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.

Spring into Green at DeAnza College, Cupertino California

New Terminal at Mineta San Jose
International Airport

Spring into Green at DeAnza College

The following is some thoughts presented this morning at DeAnza College's Spring into Green event with a panel of other professionals.


Climate Change, Air Pollution, Toxic Roadway Runoff, Oil Depletion, Keystone XL Pipeline, Fracking, and on and on. We would all agree that these are key issues today that need to be addressed. We, dealing with all things environmental agree, that we should be at least technically conversant on these issues but instead of directly discussing these issues I'd like ask you a few questions.

• Who owns the San Jose Airport? (google search)
• Who owns San Jose Diridon Station? (wikipedia)
• Who owns Cupertino city streets?
• Who owns the tracks on which Caltrain and Amtrak run? (Caltrain / Amtrak)

San Jose Diridon Station

Now I would ask you if you somehow came to this country from another solar system, which system Air, Auto or Train would you think would be at the top of the transportation food chain.

Yes, Air and Auto. When one entity spends over $1.5 Billion on its infrastructure you will get nice facilities, neatly designed with facilities that are convenient for travellers. But after spending over a billion dollars on a new passenger terminal and a seven story parking garage we still do not have direct transit service to the airport?

When you have a street system that is owned by one government agency competing with passenger rails systems which are prioritized below freight such as corn and cars, which system do you think will get noticed, get used?

Before I continue however, two more questions.

• What year did the Japanese Bullet Train or High Speed Rail begin Operations?
• What year did Japan sign a surrender treaty with the US?

   In 1957, Odakyu Electric Railway introduced its 3000 series SE "Romancecar" train, setting a world speed record of 145 km/h (90 mph) for a narrow gauge train. (Wikipedia). So in 12 years Japan, after picking itself from the rubble of the war, sets a world record and by 1964 build a complete bullet train system. With no postwar resources it still devoted its political and financial will to build a world class system. Can you guess what other event happened in Japan in 1964?  

Advocating for Change 

In my experience working to advocate for alternative transportation; working for change in our current system, not only has my perspective changed, but my thinking and methods have changed as well.  In the 1960's mainly do they War in Vietnam and some well publicized environmental disasters, Americans sought to change the system by a variety of confrontation methods; and they worked for large national issues.

For example Critical Mass was a way for San Franciscans who rode bike to say we matter. However their methods were confrontational with such tactics as secret routes, corking of intersections and confrontations with police.

With the advent of peer based and cyber social systems, change can take place without the confrontation but by learning how to frame you position to sell it to groups of strong opposition, by staging fun community events, incentivizing participants, using digital technologies to break up tasks and allowing for collaboration. 

  

Here are some examples of soft change or in other words "winning hearts and minds":

• Bike Party: This once a month bicycle fiesta on wheels has grown and has brought San Jose some cachet as a hip bike city. There are now "Bike Parties" in most northern and Southern California cities, as well as Baltimore, Boston, Denver, and even in Seoul, Korea and our nations capitol. All based on the San Jose Bike Party model.
• Bag Ban: Using the grown field of  "choice architecture" San Jose initiated a ban on free shopping bags, but instead of making it an onerous law with no choice involved, the city prescribes that you pay 10 cents for a bag. In my experience demand for bags has gone done around 97% and with almost no complaints. The program known as "Bring Your Own Bag" has saved not only the cost disposing of the bags but improving the health of our waterways and watersheds as well.
• From Blight to Bright: Governments loved to build things, maintaining them is a whole different thing. Politicians would rather poise for pictures with shovels and scissors than deal with the mundane obligations such as maintenance. General street maintenance along with non-emergency police services are hard to come by. By using the broken window theory we have organized groups of volunteers to go out and clean up blighted areas. Now land owners are starting to take notice and are cleaning up their own properties, improving the community, getting more residents out walking and bicycling.
• Open Data and Civic Hacking: We are currently putting together a group of data nerds who will seek to open transit, municipal budget, and transportation data in a standardized format to allow third parties to develop apps, hardware/appliances, to make it easier to take transit or understand your city. Imagine with an open data standard that you could sit in a pub with an eye on a transit appliance which would display the "next bus" on the wall reducing wait times at transit stops.
• Using carrots and sticks: Getting rid of minimum parking requirements, unbundled parking, bundling transit passes with San Jose Sharks tickets, parking rates based on vehicle weight and size, one way mini car sharing, eco passes, smart phone apps, market based parking, free bike sharing for the first 30 minutes, no validated parking but discounts to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users, etc.

In none of these instances were technical environmental terms used such as fracking, ozone depletion, or destruction of riparian habitats. Change was incentivizing good choices or fun behaviors that create positive environmental change in the community.

I have listed some video and book resources for you to follow up on.

Thank you.

Additional Resources
Books

• Don't Think of an Elephant - Know your issues and frame the debate - George Lakeoff
• Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service--A Year Spent Riding across America - James McCommons
• Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile - Taras Grescoe
• The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways  - Earl Swift
• The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream- Christopher Leinberg
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
• The Economies of Cities - Jane Jacobs
• The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape  - James Howard Kunstler
• Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness - Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein

Ted Videos
James Kunstler: How bad architecture wrecked cities
Jason Roberts - TedxOu How to Build a Better Block
Chuck Mahron - Tedx1000Lakes - The important difference between a road and a street

College Courses

Business Administration
101 Land Use and Development
102 Fundraising
111 Accounting for nonprofits
112 Federal and State Reporting Requirements
121 Financing Public Infrastructure (See Transportation 121)
122 Seminar - Corporate Social Responsibility

Civil Administration
101 Intro to Government
102 Intro to City and Municipal Government
103 City Council Rules and Administration
104 Working with City Staff

Communications
101 Issue Analysis and Research, and Reporting
102 Public Speaking
103 Social Media
104 News Media
105 Public Relations
106 Reaching out to younger and non-traditional constituents
107 Issue Framing - Not speaking to the choir

Criminal Justice
101 Public Safety - Police
102 Public Safety - Fire and other Emergency Services
103 Gangs and the community

Economics
101 Regulation and Behavioral Economics (The Shopping Bag Lab)
102 Market Based Parking (The High Cost of Free Parking)
103 Fiscalization of Land Use
111 Incentivizing Developers with fees, mandates, and options
112 City and Park Maintenance - Public Private Partnerships
121 Seminar - Big Box vs. Traditional Retail and the return on investment
122 Seminar - Food Trucks, Street Vendors, and Pop-ups and community revitalization

Information Systems
101 Website Administration
102 Front-end Website Administration - Wordpress
103 Front-end Website Administration - Drupal
104 - Back end administration with CiviCRM
111 Open Data and Civic Hacking Lab

Political Science
101 Issues and Advocacy
102 Community Outreach
103 Issue Campaigning
104 Elected Official Relationship Management
111 Electioneering and Campaigning
112 Legislative and Political Analysis (City, Region and State Level)

Public Administration
101 Roberts Rules of Order
102 Board Administration
103 Corporate and Board Governance
104 Non-Profit Administration
111 Regional Public Administration
112 Membership Management and Engagement
121 Public Accounting and Budgeting
122 Taxation - Property, Sales, Income and Fees

Tourism, Event and Park Management
101 Event Management and Accounting
102 Sponsorship Management and Negotiation
103 Event Promotion and Partnerships
104 Volunteer Coordination

Transportation and Infrastructure
101 The New City and Multimodal Systems
111 Public and Private Transit and Mobile Applications
121 Financing Public Infrastructure

Urban Studies
101 Placemaking
102 Complete Streets
111 Basic Real Estate Development
112 The Sharing Economy - Car, bike, office, and tool share
121 Traditional Real Estate Development and Business Districts
122 Transporatation Hub Development

Save Our Trails to host Trail Cleanup of recently expanded section of the Three Creeks Trail

Save Our Trails Fall Trail Cleanup

Put this date on your calendar; October 20, 2012.

That's the date that the folks from Save Our Trails, will be hosting a trail clean-up in Willow Glen. They'll have trash bags, t-shirts (with donation), tools, water, and the latest news about their mission to expand the trail. Volunteers are asked to meet at the corner of Coe Ave. and Leona Ct., in the Willow Glen Area of San Jose. Leona Ct. is two blocks east of Lincoln Ave.

The Three-Creeks Trail is envisioned as a multi-use trail running over a former Union Pacific railroad line stretching from Lonus Street near Lincoln out to Kelley Park. Originally this trail was named after the railroad line, which was called “The Willow Glen Spur” because a portion of it went through the town of Willow Glen.

In 2008 a community advocate recommended that the name of the future trail should be the Three Creeks Trail because it intersects three creek trails: the Los Gatos Creek trail, the Guadalupe Creek trail, and the Coyote Creek Trail. This trail would be extremely useful for anyone who travels cross town because of the intersections with so many other trails in the city. Trails are important to people who walk, bike, push strollers, walk dogs, or ride wheel chairs. Trails make it easier for people to commute, get exercise, and socialize.


View Three Creeks Trail in a larger map

This line was abandoned for use in 2000, and in the same year the City of San Jose Parks Department strategic plan envisioned the purchase and conversion of this land for trail use. Union Pacific removed the rails in 2004. Since then some of the land has been purchased by other landowners, and is threatened in other ways. It is our goal to assist local government in creating a workable trail on this property.

Over the course of several years, from 2008 through 2011, the City of San Jose was engaged in a process (“Envision 2040″) to involve the community in updating the City’s General Plan. During the update process, city staff proposed to change the location of the eastern portion of the trail from the railroad right-of-way to bike lanes on Alma Street, a high-traffic truck corridor. SAVE OUR TRAILS successfully fought off this proposal, getting the Council, the Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Envision 2040 Task Force to keep the trail alignment on the railroad right-of-way. In addition, SAVE OUR TRAILS persuaded City Council to rename the trail as “the Three Creeks Trail”, in recognition of the fact that the trail will be providing an essential east-west path, linking three separate north-south trail corridors.



Save Our Trails is also on Facebook.

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

Calling all transpo wonks - the new adovocacy calendar list

National Train Day San Jose
San Jose Diridon Station
Saturday, May 12, 9:30am - 2:00 pm


San Jose City Council Meeting
May 15, 2012 1:30 Regular Session
Agenda (Note: No Transportation items on this weeks agenda)
San Jose City Hall
Council Chambers
200 E. Santa Clara St.
San Jose, California

Caltrain Bicycle Advisory Committee Meeting
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Caltrain Headquarters
Bacciocco Auditorium, 2nd Floor
1250 San Carlos Ave.
San Carlos, California

SPUR movie night - "Urbanized"
Thursday, May 17, 2012 7:00 pm
Location:
Camera 12 Cinemas
201 South 2nd Street
San Jose, CA 95113
More than half the world’s population now lives in an urban area, and 75 percent will call a city home by 2050. But while some cities are experiencing explosive growth, others are shrinking. The challenges of balancing housing, mobility, public space, civic engagement, economic development and environmental policy are fast becoming universal concerns. Yet much of the dialogue on these issues is disconnected from the public domain. Urbanized looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers. Join us after the movie to continue the discussion at one of downtown San Jose's urban hot spots.
Co-hosted by San Jose Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio

Free, however registration is required.
Register here

See the event website: http://www.spur.org/sanjose/events/events-1

Greenbelt Alliance and the Grand Boulevard Initiative presents
"An Evening with Gil Penalosa"
June 4, 2012 6:00
Cubberley Community Center Theater
4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Gil Peñalosa, the former Commissioner of Parks, Sports, and Recreation for the City of Bogotá, Colombia, has led the effort to create one of the most successful and celebrated parks and recreation systems in the world. He has effectively initiated the “new Cicolvia” – car-free Sundays – where over 1.3 million people come out weekly to walk, run, skate and bike along 121 kilometers of Bogotá’s city roads.

This event is free, but registration is required. Don’t miss this chance to hear from Gil Peñalosa, internationally renowned city advisor and active public spaces advocate. Download the flyer for more information

Caltrain Joint Powers Board
Board Meeting
Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:00 am
Caltrain Headquarters
Bacciocco Auditorium, 2nd Floor
1250 San Carlos Ave.
San Carlos, California


San Mateo County Transportation Authority Meeting
Board Meeting
Thursday, June 7, 2012 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Caltrain Headquarters
Bacciocco Auditorium, 2nd Floor
1250 San Carlos Ave.
San Carlos, California

San Mateo County Transit
Board Meeting
June 13, 2012, 2:00 pm
Caltrain Headquarters
Bacciocco Auditorium, 2nd Floor
1250 San Carlos Ave.
San Carlos, California

VTA Board Meeting
June 29, 2012 9:00 am
**This Meeting Has Been Cancelled**

Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition to host its second annual Bike Summit

All right all you up and coming bike advocates. Or even you veterans out there. Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is holding its second annual Bike Summit in Palo Alto next month. It's definitely worth it just to hear from Aaron Naparstek, founding editor and creator of the hugely successful Streetsblog.

The second annual Silicon Valley Bike Advocacy Summit will be held on April 17, from 2:00 to 8:00 pm, at the Koresh Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. Stanford Hospital and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition will co-host this event. Professionals, advocates, politicians, public agency employees, industry representatives, public health officials, and interested community members are invited and will come together to participate in a community event focused on promoting the bicycle and smart planning for health, environmental security, and enhanced communities.

The Summit will serve as a catalyst to improving relations between advocates and government, increase the involvement of business in the advocacy world, and inspire attendees to become even more involved in fostering healthy communities.

Registration is $20 at http://svbikesummit2012.eventbrite.com/. Those for whom the cost of admission is prohibitive may apply for a scholarship by emailing colin@bikesiliconvalley.org.

Aaron Naparstek, founder
Streetsblog.org
photo: Streetsblog.org

Besides Aaron, there will be some other well known local, regional and national names on the agenda (ok, known to at least us wonky types), such as Dave Synder, Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coaliton, Jeffrey Miller, Executive Director, Alliance for Biking and Walking, Randy Neufeld, Director, SRAM Cycling Fund, Graham Brownstein, State Policy Director, TransForm, and Robert Ping, Technical Assistance Director, Safe Routes to School National Partnership.

So click on the link above and register today. Your inner advocate will thank you.

For more information.