What goes up must come down or have the chickens finally coming home to roost?

For curses are like arrows

San Jose Mayor
Louis S. Solari
July 1958 - June 1960

shot upright, which falling
down light on the suters
[shooters] head.

The Lamentable and True Tragedy of Arden of Feversham - 1592

Today's Roadshow column in the San Jose Mercury News led with the headline: "San Jose pothole blamed on Reed, Brown, and Pruius drivers". Well, for those of you from out of state, Reed is San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, and Brown is California Governor Jerry Brown.

San Jose resident Joe Coughlin writes to Mr. Roadshow Gary Richards:

"Mayor Chuck Reed should be ashamed of the job he is doing regarding road repair. And we all ought to be embarrassed. We are not only the worst in California, we are the worst in the NATION."

I find this readers rant somewhat timely given that the evening before I attended the city's Planning Commission meeting. On the agenda was a study session to review the city's capital budget five-year plan. One set of figures that shocked me a bit (and after seeing these numbers for a few years I don't get shocked that easily) was the total infrastructure backlog reported at $909 million. Given that this year the city budget is $2.6 billion about 35% of the cities annual budget is represented by infrastructure backlog. Of the cities $909 million in infrastructure backlog $460 million is for transportation backlog, or just over 50%. Of that $460 million, $303 million is needed just to maintain the roadways back to normal levels.

But back to Mr. Coughlin's point. Who do we blame? Do we blame Mayor Chuck Reed, Governor Jerry Brown, or those

Population estimates used to
sell large infrastructure building progam
 in San Jose in the early 60's

high and mighty, wimpy green Prius owners. Well I have a new spin on their conundrum. Mr. Coughlin the next time you go to city hall to blame Mayor Reed; as you enter the elevator to the second floor council chamber gallery, look to your left on the wall. There you will see pictures and drawings, of most of the cites mayors going all the way back to the early days. Look carefully at those mayors from about 1945 to 1973; names such as Doerr, Solari (pictured above), Moore, Welch, Pace, and others. While were at it, let's also include A. P. (Dutch) Hamann, the city Manager from 1950 to 1969, a huge player in San Jose's expansionary history.



These mayors, and many other post-war U.S. mayors set us up with a new blueprint for the design of cities that pushed cities and their boundaries outward in a rush to annex tax generating development. In those days, it appeared that as soon as a new development was built, Dutch Hamann was out to annex it; One example routinely given is the Valley Fair shopping center. Leonard McKay told it so well in a series of two blog posts in 2006. (Dutch Hamann Part I and Part II)



Photo: wikipedia (San Jose)

 

"At that time, a sales tax was a major generator of revenue, and with the council’s approval, a program of strip annexation was set in motion.  Hamann determined where future shopping centers were likely to be located, and then the city proceeded to annex a narrow band of land out along each major road and intersection, thus ensuring that the sales tax revenue would come to San Jose. 

Along Stevens Creek Road to Cupertino, Bascom Boulevard, North First Street, and Monterey Highway to Morgan Hill—each and every area was annexed.  Prior to Hamann’s tenure—more than 100 years—only 46 annexations occurred.  During his 19 years, 1,377 annexations were effected"




If you've ever looked a map of Paris it looks by its very shape, its very design that it would be easy and relatively inexpensive to administer and maintain. Compare that with a map of San Jose (shown above) and

you ask yourself, how do you effectively police a city like this, maintain the roadway system or run an efficient library or parks system? In many areas of the city that fully enclose unincorporated county areas it even becomes more puzzling. Now try to figure out how you administer an effective police force, sanitary sewer systems, roads, streetlights, schools and water systems.

Yes it is extremely complicated. Just ask anyone living in the Burbank section of San Jose, an area where most neighbhors don't know who administers (county or city) parts of their own neighborhood.

Actually the layout of the city used to be worse. That is why 40 years ago the California State legislature created a regulatory vehicle to control crazy city boundaries that were confusing even city officials. Known by their acronym LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission), these independent regulatory commissions where created to control the boundaries of cities and most special districts (such as utility, school, sewage, vector, etc.). But more on that in a later post.

Given this willy nilly style of development and city leaders gross over-projection of population growth (see graph) infrastructure building (construction) was the real growth industry when an Apple in this valley was still something you ate. Even though California, the Bay Area, and San Jose grew at astonishing rates in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's their projections show that in 2010 San Jose's population would be at 1.8 million residents. In 2010 the city population was only 952,612 per the United States Census Bureau, or just over half what was projected.

To accommodate this overly inflated growth rate, the city built new sewer systems and water treatment plants (the current plant in Alviso), realigned roadways (Nagle Taylor, Julian and the Alameda), widened streets to nowhere (Park Ave., Minnesota at Meridian), built new railway under crossings (Park Ave. near Diridon), and new satellite libraries (West Valley branch etc. which was rebuilt several years ago), and fire stations.

What these leaders failed to realize was that the future money needed to maintain all this growing infrastructure base could not be recouped by the low yields (nowadays we call this sustainable) on a tax base reflected in the form of bedroom communities and urban sprawl. Many of these projects would not pencil out, or pay for themselves; and this was before Californians (not Mayor Reed or Jerry Brown) decided to severely restrict cities ability to maintain it all by passing Proposition 13 in 1978. So since 1978 cities have had to become very creative to tax these essentials of suburban living; investments in sewer pipe, pumping stations, wide Almaden neighborhood streets, or cul-du-sac living of the Evergreen area.

These leaders threw away the old tried and traditional rules of building cites and went on to build over 4,000 miles of municipal roadways. Now the potholes are coming home to roost (oh well I tried), or the archers arrow has returned to earth only to strike the shooter in the head.

As I have mentioned in many a post we, and many other California cities were built in the postwar era without a thought to how we would maintain these roadways. We have $303 million in unfunded road backlogs. We need around $100 million per year to maintain the system. We have no room in the general budget for repair. What funds are used to fix potholes, at about $16 million per year come from federal and state sources. We are now starting to receive the benefits of the recently enacted $10 vehicle fee but these amounts are nowhere near enough to cover the repair and maintenance of our roadways. State and federal gasoline taxes do not directly finance our maintenance program. Those funds are for building and maintaining  the federal and state highway systems.

Yes we do have a huge pothole problem, a problem that many has grown immensely in the last few years. However until residents and motorist realize how complex, how expensive, and how poorly funded our roadway system is, the problem is just not going to get any better anytime soon.

The chickens have come home to roost.



Creating a nonprofit to enhance profits. Or is this road paved with good intentions?

Everybody wants good roads but paying
 for them is a whole other story.

In a San Jose Mercury News column written by Gary Richards titled Mr. Roadshow, a reader asks after describing the conditions of local roads and the abundance of potholes:

"I'm wondering. Has anyone looked into what that ends up costing all drivers in added maintenance costs?"

Mr. Roadshow responds quoting "a nonprofit group known as The Road Information Project (TRIP)" that the additional vehicle operating costs due to road conditions in San Jose are the highest in the nation (TRIP's Urban Road Report 9/22/2010). This may be so, but what he fails to clarify is that TRIP (and it's California affiliate, Transportation California), although a non-profit, is organized to enhance the business growth of its member companies which build and maintain transportation infrastructure (also known as roads, highways, bridges, and tunnels). There is a reason they are located in Washington D.C. (and Sacramento), and that is to influence federal and state construction funds and transportation financing to benefit their companies.

Now there is nothing wrong with that (influencing public opinion to benefit the construction industry). But to give readers a false sense of security that they are some altruist nonprofit tasked with providing Americans with the complete picture on transportation, confuses readers, many of which have no idea how our roads are built, maintained and financed.

The board of directors of TRIP reads like a who's who of the construction industry (and you have to be a company to join, no individuals please) but this is no different than the California Transportation Commission that (outside of Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Learderhip Group representing the tech industry) has its fair share of commissioners from the real estate development and construction industry.

For the last 60 years, since the construction of the federal interstate system, we have built a transportation system that relies exclusively on automobile travel and consisted of large and expensive infrastructure projects. Now the maintenance bill is coming due and our information is coming from the very industry that stands to profit from it. Mr. Roadshow, all I am asking is that we balance this view with other voices.We should be more transparent in the future when a "nonprofit" issues reports which will bolster their bottom line long before it will improve our lives.

Thank you.

For more on the current status of California Roads see my series "Road's Cost"

TRIP Urban Road Report 9/22/2010
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D

Good roads or good jobs?

Tomorrow, the San Jose City Council will consider "an agreement" between the city and Samsung Semiconductor to allow for up to $7 million in incentives. As many of you know I have been writing a series of posts describing California cities desperate attempt just to keep their roads maintained. San Jose needs to spend $100 million each year over the next 10 years just to maintain the current level of road quality, but in the last few years the city has roughly averaged about $5 to $ 10 million from the general fund to maintain our roadways. So one way to look at the incentive package proposed for Samsung is about the same that the city commits to road repair each year, or about 10% of what is needed.

The fear is that Samsung will take its R&D proposal and move to Austin where they will, according to city officials offer even greater financial incentives. But Texas officials already have a track history of huge giveaways to large corporations. According to a database of state incentive packages published on the New York Times website Austin has already granted Samsung alone $232 million, through the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Tax Refund for Economic Development, and Texas' Chapter 313/Economic Development Act.

So in preparation for tomorrows meeting I have included a link to a great series of articles written by Louise Story, an investigative journalist for the New York Times. The series is titled "United States of Subsidies" and examines business incentives and their impact on jobs and local economies.

Here is a radio interview with Louise on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Well I pay taxes and....

"I pay taxes and...."

At a public meeting last month a woman in the audience shouted out "Well I pay taxes, I pay taxes for the roads and bicyclists don't". Well here is a breakdown of roads and the agencies that maintain them, courtesy of the California Transportation Commision.

As you can see gasoline (excise) taxes which are collected at the pump only pay for a small amount of the roadways we drive on, about 17%. This is not counting for the fact that gasoline taxes do not cover the complete cost of maintaining our roadways.

Roadways in cities and counties are paid by property and sales taxes which are not dependent on automobile ownership or useage. Therefore cyclists, pedestrians, and transit users also pay for the roads they use.

http://www.catc.ca.gov/reports/2011Reports/2011_Needs_Assessment_updated.pdf
California Transportation System Needs Assesment.

http://www.sjcog.org/docs/pdf/media/shortfall,11-6-11.pdf


California’s 58 counties and 4,803 cities own and maintain 141,2354 miles of local streets and roads. This is an impressive 82 percent of the state’s total publicly maintained centerline miles (see Figure 2-6 below). About 146.4 billion vehicle miles are traveled on this street network annually. That’s approximately 45 percent of the total miles traveled every year in California.

Conservatively, this network is valued at $271 billion. Figure 2-6. Breakdown of Maintained Road Centerline Miles by Agency Table 2-2 shows the breakdown of lane-miles by functional classification, for local streets and roads and for unpaved roads. Arterials or collectors are categorized as major streets or roads, while residential streets and alleys are categorized as local streets and roads.

Friday Ride/bys

Guadalupe River Trail
at the Airport SJC

Riding along the Guadalupe River Trail next to the airport this afternoon I encountered spotted a sign asking for just a little more patience. Although most of the painting at this location is done there still is some work being completed near the 880 freeway. Estimated opening date 10-3-2012. I wonder if they will have a grand opening; maybe even a ribbon cutting?

 Update 9-28-2012 2:40 PM - According to Richard Masoner of Cyclelicious, fog seal is being applied today from 101 to Montague Expressway.


Also in the "build it they will use it" category, I spotted Ryan this afternoon delivering freight by bike; that just happened to be bicycles. Ryan works at IMinusD bicycles on the Paseo de San Antonio across from San Jose State University. IMinusD along with Bicycle Express are personal favorites. Talk to Mark or Ryan at IMinusD or Karen or Chuck at Bicycle Express.

Ryan of iMinusD delivering
bicycles by bike

Whether its individuals selling bikes along the 11th St. bicycle corridor or bike shops using the 4th St. bike lanes to transport inventory from the warehouse to the retail shop greater numbers have been seen along the new bikeways.

September's Reading List

Cadillac Desert by
Marc Reisner

Any Suggestions?


Currently Reading:
Canals for a Nation - The Canal Era in the United States 1790-1860, Ronald E. Shaw
Cadillac Desert - The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner
The Age of Heretics - Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change - Art Klein (Tribes Biography)
The Leaderless Revolution - How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century, Carne Ross
Ill Fares the Land, Tony Judt  


On my reading list:

Doing More with Less, Burce Piasecki
The Icarus Syndrome - A History of American Hubris, Peter Beinhart (recommended by Chuck Marohn of Stongtowns.org)
The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways : Earl Swift
Small is Profitable - The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size, Amory Lovins
Reinventing Fire - Bold Solutions for a New Energy Era - Amory Lovins
Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation, Richard Sennett
Placemaking, Charles Bohl
The Quest - Energy Security and the Remaking of the Modern World - Daniel Yergin
The High Cost of Free Parking : Donald Shoup
ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking : Eran Ben-Joseph
Better Together: Restoring the American Community : Robert Putnam
The Witch of Hebron: A World Made by Hand Novel : James Howard Kunstler
Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation : James Howard Kunstler
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century : James Howard Kunstler

Railroaded: The Transcontinental Railroads and the Making of Modern America : Richard White
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger : Marc Levinson
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York : Robert Caro (Open Road Biography)
Stealth of Nations - The Global Rise of the Informal Economy : Robert Newwirth
Now Your See It - How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn : Cathy N. Davidson
America The Philosophical : Carlin Romano
Small Town Rules - How Big Brands and Small Business Can Prosper in a Connected Economy : Larry J. Molitz & Becky McCray
The Nonprofit Board Answer Book - A Practical Guide for Board Members and Chief Executives
No Way to Run A Railroad - The Untold Story of the Penn Central Crisis : Stephen Salsbury
Derailed - What Went Wrong and What to Do About America's Passenger Trains : Joseph Vranich
End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America's Passenger Trains : Joseph Vranich
The Powers That Be : David Halberstam 
The Best and the Brightest : David Halberstam 
Supertrains: Solutions to America's Transportation Gridlock : Joseph Vranich
Bold Endeavors - How our Government Built America and Why it Must Rebuild Now : Felix Rhoyhatyn
Moving Millions - An Inside Look at Mass Transit : Stan Fischer
Stuck in Traffic - Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion : Anthony Downs
Breaking Gridlock- Moving Towards Transportation That Works : Jim Motavalli
Making the Car Pay Its Way: The Case of Minneaapolis Roads : John Biley, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
The Pressue Boys: The Inside Story of Lobbying in America : Kenneth Crawford
The Interstate Commerce Omission: The Public Interest and the ICC : Robert C. Fellmeth
The Pavers and the Paved - The Real Cost of America's Highway Program 1971 : Ben Kelley
The Motorization of American Cities : David J. St.Clair
Superhighways Super Hoax : Helen Leavitt
The Automobikle and American Culture 1986 : David Lewis
The Going Rate - What it Really Costs to Drive : James J. McKenzie World Resource Institute, Washington DC
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 David McCullough
The Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industries : John Robert Meyer
The Era of Thodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Modern America : George E. Mowry
Railroads - The Free Enterprise Alternative : Daniel Overbey
No Way to Run a Railroad: The Untold Story of the Penn Central Crisis : Stephen Salsbury
Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers : Bruce E. Seely
The Interstate Commerce Commision and the Railroad Industry: A History of Regulatory Policy 1991: Richard D. Stone
Silent Spring : Rachel Carson
Suburbia - It's People and Its Politics 1979 : Robert C. Wood
The Prize - The Quest for Oil, Money and Power : Daniel Yergin (Age of Heretics -Biography)
On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors 1979 : Patrick J. Wright (Age of Heretics -Biography)
What Are People For - Essays : Wendell Berry (Age of Heretics -Biography)
Voluntary Simplicity - Towards A Life That is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich, Duane Elgin  (Age of Heretics -Biography)
A Grunch of Giants : Buckminster Fuller  (Age of Heretics -Biography)
The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers, Robert Heilbroner  (Age of Heretics -Biography)
Let Them Call me a Rebel - Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy : Sanford Horwitt  (Age of Heretics -Biography)
The Glory and The Dream,William Manchester  (Age of Heretics -Biography)
The Seven Laws of Money, Michael Phillips (Age of Heretics -Biography)
The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Shaped, Anthony Sampson (Age of Heretics -Biography)
Superhighways Superhoax, Helen Leavitt (Open Road Biography)
Interstate: Express Highway Politics 1941-1956, Mark Rose (Open Road Biography)
The Last Landscape, William "Holly" Whyte  (Open Road Biography)

Mark Gorton energizes the crowd at the Pro Walk Pro Bike Conference in Long Beach

Yesterday, Mark Gorton stirred up the crowd with a rousing keynote speech at the 2012 Pro Walk Pro Bike Conference wrapping up yesterday in Long Beach. In a speech titled "Rethinking the Automobile" he delivered a message on the need for change in the priorities of our elected officials and highway engineers.


The following was included as subtext to a Streetfilms.org post with an included video titled "Rethinking the Automobile".

For more than 100 years New York City government policy has prioritized the needs of the automobile over the needs of any other mode of transport. Working under the faulty assumption that more car traffic would improve business, planners and engineers have systematically made our streets more dangerous and less livable. As a result, even the idea that a street could truly be a “place” – a shared space for human interaction and play – has been almost completely destroyed.

During his decade long effort to understand and improve the streets of New York City, entrepreneur and livable streets advocate Mark Gorton has gathered together a compelling set of examples of how transportation policy impacts the quality of our daily lives. Mark is regularly invited to speak in public about these issues.

In his current presentation “Rethinking the Automobile” Mark explores the history of autocentric planning and considers how New York and other cities can change. Filled with ample video footage of dozens of Streetfilms, we’ve worked with Mark to create a version of the presentation here.

As the founder of Streetfilms, Streetsblog, OpenPlans, and the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign, Gorton has been on the front lines of the battle to transform New York’s streets. But Mark is not done fighting. He contends that the recent improvements that have been implemented in New York should only be considered as the “tip of the iceberg” and that a truly comprehensive set of changes are still necessary.

For more on Mark’s continued efforts to make our world more equitable, livable, and safe visit www.rethinktheauto.org

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.

April Economides returns to the Silicon Valley to talk about Bike Friendly Business Districts

April Economides of
Green Octopus Consulting
photo:womenonbikessocal.org

Last week Thursday, April Economides of Green Octopus Consulting returned to the Silicon Valley to speak to a packed house (the house being the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce) of about 50 attendees. I last saw April at the Grand Opening of 359 State Street, a new cycling lifestyle shop in Los Altos.

For the last two years April has been bringing the concept of bike friendly business districts to the four districts of Long Beach California. Working with Bike Long Beach, the districts draw cyclists to the area with events, promotions, ample bike parking, along with valet bike parking for some events.

BikeLongBeach.org
Twitter

Since cyclists who are either car-free or car-lite tend to have more disposable income $6,000 to $9,000 per car depending on the car, the districts have been focusing on attracting those customers locally. Attracting those customers would bring an intensity and vitality that is lacking from many cities traditional business districts.

What's amazing about the City of Long Beach however isn't just the Bicycle Friendly Business District promotion but the way the city not only has embraced cycling as a practical, alternative form of transportation but the way in which it promotes and delivers information related to cycling in the city.

To a cyclist (or transit user, or pedestrian) new to a city it is difficult to find information on cycling in one place, delivered in a straight forwards style. Try this: type in _________ Department of Transportation filling in the blank with you city name. Go to their "Transportation" page, usually a public works or traffic page. Look carefully and see how prominently a cycling subheading is displayed if, at all. Here are some examples

San Jose
Long Beach
New York
Portland
Santa Barbara
Denver

As you can see most city webpages contain little if any information. Bicycle and Pedestrian Advocacy groups are of little help as well, and really are not set up to provide a quality user experience while in the city. Tourism agencies or councils are geared towards traditional sightseeing as well. In the case of San Jose, there is no tourism organization, the bicycle coalition focuses mainly on advocacy, and the city transportation page focuses mainly on their wonderful safety program for school age children.

One city does stand out (and I'll write about this later) and that is Santa Barbara, with their Car-Free Santa Barbara program, one of the only programs that I am aware of.

BikeLongBeach.org

Although there is a very vague connection between the city of Long Beach's official web page and BikeLongBeach.org, the city has done an amazing job of making cycling information accessible to tourists and residents alike, as well as to experienced cyclists and novice cyclists. If anyone knows of any other webpage as in-depth as this one please contact me.

The website is broken down into basic bicycling categories such as Biking 101 which includes topics such as bike laws, bike security and safety, commuting, riding at night, and many other topics but also as an area devoted to bicycle planning which covers the more wonky, policy related topics. There is also a blog to keep readers up to date on rides, tours, and events. The get involved section has topics on bicycling community, volunteer opportunities, and bicycle friendly workplaces.

Many cities could benefit from a close collaboration with the city transportation staff, the city's economic development departments, business and business districts, transit and train lines, cycling and other alternative transportation groups to provide information on cycling in the city to help answer questions on bicycle parking, bike routes, bicycle promotions, as well as travel packages.

I'm sure cyclists would be excited to have special deals at hotels if they arrived by bike or if events will have valet parking, or if their favorite restaurant is offering a cyclists special. Long Beach has been at the forefront on promoting local business to cyclists. Let's just hope this is the start to many more city initiatives.

Thanks again for stopping by April.

Some recent reads: books, blogs, and other marginalia

High Line Park, New York

Some recent reads. Not all of them directly related to urbanista stuff.

Books

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward Glaeser 

Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen

The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs

The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City by alan ehrenhalt

The Rise Of The Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community And Everyday Life by Richard Florida
The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life by Marion Roach Smith

Brew to Bikes: Portland's Artisan Economy by Charles Heying

Human Transit: How clear thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives by Jarrett Walker

The High Cost of Free Parking: Donald Shoup

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Guwande

Blogs and Websites

Strong Towns

The San Jose Blog

The HighLine

Other Marginalia

SPUR - San Jose

San Jose Bike Party

Tactical Urbanism

Pecha Kucha

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**

More Joe Minicozzi and the simple math that can save cities from bankruptcy

Following up on the first two videos of a presentation Joe Minicozzi made I present parts III and IV along with a link to an insightful article on the basis of Joe's research.

The article appeared online at Atlantic Cities is entitled  "The simple math that can save cities from bankruptcy".

Part III




Part IV

Introducing Joe Minicozzi; offering a new look to urban planning

Joe Minicozzi
 New Projects Director at
 Public Interest Projects

I posted a couple of videos (in the right margin) of a presentation by Ashville, North Carolina urban planner Joe Minicozzi on the state of downtown Ashville. Joe, who like Chuck Mahron of Strong Towns talks numbers. Both have looked at the revenue and costs estimates of traditional downtown development and compared it to suburban, auto-oriented retail. In almost all cases this type of traditional development captures value; in other words with minimal maintenance costs the sales and property taxes more than pay for the infrastructure.

Prior to working with Public Interest Projects in Asheville, he served as the Urban Designer for the City of West Palm Beach, Florida. He was the City’s first Urban Designer and served as the Zoning Administrator for downtown. Joe has worked in town planning with Duany Plater-Zyberk, in architecture with Zyscovich Architects, and in real estate finance with John Hancock of Boston. In addition to his private sector service, Joe has lectured across the country on Incentive Zoning, Form-based Code, Transfer of Development Rights and the role of urban design in community development.

Watch and listen and let me know what you think. I'll post the last of the videos next week.

Roads worse than San Jose? Look to the south.



San Diego's roads are crumbling.
The city has the money to fix potholes
 but hasn't proven it can efficiently spend it.
 Photo: Sam Hodgson

 In a continuing look at San Jose's road conditions along with other Bay Area cities I have highlighted the need for urgency in our own city and around the Bay Area. Now, with the wonderful work of  the Voice of San Diego we have a look at just how bad their problems are in comparison with San Jose's.

San Jose's Director of Transportation has been up front with city residents when he says that it will take $100 million each year just to maintain local roadways. In fact road repair funds are lacking so much that the director has had to outline a program of maintenance triage with the moniker "Priority Street Network". In essence only key arterial roadways, bus routes and commercial districts will be maintained.

In San Diego the situation is much worse; not only in the condition of their roadways but the cost to fix the road network. According to Carl DeMaio, a San Diego City mayoral candidate, "San Diego already has the eighth worst roads in the country and under the current plan at City Hall the roads will get worse" (
San Diego's Road Problem Fact Check).

At a San Diego City Council committee hearing in February it was revealed that San Diego's road repair problems have reached breathtaking new depths according to engineering officials. According to the Voice of San Diego, "simply maintaining the status quo would cost $160 million a year. That's more than the annual budgets of the parks and rec, library and environmental services departments combined. The city's plan to borrow $500 million won't provide enough money to reverse the decay or even preserve the status quo. Under its current proposal, the city won't begin making progress until 2017." (Streets will worsen for the next 5 years, report says)

These are difficult times, with housing still searching for new lows (US Housing Rebound Could Take An Entire Generation: Shiller), gas prices continuing to climb, and the astronomical amounts needed just to maintain our local roadways (gas taxes, state and federal highways are another matter). But here, as well as in other U.S. cities, we continue to satisfy increase road demand with new, expensive projects with no thought as to their expected return on investment or future required maintenance costs.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, we seem to have a knee jerk reaction to the increase in road capacity followed by immediate approvals to build even more auto centric retail developments (City to proceed with 45 acre" Mega Mall" on Almaden Expressway), that put even more pressure on our roadways in a vicious circle of big box retail expansion, roadway expansion, big box retail expansion, etc.

What are your thoughts?

San Diego's Road Problem Fact Check

How the Mayoral Candidates want to fix the roads.

Streets will worsen for the next 5 years, report says.

Roads Officially worse under Sanders, report says

The rules of modern politics - with a transportation spin

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

I've written many times about three main themes that seem to be running through transportation circles in the Bay Area; but believe me it also extends beyond the bay. These themes are a nationwide themes that seem to repeat and resonate with the political seasons. They are;

1. The critical need just to maintain local roads and other infrastructure
2. The need to channel money to maintain existing (not to mention new) auto-oriented infrastructure at the expense of non-auto (rail, transit, bike way, and walkways), also known as complete streets.
3. The third rail in transportation politics, the sanctity of freezing gas tax rates at 1990 levels.

The New York Times this week captured all three, in highlighting New Jersey's governor Chris Christies refusal to move ahead with a much needed tunnel linking Manhattan with New Jersey, even though the independent auditing agency the Government Accountability Office issued a 29 page report criticizing the governor's actions.

The  story first broke in October of 2010 during Governor Christies first few months in office. The tunnel would help a system that hasn't seen any new tunnels built for over 100 years.

Not only is there a need nationwide to maintain existing infrastructure; our current transportation infrastructure is inadequate to serve the needs of a growing population that continues to move to urban areas. The newly planed tunnel would have relieved congestion on the only two tunnels that connect Manhattan to New Jersey.

The need to channel money to maintain existing (not to mention new) auto-oriented infrastructure at the expense of non-auto is evident both in New Jersey and here at home (I am currently researching a post on this very issue in San Jose).

With the combination of increased average gas mileage on American cars and a freeze on federal and state gas excise taxes, the inflation adjusted amount of tax revenue apportioned to the Highway Trust Fund as been reduced dramatically and there is a unwillingness by motorists to match the expected costs to maintain existing roadways with gas taxes. From an article in yesterday's Charlotte Observer:

That's the last thing a public that's paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline wants to hear, and elected officials, from members of Congress to President Barack Obama, aren't likely in an election year to propose that motorists pay higher gasoline taxes or tolls. But many transportation experts and officials agree that if Americans want to drive on good roads, they're going to have to pay more for them, or do without.

Most of the 46,000-mile interstate system has been toll-free for its 56-year history. But pavement and bridges on the system's oldest sections are reaching the ends of their life spans and need to be replaced. A 2009 report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recommended an annual investment in U.S. highways and bridges of $166 billion. Charlotte Observer 4-17-2012

Until Americans understand the real cost of auto mobility there is a genuine sense of denial on the amount of funding required to keep the system going. Until then we're just kickin' the can down the road.

Additional Links:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/tunnel-of-idiocy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/krugman-cannibalize-the-future.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/gov-chris-christie-and-the-tunnel-project.html

Chuck Marohn with Strong Towns brings the Curbside Chat to California

Chuck Marohn of
SmallTowns.org

Yesterday amidst late-season hail, lighting, and blustery rain, Chuck Marohn of the non-profit Strong Towns visited the city of Rancho Cordova, California. Chuck is making a (big) swing through California, starting in Redding and finishing up in San Diego to promote his "Curbside Chat".

The Curbside Chat (companion booklet) is a presentation, followed by a community-specific discussion, about the financial health of our towns and cities. Some of the questions discussed are;

• Why are our cities and towns so short of resources despite decades of robust growth?
• Why do we struggle at the local level just to maintain our basic infrastructure?
• What do we do now that the economy has changed so dramatically?

Chuck is a Professional Engineer (PE) licensed in the State of Minnesota and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute.

Like James Kunstler, another noted planning critic he studies our post World War II suburban experiment, which is now over 50 years old. But unlike Kunstler who attacks the experiment based on urban design and its effect on its residents well-being, Marohn views it from a financial sustainability and resiliency standpoint.

Chuck's words ring well with me. As a former commercial banker I agree in his analysis of how cities evaluate infrastructure projects. Many times, cities are more than willing to absorb the low upfront costs of a project (offset by grants, developer fees and mitigations) without carefully considering what the future costs of maintenance and repair.

Without revenue generating business tied to many streets (street, sidewalk, lighting, street furniture, signage, curbs and gutters) many projects will never pay for themselves given the usefull life of a street is rarely more than 30 years. His financial analysis is similar to that of Joe Minicozzi out of Ashville,  North Carolina. I also plan to do a post in the future on Mr. Minicozzi.

But without giving to much away about Chuck's mission and presentation, check out his webiste, blog, and podcast. Start at http://www.strongtowns.org/.

Strong Towns Chuck Marohn presenting tomorrow in Rancho Cordova

Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento to hear a presentation by Chuck Marohn of the non-profit Strong Towns (strongtowns.org). I have featured Chuck's TED talk on this blog titled "The Important Difference Between a Street and a Road". His presentations often center around capturing value from our streets in the form of net tax revenue over the useful life of the project. I'll explain more on this when I get back in a later post.

He often mentions Joe Minicozzi, who also talks about the type of development and its relation to value capture in the form of property and sales taxes. I know locally, here in the Silicon Valley the talk is always about the fiscalization of land use. However, this talk is always centered around a real simple discussion of shops vs. homes, commercial vs. residential. Their argument centers on the type of development; traditional commercial development, mixed use buildings, increased density are promoted as a way of creating a fiscally sustainable community.

Anyway hope you have a great weekend.

Good Monday Morning to you. Just thought I would share some interesting thoughts I found on the web this weekend.


Competitiveness and the Creative Class

While reading an article this morning on global competitiveness, Michael Bloomberg, New York City Mayor and founder of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news organization stated:

“For cities to have sustained success, they must compete for the grand prize: intellectual capital and talent,” Bloomberg wrote. “Talent attracts capital far more effectively and consistently than capital attracts talent.”

 As I read this I couldn't help but remember San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's State of the City address earlier this year when he gave a completely opposite take on things in saying that if you bring the Ciscos and the eBays here the talent will follow. What do you think?

"New York Tops London as City With Most Global Clout, Index Shows"

Designing our streets for obesity.

For a moment forget Climate change. Scientists are focusing more these days on studying the link between physical inactivity, obesity, and other chronic health problems such as diabetes. In a post on The Atlantic Cities website, Kaid Benfield talks about this alarming health trend in a country where now over 60% of the population is either overweight or obese. As Dr. Howard Frumkin states in the article, ""we have engineered walking and bicycling out of our communities" with community design oriented almost exclusively to driving."

"The True Costs of Unwalkable Streets"

Stepping up to save our streets.

Many of you who read this blog are aware of the dire straits that our Bay Area roads are in. Well it's not just a Bay Area phenomenon, it's nationwide. With the inability of federal gas taxes to pull the highway trust fund from chronic deficits, and voters vociferously against gas tax hikes (let's at least call them inflation adjustments) cities and states are looking for creative ways to keep our transportation system going.

"Georgia's transportation system running out of gas"

Stepping up to save Bay Area transit

While attending a SPUR event in downtown San Jose the other evening I had the chance to meet Egon Terplan, the Regional Planning Director for the organization. Egon wrote a very insightful piece in Spur's publication, "The Urbanist".

"Six Ideas for Saving Bay Area Transit"


And lastly,

The Better Block

For the last week I have posted a great video featuring Jason Roberts on "Building Better Blocks". The talk was given at a TED conference near his home city of Dallas, Texas. In this video he describes all of the great and interesting wasy he was able to get things done on the quick and on the cheap. 

Its definately worth a look.