Downtown San Jose builds new parklets in the Central Business District

Work has begun on a new
downtown parket.

This morning I had a chance to witness a new parklet being constructed on San Fernando St. in downtown San Jose in front of Azucar restaurant.  The expanded sidewalk will allow for outdoor dining just in time for Spring.

What's nice is that dinners will not be subject to car fumes and noise due to the planed bike corridor on San Fernando from Diridon Station to city hall.

Show some thanks to your elected city officials and the Department of Transportation for the improvements being made downtown, by stopping to dine downtown. Council member Sam Liccardo's district includes the downtown area.


View Larger Map

Could New York soon become safer than San Jose?

Interesting article posted by the Associated Press yesterday afternoon on the significant decrease in the homicide rate in New York during the Bloomberg administration. Last year the city experienced 418 homicides, the lowest number since reliable statistics have been kept since 1963. In 1990, New York City had an all-time high of 2,245 killings.

A couple of other interesting statistics from the article are that each year on average 33 people each down die due to homicides (over 12,000 annually) and 40 Americans commit suicides with a gun each day (over 14,500 annually).

Using quotes from the article for New York and Chicago and data from a homicide map that was produced by the Bay Area News Group I came up with some statistics of homicides per 100,000 residents

All homicides are for 2012. Population figures are from Wikipedia.

San Jose
46/958956=.000048               4.8 per 100,000 residents

New York

418/8224910=.000051           5.1 per 100,000 residents

Chicago
487/2707120=.00018            18.0 per 100,000 residents


View 2012 San Jose homicide map in a larger map

Megabus returning to the west coast?

Megabus coming to the Bay Area

My good friend Richard over at Cyclelicious informs me that he spotted a Megabus in San Jose this morning. He says that he spoke with the bus driver who stated that they are doing some test runs in the area. Megabus first launched its U.S. fleet in April of 2006 and currently serves 80 cities across North America.

When the system was running through San Jose I was very impressed. On one occasion I got a $3 ticket and the ride only took around 6 hours from Los Angeles' Union Station to San Jose's Diridon Station (see map). That works out to less than 1 penny per mile at about 60 mph pace!

Megabus used to run a San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station route about four years ago. The bus used to make a stop right at Diridon Station. So before your groan and compare Megabus to Greyhound bus lets go over some major differences.

Try the new Megabus phone app.

• Megabus is a British based company that currently has bus stops in 37 states and the province of Ontario. 
• Buses are new and immaculate, most are double decker style with on board wi-fi, at seat plug-ins
• Unlike Greyhound they own no property but rely on cities allocating convenient bus stops in high traffic areas.
• Ticketing is all done online.
• The unique feature of Megabus is that the first ticket for a run is always $1 and goes up from there, making the bus line very affordable.
• Unfortunately Megabus does not carry bicycles on board or in the luggage compartment.

 Megabus is extremely popular amoung students in the heavily traveled Washington DC to New York to Boston corridor, competing with Amtrak's Acela train.

 Megabus also has a mobile phone app which you can find using the QR code located on the right. They have an app for both the iPhone IOS systems and the Android system.

I'll try to keep you posted on any details.

Thanks for the heads up, Richard!

The new Parque de los Pobladores is ready for it's debut at tonight's Zer01 art festival

New sod was put down today
in preparation for
tonight's festival

Contractors have been moving quickly to get a newly redesigned Parque de los Pobladores (the old Gore Park) ready for tonight's Zer01 art festival. The park which consist of the sliver of property between the split of Market Street from 1st St. on the south side of downtown San Jose will be reincarnated as a pedestrian friendly park. Through traffic has been permanently block on the 1st street side of the park.



Riding through the SOFA district, along South First Street, workers were seen busily preparing for the opening night of the festival. Also evident was workers putting on a new asphalt topping to San Carlos St., in preparation of that streets new street-scape improvements which will include wider sidewalks and more pedestrian friendly street crossings.   (see "Downtown San Jose becoming friendlier for cyclists") The new San Carlos improvements will extend from 1st. Street to the west until 4th Street, the entrance to the San Jose State University campus.

San Carlos Street gets a new
asphalt topping in preparation
of improved streetscape.

A look northward from the south
side of the new Parque de
los Pobladores.

Downtown San Jose becoming friendlier for cyclists

Downtown Liveable Streets Projects.

At a recent meeting in the inner lobbies of the San Jose Department of Transportation I spotted this map (photo on right) on the wall. The title of the map was "Downtown Liveable Streets Project".

At that moment it occurred to me that many times we (cycling advocates) get news piecemealed regarding individual projects that we forget to see the overall trends focusing instead on what one piece of the pie means to us. At that moment I realized just how the downtown area has changed and been made better for all of us with these improvements.

I rendered the projects on a Google Map below including the recently approved Hedding Street Project seen at the north end of the map. If you include the current paving project of the Guadalupe River Trail to Alviso along with the coming Bikeshare and Bike corrals, we are really starting to see all our hard work pay off resulting in a true change for the better.

They've Designed it, Approved it, Built it now its our turn to Use it!

Show your support to the City of San Jose for all of the wonderful improvements to the downtown area by getting out and using them.There is nothing worse to an elected official than supporting bike infrastructure from a noisy constituency; and then not seeing it used as promised.

So, if you can, write or call your elected official (see district map), and be sure to thank them. Even more dramatic, hand make (and hand-write) a thank you note and deliver it by bike. I have but together a list of the current city council with links to more pages for each district/councilmember.

Personalize your thank you by picking one of the projects you use the most and tell your elected officials how it makes your ride easier, safer, or faster. Stay positive, stay focused on the issue at hand, and end with a thank you to the elected official and their staff.

Once the see how many cyclists there are, how pleasant we are, and how appreciative we can be, they'll definitely want to work with us in the future.

Contact information for Council Offices.

Map of the Downtown Liveable Streets Project

View Downtown Liveable Streets Project in a larger map

Parking again on the San Jose City Council Agenda - This time it's a good thing.

The San Jose City Council Agenda for Tuesday, September 11, 2012 will include one transportation related item concerning the cities promotion of a downtown carsharing service by allowing for parking spaces.

The agenda item reads:

6. TRANSPORTATION & AVIATION SERVICES
6.1 Carshare Vehicle Parking Incentives.
Recommendation: Adopt a resolution to repeal Resolution No.76177 and set forth an updated Master Parking Rate Schedule to authorize the Director of Transportation to designate up to 20 on-street and off-street parking spaces for exclusive parking privilege for participants in a Carshare Pilot Parking Program in accordance with California Vehicle Code Section 22507.1 for an 18 month pilot period and set the parking permit fee of $35 per vehicle and sign/marking fee of $225 per location, and authorize the Director of Transportation or designee to negotiate and execute parking agreements and amendments with car share service providers for participation in the pilot parking program. CEQA: Not a Project, File No. PP10-066, Agreements/Contracts. Council District 3. (Transportation)

Zipcar lot just south of the '88

This agenda item will seek to approve a vote for a council resolution (pdf link) allowing for the parking spaces. Hans Larsen, Director of the Department of Transportation gives some background on the recommendation in this memo to the Mayor and City Council dated August 20, 2012. Currently ZipCar has expanded their carsharing network to San Jose, but decided to do it without any help from the city by parking their cars on visible lots downtown. I have spotted a group of about three ZipCars in the parking lot just south of the Safeway store in the 88 building.

If you design for cars...you get cars.

New textured pedestrian crosswalk
being placed at the corner
of Campbell and Winchester.

During many San Jose General Plan and Diridon Station meetings, I remember Michele Beasley of Greenbelt Alliance invoking a well known phrase, "If you design for cars, you'll get cars. If you design for people you'll get people". Just this week I took photos of two locations in the valley that bring this point home.

One picture is of the ongoing construction work in downtown Campbell and at the intersection of Winchester Ave. and Campbell Ave. The Winchester Ave project will make for a more walkable Campbell west of the downtown area. Two years ago the city built their complete streets project to the east of downtown near the entrance of the Los Gatos Creek Trail.

These infrastructure improvements, along with the construction of a multi-story garage, and additional private investment has helped to make Downtown Campbell into a bustling retail area with shops, an extremely popular farmer's market, and a number of well known restaurants.

Almaden Blvd.; wide, with no
pedestrian activity.
The old SJDOT felt it was
better to design for cars.
The 'new' SJDOT gets it.

The other photo is of one part of the city of San Jose's downtown Bicycle Improvement project along Third and Fourth Streets, Ninth and Eleventh Streets, Almaden Blvd. (shown in the picture). The city is doing great work incorporating more bike routes in the downtown area. One of the areas is along Almaden Blvd., a suburban office park arterial dropped into a traditional downtown area. With the wide boulevard, the large medians, the mid-level office towers with large setbacks to allow for front lawns you get the feeling if you where in Tustin or Irvine, not a downtown with 250 years of San Jose history.

What would you rather have textured crosswalks or textured left turn lanes?

Which area do you perceive as being safer?

If you notice the photo, old school San Jose designed as if for cars only. The boulevard is wide, wide enough to have one of those old Soviet era May day celebrations with the parade of ICBM's (curious if the generation who grew up without newspapers knows what an ICBM is. click here for answer)

Related Posts:
New building going up in the heart of downtown Campbell
Tread Bike Shop - Just one more reason to enjoy downtown Campbell