Silver Creek High School cyclist killed this morning on Capitol Expressway.

RIP: Silver Creek High School
student killed
photo: dbking

Sad news this morning on the streets of San Jose. An unidentified Silver Creek High School student died at a local hospital after suffering injuries from a collision with a car while riding across Capitol Expressway in East San Jose. The crash site is two blocks from the high school and just over a quarter mile from the 101 Freeway.

Silver Creek High School Principal Adolfo Laguna in this morning's San Jose Mercury News, stated "the (student's) death is a poignant reminder of how careful motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists have to be around the school area, particularly during rush hour. We want our students to be safe."

Dangerous By Design

Yes this student's tragic death is a poignant reminder; but asking motorists, pedestrians and bicyclist to be careful as a preventive measure against these types of incidents is completely wishful thinking. This intersection is dangerous by design.

Here are some reasons that make this intersection dangerous for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

The speed limit is 45 miles per hour but given that the the proximity to the 101 freeway entrance, speeds typically can reach over 60 miles per hour.

San Jose City Council member Pierluigi Oliverio has been championing 15 mph speed limits near schools but he is limited by California state law to only two lane streets, not 10 lane expressways.  This expressway also known as" Capitol Raceway" is notorious for impromptu races among race tuned autos.

The intersection was designed to reduce congestion by increasing the speed at which autos can negotiate turns. As you can see in this photo (Google Maps), the intersections uses large radii turns creating a triangular area to place the traffic signal. This design to increase the speed of right turning cars is a safety risk to cyclists and pedestrians.

Given San Jose suburban development pattern this expressway channels a high volume of traffic to the freeway during rush hour, bringing large volumes of traffic and young students together in a dangerous mix. The school, with almost 2,500 students also creates its own commuter congestion with parents rushing to bring their students to school before heading on the freeway to go to work.

Crossing Capital Expressway subjects student, cyclists, pedestrians, and the elderly to a 200 foot crossing with no refuge or rest area in the middle of the intersection.

I am always amazed that we have been lead to believe that the suburbs are by design safe than cities. It is evident in this Wall Street Journal Blog post titled "Is Generation Y a "Game Changer" for housing?"   The article quotes a financial services consultant who recently bought a 2,500-square-foot house in south San Francisco. The 23-year old single woman mentioned that she anticipates moving to the suburbs later in life, stating, "In my 20s, I definitely want to live downtown; I like the whole high-rise, in-the-city feel,” she said. “But, definitely when I have children, I want to live in a single-family home. It’s easier for parking, transportation and it’s safer to live in the suburbs away from the city."

The community should use this tragic incident as a starting point to do something about the lack of safety so close to their children's school.

A side note: When I went to the Google aerial photo of the school a counted 9 bikes (out of a student population of 2,500) in one bike parking location; and I'm not surprised.

Update (San Jose Mercury News): The bicyclist, believed to be 16 years old, was traveling east along East Capitol Expressway around 7:35 a.m. when a white Ford F-150 pick-up going northbound on Silver Creek Road collided with him, Officer Albert Morales said. Emergency personnel performed CPR at the scene and took the injured boy to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:10 a.m.

Hedding Street Improvments and building fires

Hedding St. fire.

Although Hedding Street will be getting some new bike lanes latter this year fire struck an older warehouse just last week along Hedding at 10th St. where the railroad crosses the street. This is one of many fires I have notice over the years in San Jose. Whether historical houses or old warehouses, nothing is safe from a potentially deadly flame.

Looking east.
10th Street and Hedding at the Raiload
tracks

Where have all the tables gone?

Starbucks at 3rd & Santa Clara
Says good-bye to street life.

I've been meaning to write about this for several weeks, maybe waiting for some downtown denizen to comment, but I have not heard a peep. While Mountain View and San Fransisco add street furniture to their business districts, downtown San Jose's tables and chairs have been missing faster than my mother's enchiladas at a family party.

Last year I wrote about Peet's coffee getting rid of their modest street inventory of exactly one table and two chairs with some lame excuse (Cafe Culture is for Canadiens, not Californians). Then a month ago I notice that the overly hyped up Safeway market, located in the 88 building, with its soft focus pictures of bikes with a basketsful of flowers, got rid of their street furniture as well. At the same time the store installed very inconvenient entrance turnstiles as well (see photo). Is this a sign of the times or a part of a corporate policy to start nice and "purty", and then slowly change the look and feel after the newness and grand opening publicity wears off.

There used to be tables right there.
Right behind the cyclist.

Well now the 3rd St. and Santa Clara St. location of Starbucks, one block from city hall has pitched they tables and chairs in to the trash bin. Gone are the tables that fit rather well on the west side of the building, where (you can see in the picture) the sidewalk is wide and now sits on the quiet bike lanes just installed just last month.

What makes this even worse is that the interior of this Starbucks is so small, there almost isn't a time of day when you can find a vacant chair. Bad business on your part Starbucks on 3rd St. and Santa Clara, and just as bad as the San Pedro Square Starbucks. With no restroom available to customers, employees at the San Pedro Square store instruct you to use the "porta potty" around the corner.

 In a recent Metro article titled "Dreams of Instant City" by Michael Malone, the Metro introduced the article with the following comment on downtown business;

While trendy, small, owner-operated restaurants sprout up in Willow Glen, the downtown restaurant mix leans toward seafood and steak chains and Italian restaurants for executives on expense accounts. (emphasis is my own).

Welcome to Safeway. Now try and
squeeze you and your bags through
turnstile.

To this I would add any chains. Whether its Starbucks, McDonald's, Jack-in-the-Box, or Walgreen's. Large chains do not encourage community with street furniture or actual windows when the focus is solely on the bottom line.

To show you what a real effort at invigorating street life looks like I have included a street view of Rues de Forges in the town of Trois Rivieres in the Canadian Province of Quebec. Trois Rivieres is a town of only 130,000 along the banks of the St. Lawrence river, but after you view the photo from different angles you get the feeling that its a city of over 1 million. Don't forget this is a city that has a daily average of 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the month of January and gets only a couple of months of really good weather. On midweek summer days and evenings that I have visited the street life is dense and lively; leaving me completely dumbfounded as to why we can't do that here.

Sometime you'd think we lived in Alaska instead of one of the most wonderful climates on the planet. Any comments? See any other instances of disappearing street furniture? How can we create a vibrant street life?


 I will be commenting on the article "Dreams of Instant City" in a future post.


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Bike Party participant and Ultimate Frisbee enthusiast places Ghost Bike to honor fallen rider

Ghost bike for a fallen cyclist.
Charles Schaffer.
RIP

A friend of mine who will call Melanie, is an avid San Jose Bike Party rider and volunteer. She's frequently seen on the monthly ride along with the test rides beforehand. What I didn't know is that she is also a Ultimate enthusiast. This week both of those worlds will come together for here as she places a ghost bike in honor of her Ultimate teammate and fellow cyclist Charles Schaffer. (For more information on Ghost Bikes refer to this Wikipedia enty)

As I mentioned in a recent post;

While riding down Campbell avenue west of San Tomas Aquino on the evening of July 26, traffic was diverted near Kirkwood Shopping Center due to a traffic incident. At the time I did not know a bicyclist was involved. That cyclists turned out to be Charles Schaffer of Cupertino, a 56 year old valley native who was passionate about Ultimate (also know as Ultimate Frisbee).

At a San Jose Bike Party volunteer meeting last night, Melanie mentioned that she is just about finished putting the bike together along with a memorial plaque in honor of Charles.

In honor of Charles, this months San Jose Bike Party ride is planning to pass slowly and silently by the bike in a quiet rolling memorial. Riders may leave candles, notes, flowers, etc. at the scene to remember this fallen cyclist.


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Bikes collide on a downtown street; one injured.

First responder to the incident
scene comforts a young cyclist.

In what has become on almost weekly occurrence, I came upon a traffic incident; although this time I was not the first responder. Last night at approximately 9:45 pm two cyclists collided on the walkway at Paseo San Antonio and 1st. St. (on the south east corner of the Fairmont Hotel).

The incident involved a young man riding eastbound on Paseo San Antonio and a young woman riding southbound on the sidewalk on 1st. St. Now here is the sad but strange part of this unfortunate event;

• Both riders were riding at night without lights.
• Both riders were not wearing helmets.
• Both riders were wearing earbuds and listening to music when they collided
• One rider's bike has no brakes.

The woman in the picture was in severe pain and the male rider mentioned that she might have hit her head. The male rider did not appear to have any injuries.

Conversation with an engineer, a road engineer.

This video is from my good friends over at Strong Towns who we might be seeing this fall in the San Jose area. If you ever wondered how suburbs have evolved and how streets have turn into arterial conjestion pits, this funny little animation says it all.

The story background is that it is a conversation between a city's DOT (Department of Transporation) and a local resident, a mother who's children are accustomed to playing in the street with very low traffic. Let me know what you think. Enjoy.

50 MPH Speed Limit + Bike Lanes? No, Not in San Jose.

In an article in this morning's San Jose Mercury News "Look for slowdowns on Almaden Expressway -- and then higher speeds" Gary Richards describes the gridlock that we can expect in south San Jose over the next few months. This is becoming a familiar pattern in the Santa Clara Valley. Similar to the build it, pave it, build it, dance going on at Valley Fair/Santana Row, developers are poised to build additional strip retail malls once the roads are widened (this is in addition to the existing retail boxes such as Costco, Best Buy, Whole Foods and Safeway).

The plans call for additional lanes on each side of Almaden Expressway, making this roadway an eight lane expressway with 50 MPH speed limits. Additionally, a three lane left turn area is planned. Yes you heard it right; a left turn pocket with three lanes. I have only seen this in one other location; in Dublin, CA.
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The increased speed limit and additional traffic volume will seriously degrade cycling safety along this corridor (whether or not you paint bike lanes on the roadway) which already gets low marks for bicycle friendliness.

Some of this traffic will spill onto Lincoln Ave. in Willow Glen which already resembles a parking lot more than a quaint business district during the morning rush hour.

When VTA announced plans for a new "express" light rail from the Almaden Valley to downtown San Jose the hope was to encourage more people to ride the underused train system. But just two months later the County announced that they plan to widen the expressway. At times you just wonder, "What were they thinking?" If the stated goal is to reduce VMT (Vehicle Miles Travelled) as the city so passionately documents in their new general plan this will not help.

What do you think?

Photo: Richard Masoner @ Cyclelicious

Location:N 1st St,San Jose,United States

VTA seeks public comment on proposed route changes - but it's more than route changes

In a news release this week, VTA is seeking public comment on three bus routes, two community bus routes and one, a new limited bus route that will eventually phase into a new bus rapid transit line (BRT).

However I wanted to comment on Route 11, which is a very limted route to begin with, extending from San Pedro Square to Taylor and 17th and only 20 times a day on weekdays. The plan is to extend the route to Diridon Station.

However, if I recall correctly this route used to go past San Jose Marketplace, home to another Target store, Office Depot, Panera Bread, etc., etc., etc. Now outside of a Limited Stop Bus (304) which only runs on weekdays and only four times a day (rush hour) there is no bus line that runs to the suburban style shopping center.

As Scott Herhold of the San Jose Mercury News mentions in a August 2010 column:

But it is not downtown, no matter what (Redevelopment Director Harry) Mavrogenes says. It is on Coleman Avenue south of Taylor Street, separated from the city center by at least three-quarters of a mile and a hulking overpass.

So although a connection to Diridon Station is an improvement, if you want to get more residents living downtown, and you want those residents to live a car-free or car-lite life you will have to connect the meager downtown retail offerings by transit when they are so spread out and are connected by horrible pedestrian improvements.

 Scott later goes on to ask Harry Mavrogenes how he got to the grand opening of a new business in the San Jose Marketplace:

Then I asked how he'd gotten to the grand opening. He said he had driven from his City Hall office. So we have a downtown location that you have to drive to from your downtown office. Sorry, Harry. Something doesn't compute.

So if were going to build these suburban strips malls in a downtown setting the least we can do is connect them to downtown businesses and residences. Please.


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James Howard Kunstler

James H. Kunstler

The other evening my local city council member held one of his regularly scheduled movie nights, this evening featuring the movie "Radiant City", which IMDB.com tersely describes as "An examination of the nature of modern suburbia".  Featured in the movie was the prolific author and chief American critic of post World War II city planning and architecture, James Howard Kunstler.

After the movie the audience was able to ask questions about the themes of the movie; sprawl, placemaking, and community. This was a very timely event given that the city just adopted their 2040 General Plan after many committee meetings, workshops, and public outreach. Along with my council member the cities Planning Director, Assistant Planning Director and Director of Economic Development were on hand to answer any of the audiences questions.

What stood out most vividly was the the cities planning director had not even heard of the author James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler is the author of two highly acclaimed books, "The Geography of Nowhere" and "Home from Nowhere". He has spoken at the annual TED.org meeting (see video below), a homegrown Silicon Valley geek fest of which San Jose is the capitol. Actually I seem to recall during the 2040 General Plan process writings by Kunstler were even given to the participants to read as additional background material. In addition to his books he also keeps a website where one of his most popular posts are "The Eyesore of the Month", where he chronicles urban design failures. (Check out November's eyesore;  a blast on a street crossing in Reading, Pennsylvania.)

Any urban planning student today has read, studied, reread, and dog-eared the pages of Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere", or William H. Whyte's "City: Rediscovering the Center". Looks like we have some educating to do.

This is just one aspect of a bifurcation of dreams, visions, thoughts, use of technology, transportation choices, and the definition, if any of that often used term of - placemaking. It seems as though gap between these ideas and experiences (James Kunstler is just one of many) that I have experienced in working with both older and younger citizens just keeps getting bigger. I plan to write on this more in the future since it is a trend that I see becoming more prevalent every day.

Here in the capitol of the Silicon Valley, in an advisory committee meeting last month we were trying to find ways to get the city's bike plan in the hand of citizens. One not so young member interjected, "How about advertising in the phone book", on which I replied, "What's a phonebook?"

 Any comments?

Cafe Culture is for Canadiens not for Californians

Sad to see this morning that the table and chairs that used to welcome customers to Peet's Coffee's only downtown San Jose location are gone. When I asked the manager he said that they won't be coming back. He mentioned that the property manager requested they be removed, "because we have to share the building." Not really sure I understand the response but it sure is another step backwards in making downtown San Jose a welcoming and comfortable city.

I find it more pleasant outdoors given that the local staff have no control of the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning), and the temperature is kept at bone chilling levels. In most nationwide retail chains the trend is to control the thermostat and lighting centrally to control expenses. This apparent savings however comes at a big loss to the customer.

Given that the location sits on the south side of Santa Clara Street, the spot just outside the front door was comfortably protected from the sun on summer mornings and afternoons. I wonder the if the real reason was for Peet's to keep the "undesirables" away.

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p.s. All is not lost however. I spotted the following scene out in front of Philz Coffee @ Paseo de San Antonio moments later.



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Location:N 1st St,San Jose,United States

WGFMA - walls, gates, fences, moats, and asphalt.

Just 200 feet from the new City Hall is this
gate security build for a diplomat.


The mantra that you often hear in the Silicon Valley after the one about innovation is that San Jose is the safest large city in America. Although the city recently lost its first place title, San Jose still uses the rankings as a key marketing slogan.  This may be so but what is so puzzling is that by walking the streets of downtown San Jose you get the feeling that it has one of the worst crime rates in America.

In fact in a recent San Jose Mercury News Article, one resident of the quaint neighborhood of Willow Glen talked of "putting video cameras on their house to help catch crooks". Oh yes and add that to the list, signs that shout "Warning you are under video surveillance."

Maybe walls, fences, and gates will prevent crime, but not from the way that it was intended. With all of the subtle and not so subtle ways that you prevent crime you end up driving people away from your downtown.

In many new urbanist neighborhoods, the goal (similar to the fundamental tenants of the Internet) is make the designs more open and transparent. Create spaces where people want to watch street activity and pedestrians want see activity on the street, in restaurants, and in retail shops. James Kunstler, author of "The Geography of Nowhere" and TED presenter, calls this the permeable membrane of the street. In the street photo below notice how the developers of the two buildings pictured below choose to incorporate an open walkway, with commercial spaces located nearby. Missing are the typical signs that a city has given up in controlling crime; the use of fences, walls, and gates. In the photo the front doors of these homes open up directly to the street, no fences, gates, or walls are visible.


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 The photos included in this post are just some those I took on a lunchtime walk around the downtown commercial core of San Jose, CA. Although many of these designs (such as the moat located at City View Plaza), and the AT&T switching building were conceived and then built over 30 years ago, many recent building design have the look of a ghetto fortress with a patina of middle income high rise.

If cities only understood that the real deterrent to crime are vibrant, busy streets that have successful business districts that draw customers and out of town visitors. In downtown San Jose this means to doing away with the fortress like mentality of the Adobe building (as well as most high tech offices). With corporate cafeterias, gyms, and retail located on site the only time workers leave the building is to get in their cars and hop on the freeway home.


"The Moat" separating the
customers from their money.
Wells Fargo Bank - San Jose Main Office.

 


At the iconic and historic Market Street
and Santa Clara Ave, one giant,
blighted parking lot.

 



From the street to your house only
30 feet and three locked gates.

 


Walls, asphalt, and a porta-potty...oh my.




This is a wall, a barred fence,
and a chain link fence all rolled into one.


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Location:S 2nd St,San Jose,United States