In addition, VTA projection is the nearly the same as the Red Line subway in Los Angeles, a system with twice as many station and lower fares, and a city with the population many more times than in Santa Clara County. Finally, VTA’s projection for the BART line is more than the entire VTA bus ridership today! In comparison, the bus system in Los Angeles carries 10 times more riders than the Red Line.
It is not the first time a BART extension had questionable ridership projection. The latest BART extension to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) was built using phony projections and now SamTrans, who carries the responsibility of paying the BART operating subsidy in San Mateo County, is now suffering from low BART ridership.
end quote
once again, the main link is
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/bartsjx/
and the Q&A is at:
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/bartsjx/fantasyvsrealityaug2006.html
Remember, the people who run this site are transit advocates, so if they’re opposed to the BART project, there is a good reason.
So don’t make it light rail. Make it full on rapid transit. That’s not my point. It’s about using SCC tax dollars to serve SCC residents. You’re hardly the norm in commuting up to BART in Fremont. It’s much the other way. If they’re going to dig tunnels for BART, why not do it for a VTA subway instead?
Pierluigi, yes, thanks for participating in this forum. Other Councilpersons would do well to share your zeal for exchanging ideas with those who participate in San Jose Inside.
Nam Turk, good point – BART will largely benefit residents of Alameda County and beyond. Few Santa Clara Valley folks will be helped by this wildly expensive juggernaut. Let the distant county residents budget for extending BART.
George, while local Government could make more of an effort to provide additional housing, we simply don’t have the water for an ever-increasing population. Short of imposing a massive Mello-Roos tax on residents to pay for such things as water, roads, safety and clean air, the numbers just don’t pencil out.
Why is it so many big transit construction projects have so many big cost overruns and fail to provide the benefits promised? BART to SFO was going to cost $590 million and attract lots of riders. Instead, we got a $1.5 billion project that is not attracting riders. How could this be?
We have seen that mega-projects are consistently underestimated. While the public benefits from the completion of the project, there is a serious question of whether the public would support such a project, if the true costs were known. Without a doubt, we know the winners here, Parsons Brinkerhoff and Bechtel, and the losers, the dumb taxpayers.
http://www.baycrossings.com/Archives/2004/07_August/big_fat_lies.htm
2) BART’s tracks were designed and built with a width of 5 feet. The global standard for rail track width is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. BART stands alone in the distance between its tracks—a fact that costs Bay Area residents untold millions of dollars.
“That was the biggest mistake,” says Allan Miller, Executive Director of the Train Rider’s Association of California. “I mean, it wasn’t even a mistake. It was done purposefully, just to raise everyone’s profits. Every time you order anything for BART, you have to not only get different parts, you have to actually build the machines to build those parts. Every machine that builds the parts has to be made from scratch. That’s an incredible expense, and they’ve plagued us forever. There is no way out of it.”
Another problem with the 5-foot width of BART’s tracks is that it is not compatible with any other rail system. This makes it impossible for BART to link with Caltrain or the San Francisco Municipal Railway. It also makes it impossible for BART to use the tracks of abandoned freight lines. This is one of the reasons BART will cost about $200 million dollars a mile to extend to San Jose, whereas Caltrain could extend along old freight lines for about $2 million dollars.
http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/314
I have heard there were other ‘reasons’ why BART was designed to a 5-ft wide gauge track standard:
– it was believed that standard gauge would not support 80+ mph operation, so the wider gauge was ‘safer.’
– Not Invented Here syndrome by Bechtel
– and I always wondered if there was some heavy-handed politics on the part of the Espee RR to ensure that it would be nearly impossible for BART to co-exist with, or takeover the Peninsula rail line (now Caltrain.) We will never know because the principals are dead or the records are ‘lost.’
#18: U got that right!
Vine St. S/B @ 5:00 p.m. A major artery to WG, Almaden, Blossom Valley, since 87 is a parking lot due to the social engineers who deliberately underbuilt 87 to FORCE commuters onto light rail. Surprise! It didn’t work.
A trolley on San Carlos changes the signal. A couple of hundred cars wait to let a trolley car with 10 people in it pass. But does the signal re-commence it’s cycle where it left off? NOOOOO!! It starts from scratch. Several hundred people wait in cars spewing fumes while a trolley with ten people in it rumbles by ever so slowly. The trolley override must cease so that traffic may flow.
The problem is that the traffic engineers have been taught that they must control traffic. The new paradigm must be that they must make traffic move.
Another example—you cannot make three green lights in a row on any street, including S/B Almaden Expressway on a Sunday morning. Wassup widat?
And downtown, it’s impossible to make two greens in a row.
So, PO, huge changes are required. People who live in SJ mostly work in other cities. And, ironically, most of the people who work in SJ live outside SJ….WAAAAY outside of SJ.