San Jose history. That’s what we had on Tuesday, as Madison Nguyen became the first Vietnamese-American to win an election for San Jose City Council. Rodney Foo and Truong Phuoc Khánh write up the victory and what went on in the race that pitted two Vietnamese-American women against each other for the Distrct 7 seat vacated by Terry Gregory’s resignation earlier this year.
The Mercury yesterday also had an editorial that ultimately asks the question “Is that good government?”
Other news this week:
Santa Clara opens doors to displaced students… By Alicia Upano
Soaring gas prices force drivers to shift gears… By Mayra Flores De Marcotte
Cache crop: seekers find bounty of goodies… By Mayra Flores De Marcotte
Victims’ mothers face Carl Roske in court… By Anne Gelhaus
Horseboarding is a stable business… By Sarah Holcomb
Deads birds dropping in Almaden… By Lisa Sibley
Teen authors’ book helps teens transition to middle school… By Anne Gelhaus
District 6 Liaison works from dusk to dawn… By Mary Gottschalk
Residents want slower speeds on the Alameda… By Michele Leung
St. Martins of Tours School celebrates 50 years… By Mary Gottschalk
Sorry, no new pho finds this week. Any suggestions?
There is really not much point listening to anything Gonzo has to say at this point. There is nothing more pathetic than a desperate politician who is in denial. He will say anything to make it appear everything is OK—sort of like the Wizard exclaiming “…pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” The sooner we take our destiny into our own hands, the better. It’s time for him to go (actually, it is past time.)
#2. What if “the man behind the curtain” is really a woman who runs a powerful labor organization?
Re: the Rosegarden Resident article about reduced speeds on The Alameda, can anyone advise about what benefits (if any) come from having it designated a State highway? I tend to stay away from certain intersections controlled by signals (Hedding & The Alameda comes to mind) since CalTrans operates them with arbitrary timing and has no clue about traffic flow. Seems to me that if this reverted to city control we might see some improvement.
Re-routing 82 onto Coleman would be easy enough if it’s the right thing to do. Make the switch in Santa Clara from El Camino over the tracks and onto Coleman and that will take drivers into the downtown area and they’ll sail right onto S. First/Monterey Hwy without having to make a hard right turn as currently needed downtown to stay on 82.
Personally I don’t think many people are mapping their trips using Route 82 anyway so doubt it would make any difference other than to maintenance issues mentioned above and in the article.
Traffic signals allowed to revert to city control and we might see some improvement??? You’ve got to be kidding. Have you ever traveled down the city controlled Taylor Street and had to stop at nearly every signal as you slowly made your way towards 1st St.? There are numerous other examples of streets and intersections that appear to have no timing mechanism at all, and these are under city control. If you know of some properly time streets and intersections in SJ please let the rest of us know so we might be able to share that experience.
Hey Cal,
I know—it’s just the lesser of two evils in my opinion. Slightly better chance of getting results if you pursue trying to effect change, maybe some alternative avenues (no pun intended) to try and get results compared to CalTrans, that’s all I was thinking.
I can relate to Taylor St. I’m sure the signal at 1st St. that favors the trolley is wrecking things down the line on Taylor as well as yet another CalTrans-controlled mess at Taylor & 87. It’s a lose/lose situation over there.
A properly working on-demand signal system is hard to come by anywhere in SJ and neighboring cities, that is for sure. The company that makes the detector loops doesn’t seem to have to answer to anyone for making a product with such a high failure rate.
Meanwhile we all sit at red lights for no reason when there is no cross traffic. I also think it would be a big improvement if signals were allowed to revert to flashing red/yellow like the old days during off peak hours. This concept of bringing a major artery to its knees for one lousy car during non-commute time is aggravating and ecologically unsound.
But I do think the changes in mind for The Alameda are good ones, regardless of who has control over that road.
Mark T: Do you know something I don’T? It’s difficult for me to believe CalTrans operates the lights @ Hedding & The Alameda. It’s in the city limits and not an entrance to t stae highway.
But no matter, since all traffic engineers (why are they called engineers, anyway, since all they have to do is consider how traffic moves, which merely takes observation, not engineering?) seem to be trained in the ways
of how to CONTROL traffic. They need to learn and understand how to make traffic
MOVE as seamlessly as possible.
CalTRans has it right—you cannot move down Taylor, or St John or St James or any other street in SanHozay without hitting red lights. Indeed, the lights seem specifically designed to ensure that you cannot proceed through more than one intersection without hitting a red light.
Every weekday I travel from the SJ Athletic Club to 160 W. Santa Clara where I work. If I go down St. John to 4th, turn right, then turn right on St John, there are lights @ Third, Second, First, and Market. It is IMPOSSIBLE to go straight through. Three stops, and sometimes four are required. I sit there at each red light for ten, twenty, thirty, forty seconds and more, with no cross traffic. WHY? Quien Sabe? Well really I do know—it’s because traffic engineers want to control auto flow rather than let it flow. That was what they were taught, and by god, that’s what they will do.
D’ya think they are people with no control over their personal lives, and so they overcome their impotence by imposing it on us? Too Freudian? Whatever the reason, we all fill the air with exhaust waiting at red lights when there are no people coming on the intersecting streets.
Seen the road to The Taj Gonzal lately? The traffic heading east on Santa Clara Street is backed up to The Shark Tank from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. every weekday.
I grew up in L.A. In 1959 HAND-TIMED traffic signals on Olympic Blvd allowed you to travel from LaBrea to dowtown without a stop once you got in the flow, and as long as the speed limit was observed. Now the traffic bozos say they need elaborate software to do the same for Almaden Expressway, and they still haven’t effectuated it.
Cal Trans-
If you drive the speed limit it’s usually possible to hit mostly green lights on North 10th and 11th between Santa Clara and Hedding Streets. This is not a main route through town, but it’s one place (the only place?) they got it right.
Here’s something you missed from the San Fran Chronicle last Sunday. Hey Dale Warner: take notes in your case against Gonzales. He still doesn’t know that he needs to go to voters first before spending city money. Bonehead move.
Strike zone: Watch out, Oakland. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales is gearing up for another shot at grabbing the A’s.
“We have a site that is very good, very close to mass transit, close to Caltrans and the future BART line to San Jose,’’ Gonzales told us over coffee during a recent morning appearance on KRON 4.
The mayor was referring to an industrial area next to the Diridon-Arena train station, just south of the HP Pavilion.
The mayor noted that it took years for Washington, D.C., to get everything lined up to be the new home of the Montreal Expos.
“If I was to forecast things, I’d say (we’ll take it to the voters) sometime next year and ask them if they want Major League Baseball here.”
Mark T:
Good example: today I leave the SJ Athletic Club to drive the 8 blocks to my office @ San Pedro & Santa Clara. It took almost eight minutes. I can walk it in five. If you drive down St. John westbound from Fourth to Market, you cannot make a single light. Just as your light turns green, the one at the next intersection turns red. Damn annoying.
Traffic engineers want to control traffic, when they should be drafting computer models on how to make it flow most efficiently.
JM, must be a job security thing with the engineers. Keep the signals all messed up and then there’s always something for you to do. We’d be giving the Council & Mayor way too much credit to presume they’d notice and ask that something be done about it. Your walking vs. driving story sure does illustrate the seemingly total disregard for the need to keep traffic flowing, not stopped.
Guys, I’m pretty sure nothing has changed on The Alameda. I can remember questions and complaints in the past about signal problems on The Alameda that were not acted on by the city because the signals were under CalTrans control. Maybe that has changed now, but this has been my understanding. I’m pretty sure nothing has changed with the signals at the bottom/top of freeway ramps though. Those are for sure CalTrans items.
JM, I can remember when East Santa Clara had signals timed for all greens from 1st St. all the way to King Rd. There were signs posted all along the way stating that the signals were timed for 23mph. Why 23 I don’t know. This was probably begun in the 50’s when life was slower. But if they could do it then, why not now when the need is so much greater?
I’d like to think that traffic engineers are passionate about what they do and are trying to do the right thing, but it sure doesn’t seem that way does it? Maybe you’re onto something JM with these guys wanting to have some control they don’t have at home. Just like the frustrated choreographers that designed some of the freeway interchanges around here. Junction of the Bayshore and Nimitz comes immediately to mind.
Seems to me that the issue of signal timing and cycling (like allowing for flashing red/yellow during off hours) wouldn’t be a big deal to fix, but I suspect that part of the selling point of the detector loops for signal control is that you can cut some traffic engineer positions by letting the loops do the egineering on that oh-so-annoying on-demand basis.
Mark T:
You got that right!
Follow-up.
Today there was a HUGE backup to get onto northbound 87 @ Tamien Stattion off of Alma, so I went to Monterey Highway, cut over to Third, and went from Keyes to St. James without a stop. We all drove the speed limit, and we made every light.
So, I conclude that it was either a total accident, or someone actually knows how to time lights so that during the commute hour at least we can move more than two blocks without hitting a red light. So, make whoever set that up the head of traffic in San Hojay, and ask him to duplicate the success.
While he is at it, he needs to shift all the Moms who drop oiff their little darlings at Notre Dame H.S. from Third Street—where they cross three lanes of traffic and stop in the left lane to drop off their little darling girls—to Second Street, which is against the commute flow in the morning. The current set-up causes near misses every ten seconds. Why some highly educated traffic guy needs me to figure this out is part of our problem with traffic engineers. Except for the guy who figured out how to keep third street flowing in the a.m. commute, they’re all a bunch of incompetents.