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.

Video: Michael Freedman speaks on revitalizing strip commerical districts

Willow Glen Town Square, an
FTS project completed 2012

Michael Freedman’s of Freedman, Tung, and Sasaki (FTS) gave a great presentation on June 20, 2009 focused on what makes a “Grand Boulevard” and how each jurisdiction in the region (San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in the San Francisco Bay Area) can interpret the concept to fit their unique community. 

Gregory Tung spoke to the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA) last year and was also involved in the Willow Glen Town Square project that has added so much to the Willow Glen community.

To download Michael Freedman's report on corridor revitalization, click: "Restructuring the Commercial Strip" (PDF, 16.3MB).

Thanks to the Grand Boulevard Initiative, SamTrans, and PenTV

San Jose: Road and trail improvement projects in process.



Shopping on the Avenue (Willow Glen)
photo: WGBA website

 As chair of the city of San Jose's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) I recently signed a letter of support for funding for various transportation projects in the city.  The city will be submitting grant requests for the projects listed below. Funding is through the One Bay Area Grant Program (OBAG) administered by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). 

OBAG is investing roughly $800 million over a four-year period (FYs 2012-13 through 2015-16), funded through continuations of the current surface transportation legislation currently known as SAFETEA (the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act).
.
OBAG will better integrate the Bay Area region’s federal transportation program with California’s climate law (Senate Bill 375, Steinberg, 2008) and the Sustainable Communities Strategy.

Please note the city will apply for these grants individually and these grants are on a competitive basis with other Bay Area (the nine-county region) cities, counties, and agencies. These projects are in the very initial, or conceptual stages (with the exception of the first project, the Alameda "Beautiful Way").  These grants will help fund the planning and design phases of the projects. Most of the projects have not been put before the public in community meetings. That will be included in a later phase.

I have included at map at the bottom to illustrate approximate citywide locations where possible.

• The Alameda “Beautiful Way” Grand Boulevard Phase 2
• St. John Complete Street Corridor:  HP Pavilion to St. James LRT Station
• Cottle Light Rail – Urban Village Connection
• East San Jose Bike/Ped/Transit Connections
• Penitencia Creek Trail Connection to Berryessa BART Station
• San José PDA Pedestrian Oriented Traffic Safety Signals Program
• San José PDA Ped/Bike/Transit Safety Lighting Program
• Jackson Complete Streets
• Autumn Parkway Extension – Diridon Transit Center Area
• Almaden/Vine “Livable Streets” Couplet Conversion
• Willow Street/Bird Avenue “Road Diet” and Three Creeks Trail Connection
• Oakridge/Almaden Urban Village Trail & Transit Connections

View OBAG - One Bay Area Grant Request in a larger map

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

New building going up in the heart of downtown Campbell

New commercial/rest. bldg
going up in Campbell.

The last bit of work is being done on a new mixed use building to replace the old I.O.O.F., or the Independent Order of Odd Fellows building. The building located at 1st St. and Campbell Ave. right in the heart of the bustling downtown corridor is different than adjacent buildings for a few reasons.

First, the design is such that the building is actually adheres to traditional design. It is replacing a 50 year old building which was set back from the both streets and allowed for at least 20 parking spaces adjacent to the street (see Google Maps Street View link).

Second, if you also look at the Street View map and the photo below you'll notice that the City of Campbell already has done some great work on softening the streets scape by placing bulbouts, textured sidewalks, large radii corners, and nice street furniture (benches, lamps, and trash cans).

Attractive streetscape adds
 to the developer's
building improvements.

Third, the restaurant space has a courtyard on the north side of a building on the south side of Campbell Ave., which with the ample street trees will keep this space well shaded when the sun rises higher in the sky in the summertime. This will add even more outdoor dining options to downtown Campbell (compared with a decline in outdoor dining options in downtown San Jose).

And lastly, what is really nice and rarely seen in the Silicon Valley outside of Palo Alto or maybe Mountain View is the folding accordion doors. In James Kunstler's now famous TED talk (James H Kunstler dissects suburbia), he speaks of restaurants and other commercial establishments of possessing a permeable membrane, in which strollers passing by can see activity within the restaurant, pub, or shop.

Well done, Campbell. This project brings many improvements to an already successful downtown.

---

Related posts.

Cafe Culture is for Canadiens not for Californians

Day 9 Trois Rivieres to Quebec City  While bike touring through Quebec, Canada I was amazed that in a smaller town on a Thursday eveing the streets were alive with people eating, walking and just generally enjoying themselves outdoors.

A new stardard for civility. How about liveability?

Cafe Culture in Romania

They make great coffee, just not great places

 

Installing sliding accordian doors.

Another great San Jose based urbanist blog



http://www.thinkbiggersanjose.com/

 As you know on this blog I cover mainly transportation issues at the city, county, regional (Bay Area), and state levels in addition to land use, placemaking and the ever increasing sums of money we commit to keeping a mono-modal (predominately car oriented) system going.  Transportation issues mainly cover transit (public and private), rail, bicycle, pedestrian, and other modes as well.

Another great local blog I think you'll like is one titled Think Bigger San Jose - San Jose, history, development and tourism (that's right tourism), along with his accompanying Twitter feeds under the name ThinkBiggerSanJose. When Mark is not so busy writing for his own blog, he also writes for Content magazine. In the current, 4.1 issue he has a story on Willow Glen real estate personality Michael Mulcahy and one on a Tetris skyline.

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.

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.

Is Best Buy a leading indicator of the future of Big Box Retail?

"Small Box Retail"
Willow Glen Business District
Four restaurants in this building",
the Willow Glen Town Center

Today Best Buy announced today that it would shutter 50 of its Big Box stores to focus more on opening, well let's just say Little Box stores. According to Bloomberg News,

"The retailer is closing big-box stores and cutting jobs to reduce costs while boosting online sales and opening smaller locations. The company said it would add 100 of its smaller-format Best Buy Mobile stores in the U.S. in the current fiscal year."

This after news yesterday from U.S. Public Interest Research Group, that younger Americans are leading the trend by driving less, waiting to earn drivers licences, and putting off the purchase of an automobile. The report titled "Transportation for a New Generation", states that for the first time since the end of World War II (yes over 65 years ago), the number of miles travelled by Americans has dropped (as expressed in terms of Vehicle Miles Travelled or VMT). The report gives many reasons why, but emphasized that even when the economy rebounds the trend is expected to continue. I will be addressing the report in more detail in a later post.

Big Box Retail Restaurant

As the Big Box model of retailing begins to break down you begin to see it the shift from a large store format to small shops that can be squeezed into traditional Commercial Business Districts (CBD). In the Willow Glen Area of San Jose, the beer, wine, and liquor retailer Beverages and More has been managing their small footprint store BevMo for a couple of years now. This month Petco will open their small format store "Unleashed" on Lincoln Ave.

So the question is;

• if the Big Box format is possibly on its last legs,
• VMT has been decreasing in the U.S. for the last six years,
• and, the City of San Jose is planning to further reduce VMT in the near future.

Why has the City's Planning Department in recent years approved Big Box format centers such as @First, San Jose Market Place, the Plant, and now has approved a new 45 acre Mega-Mall on one of the busiest expressways in the region? The land, located just north of Highway 85 is one of the last large undeveloped parcels left within the city. Let's not leave a retail dinosaur as a legacy for future generations.

Customer leaving "The Plant" after
waiting 8 minutes to cross
Monterrey Highway

My new phrase for the day - Drive-Thru Highway

Now entering Drive_Thru
Highway. No Bicycles or
 Pedestrians allowed.

Since I don't go to (choose from below):

1. Big Box Stores
2. Auto Oriented Retail
3. Strip Malls
4. Concept Malls

I don't get out to these places much but today I came across a double lane McDonald's Drive-Thru; right next door to a Pollo Loco Drive-Thru. We sure are innovative here in the Silicon Valley.


Just to prove that it is just like a real highway this highway on ramp comes with real traffic monitoring cameras. I can just imagine at rush hour they might even issue a Sig Alert. 




3 Cameras to cover the pile up
on the Drive-Thru Highway.
Two on the left, 1 on the right.

 As you can see from the photo taken from one of the lanes of the DT Highway there are no fewer than three cameras following the action down below. Maybe there are even sensors in the roadway.









Wait, too many fry pits.
 Is this the Drive-Thru for
Panda or Pollo Loco?

 The Plant - Curtner and Monterrey Rds., San Jose, CA


View Larger Map

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.

Prioritizing our roadways - suburbs vs. city centers

In a post in November of last year titled "There's no more change to be found in the sofa - Fixing San Jose's Roads", I mentioned that San Jose's Director for the Department of Transportation went before the council to consider alternative means of funding basic road repair. The next day in a San Jose Mercury New article ("San Jose''s DOT Director discusses the state of the city's roadways and how to repair them".) highlighted the dilemma that the city faces. As I mentioned in my post of November, 18, 2012 I stated:

The article highlighted several responses from local residents commenting on the proposed ways to raise funds to support a $100 million a year maintenance budget. All but one respondent was opposed to spending money to support the roads. Several had stated they believed the money is there and that we should look a little closer at departmental funds. A few would like to initiate a formal look at the department's finances. As the article states "he cautions that before anything else is done, the city council and auditor should look into how DOT money is being spent."

The comments in the article share a common thread, a belief, a wish that there is money there, we just need to look harder. Somewhere there is a sofa with just the enough road repair change, just waiting to be scooped up between the sofa cushions. And somehow it seems as though these residents feel that this is only a San Jose problem; if we could just get our house in order. I doubt most of the residents surveyed for the article or most any San Jose residents realize that this is not just a San Jose problem, and certainly not just a California problem, but a growing national problem as well. Critical lack of funding in our surface transportation infrastructure is a problem, but the biggest problem may be our collective denial that a structural problem exists.

Well the problem continues to exist but on an even larger scale. Estimates provided by SJDOT stated that if we continue down the road were on, by 2020 we will have grown our deferred maintenance liability to $860M with approximately 54% of the city's 2,400 miles of roadway in "poor" condition compared with $293M now and only 21% of total roadway in poor condition.

Mayor Reed made a comment during the discussion period that if the city was able to control its retirement costs we could have easily covered the city's estimated $100M road repair bill each year.

The proposal before today's city council was to prioritize scare funding by designating a "Priority Street Network" representing approximately 400 miles of the City's street system of 2,400 miles (16%) based on the criterion set forth in the Envision 2040 policies related to Grand Boulevards and Main Streets, economic development areas (business), transit and bicycle corridors, traffic volumes, and major roadways in residential areas.



Click on the map to see priority streets in your area.

  Additionally SJDOT seeks to secure a total funding investment of $100 M annually by considering the following:

1. Evaluation of a possible San Jose parcel tax, bond measure and/or sales tax to substantially address pavement maintenance funding needs;
2. Evaluate extending and amending the current 1/2-cent sales tax for transportation in Santa Clara County, allowing use of funds for local pavement maintenance consistent with many other counties in California; and
3. Advocate for timely approval of a new Federal transportation bill that increases overall investment for transportation with support for local pavement maintenance.

According to Hans Larsen, SJDOT's Director although $100M is needed each year to maintain the city's extensive road network on average each year the city has only been able to come with $18M, creating an ever growing liability in the form of deferred maintenance.

Additionally SJDOT plans to come to the council during the next three months with the following asks:

• April - Downtown bicycle lanes ($1M)
• May - Further refine priority street network ($6M)
• June - Apply Federal grants to use for resurfacing roadways ($6M)

 When the votes were tallied all council members approved the measure to seek additional funding sources with Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen absent.

Council member Nancy Pyle asked Director Larsen about the threshold needed for a referendum to pass. The director replied that currently tax measures require 2/3 approval to pass (Proposition 13) but that there are currently two bills in the state legislative that address this concern; one will apply to broad infrastructure measures and another that would apply to transportation measures. Each would require only a 55% approval margin.

Council member Donald Rocha asked the SJDOT director why all downtown streets were included in the Priority Street Network. The director responded that just about every street in the downtown core absorbs bus traffic as well increased wear due to traffic density serving downtown businesses. Since there is less use on low volume residential streets, these streets would not be prioritized in the new maintenance cycle.

Also in an affirmative nod to pedestrians and cyclists, Council Member Oliverio suggested a white shoulder line (also known as a fog line) or a bike lane (per the current bike plan) be painted on the newly resurfaced roadway. Council member Oliverio stated that the slight narrowing of the lanes would by a very inexpensive way to help calm traffic.

For every Yin there is a Yan, for every supply there is a demand

Over the last six months a resounding call by presidential aspirants have demanded a reduction in gas prices by drilling for more domestic oil. Much of this call mimics candidate Newt Gingrich's 2008 (pre-BP) book titled Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.

His book, a brief 142 pages in large print, only shows that Mr. Gingrich should stick to history and stay away from economics. If Mr. Gingrich ever took Econ 101, he must have skipped out just before the lecture on the demand portion of the supply and demand curve.

All but two of the 142 pages speak about supply (two pages highlight what Ford, Exxon/Mobil, and GE are doing to conserve energy), the theory being that all you have to do is take care of supply and that alone will take care of the rest. No taking into account that it is a non-renewable resource that gets more costly to produce each year.

However I don't completely fault Mr. Gingrich and friends. We see this all the time in transportation, land use, and even parking policy. Several examples can easily be demonstrated here in the Silicon Valley.

Introduced in October of 2010 after repeated customer complaints about long travel times, the local transit agency created a non-stop express service from South San Jose to downtown during the commute hours. Three months later Santa Clara County announced an increase of 33% in auto capacity on the southern portion of the Almaden Expressway which parallels the light rail line, significantly negating any relative advantage that transit may have had.

Likewise just several miles north, Caltrans announced that they would increase capacity and update highway design to increase capacity on freeways 280 and 880 after two very large shopping centers were allowed to build and expand. Now with upcoming construction there is talk of further expanding one of the shopping centers with at least two anchor tenants.

In this part of the San Francisco Bay it seems that just about every year a major big box mall (also known in the biz as auto oriented retail) is built, further decimating downtown retail. The City of San Jose mandates mixed use retail and housing but wonders why street level retail remains vacant while it approves even more big box retail. Is your college economics coming back to you now?

For every ying there is a yang

Large transportation and land use policies here will almost always have unintended consequences nearby.

And so, the can just keeps getting kicked down the road.

City to proceed with 45 acre 'Mega-Mall' on Almaden Expressway

The City of San Jose is getting closer to forging ahead with a planned mega-mall regional shopping center in an area already clogged with big-box retail and heavy auto traffic congestion. In last night's council meeting, city leaders debated whether to rezone the 45 acres exclusively for commercial use.

This comes after a struggling downtown commerical district has decided to relax the rules, and the development of other Mega-mall developments such as San Jose Marketplace, the Plant, @First, Santana Row, and now the Almaden Ranch Retail Center. With existing traffic conditions, large volume of strip and mall retail, and the proposed expansion of what is had been limited access expressway, traffic congestion will be expected to increase as traffic safety decreases. Unlike any other expressway (except for maybe Capitol Expressway) Almaden falls somewhere between a road and a street but possessing the benefits of either. For a great talk on the inefficiencies and costs of building roads that have the characteristics of streets check out Chuck Mahron's talk at a recent TEDx event.



photo: torontoist.com



The amount of existing and proposed retail is evident in the map below with a Walmart also due to come online. Retail acerage is shown in green. Just prior to the announcement to build Almaden Ranch, Santa Clara County had announced is is currently expanding the Almaden Expressway shown in red from six lanes to eight lanes with the addition of bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.

Now cyclists, imagine riding alone an eight lane expressway with traffic zipping by you at 45 - 50 mph. In fact this portion of the roadway will have more capacity than State Freeway 87 which in this area only has six lanes. So cyclists would you ride on Almaden Expressway to do you shopping at one of the many Mega-Malls?


View Traditional Business Districts vs. Big Box in a larger map

San Jose to relax downtowns street level retail rules

This week's city council meeting was chalk full of land use issues. Besides the debate on the proposed Almaden Ranch Retail Center, the council unanimously agreed to amend the municipal code allow non-retail uses to occupy street level commercial spaces.

In other words if the space that was previously a market, restaurant, or phone store has been vacant the first of the year, other commercial retail uses will be allowed to occupy the space such as banks, law offices, or real estate offices.

New York has mandated that retail business occupy street level retail since 1975 and accounts for some of the city's amazing vitality at almost all hours of the day or night. (New York City Mandates Street Retail).

Traditionally cities want street level retail to create activity and vibrancy at the street level. To quote, or more likely paraphrase an over-quoted Jane Jacobs, all that street level activity puts more" eyes on the street".

Although this will help to alleviate some possible blight in a downtown that already has too many walls, fences, moats, and asphalt, it is just the other side of the coin given overbuilt auto-oriented retail in new spaces like, the Plant, San Jose Market Place, @First, Santana Row, and now the Almaden Ranch Retail Center. By creating large amounts of big box retail with free parking, it will always be more convenient to shop in these mega-malls than shopping downtown. Even residents living downtown will find it easier to drive to the Plant with all of it capacity, than to shop Walgreens and the Ross store downtown.

Local Business Community Invests in Lincoln Ave. Retail - Part I



Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio (D6)
and Hans Larsen DOT Director speak to
 a packed Willow Glen High School Library

As always, the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association had a packed agenda last week, but I have never seen so many attendees come out to hear what is happening on the Ave.  I counted over 85 in last weeks crowd.

These attendees could have been to put other things on their calendar, but the fact that they decided to come learn about changes happening on Lincoln Ave speaks to the exciting summer in store and the leadership of the Willow Glen Neighborhood Asssociation. Their montly meetings are becoming the place to find out just what is happening in the community. Next month Kim Walesh, the Director of the Office of Economic Development will be the speaker.

And now on with the program. There is so much I've split it into two parts.

Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio opened up the meeting with some announcements.

Upcoming events included:

• March 12 - Annual Meeting of Save our Trails
• March 12 6:31 PM- City Hall Council Chambers - Movie Documentary on Dogs and Cats follwed by a discussion about the Animal Care Services Division. (Please RSVP to dennelle.fedor@sanjoseca.gov)
• April 23 6:31 PM - City Hall Council Chambers - Movie Documentary "Crapshoot" on the most basic service the city provides...sewers. (Please RSVP to dennelle.fedor@sanjoseca.gov)

Hans Larsen - Director, San Jose
 Department of Transportation

Hans Larsen the City's Director of the Department of Transportation followed Pierluigi announcing the city recently being ranked 2nd in the country on resident's health. Part of that is due to our low obesity rate as well as our low smoking rate. Hans spoke to the choice of including active transportation, such as walking and cycling, in one's lifestyle as another reason we are so healthy.

In order to keep residents healthy, he stated the importance that they continue to follow the city's 2020 Bike Plan which calla for 500 miles of bikeways, including 100 miles of trails and 400 miles street bikeways. The city has currently completed 260 of the 500 mile total.

The city has a three year priorty strategy for the downtown core, which will enhance exisitng trails along the Guadalupe River, the Los Gatos Creek Trail, and surrounding, neighborhood trails.

Some of the changes in the downtown area include a separted and colored bikeway on San Fernando right through the heart of downtown, a bike share system consising of 400 bicycles and 15 stations by the end of the summer, taking 5 streets in the downtown area reducing the lanes and converting them to a buffered bike lane,  and other painted bikeways in the downtown area. The five streets which will feature the buffered bike lanes will be 3rd and 4th streets, 10 and 11th streets, and Almaden Blvd.

Two bright pieces of news on the horizon for the city's children. Councilmember Oliverio worked to get speed reductions near many San Jose Schools (first strarting with Trace Elementary) and now Hans Larsen has stated that with help from an MTC (Metropoliton Transportation Commision) grant the city will rollout their "Walk and Roll" program to over 30 San Jose schools.

Hans also mentioned that the culture of bicycling in the city is changing with San Jose Bike Party, Kidical Mass in the Glen (started by yours truley and Stacy Stafford Scott at Treehouse in the Glen), the upcoming Mayors ride with the Mayor of Dublin Ireland.

Kevin Swanson, President,
Willow Glen Business Association

Kevin Swanson, Chair of the Willow Glen Business Association Our Avenue Committee started off by saying how excited he is to see all the new changes on the Avenue and that given the state of affairs economically, they actually had a strong holiday season. They also had some very successful events this year such as the Wine Walk, Lady's Night Out, and Dancing on the Avenue. Kevin also mentioned that they are planning to have a new event called Mom's Night Out.

Kevin also was pleased with the newly painted "Coney Island" style lamposts as well as the new banner program on the avenue. The hope is to change out the banners on a quarterly basis. He was also happy to annoucne after so many years of planning that the Avenue will soon have manned kiosks by April.

A little further down the road he also mentioned the addition of pocket parks, bulbouts at corners to help pedestrians, and on-street bike parking.

Two new business will be opening shortly on the Ave.; Mikes Bikes and Unleased a smaller format Petco pet store.

The rest of the evening was devoted to the almost completed Willow Glen Town Center and other new businesses on the Avenue.

I'll cover that in Part II

State Routes Relinquished to San Jose

This article by Ray Salvano appeared in the January 2012 issue of DOT Way, the City of San Jose's DOT newsletter. Ray is an employee within the Department of Transportation (portions in bold are my own).

On December 28, 2011, after almost six years of negotiations with Caltrans, the City became the official owner of State Routes 82 and 130. Serving primarily as urban arterials within the City of San Jose, these state routes are commonly known as the Alameda and Monterrey Road (SR 82) and Alum Rock Avenue (SR 140).

Over the decades of their existence and with the growth and urbanization of the City, SR 82 and SR 130 have evolved to serve more as local arterial streets than part of the state highway system. However, as these roadways were under the jurisdiction of Caltrans, any changes to the roadway, such as a new traffic signal or crosswalk, resulting from a development project or local or community based improvement would require Caltran's involvement at all levels, e.g., administration, planning, construction and operations. The result of Caltrans' involvement in these types of local projects was typically an increase in the cost and time to deliver the project.

Perhaps more importantly from the City's perspective, a projects development along state routes are required to meet Caltran's rigid, auto-oriented design and operational standards.

These standards are often in conflict with the City's development and multi-modal objectives, as well as community interests. In the case of SR 82 and SR 130, the City's goals for these streets, as recently adopted in the Envision 2040 General Plan Update, are to improve the pedestrian environment, implement multi-modal projects and reconsider the amount of right-of-way previously development to auto-centric standards.

With the relinquishment of the State routes, the City has the opportunity to better manage, integrate and streamline the land use, right-of-way, and decision-making  process along these corridors without having to go through Caltran's project development processes. Currently, there are a number of projects of local and regional significance being development along these corridor that will benefit from the City's ownership of these corridors. A few examples of these projects include: VTA's Bus Rapid Transit projects along Alum Rock and The Alameda, our own "The Alameda - The Beautiful Way' street scape projects, planning activities in the Diridon Station area.

With the relinquishment of the State Routes, approximately 12 centerline miles will be added to the City's street inventory. To offset the generally poor conditions of the facilities, Caltrans has agreed to support the City's request for $12.4 million in federal grant funds toward the rehabilitation of the roadway facilities. These funds, when combined with the local projects previously mentioned, are intended to improve the roadways and related facilities to a good state of repair and not require any substantial invest of maintenance funds for several years.

A special thanks goes to Betsy Shotwell, Roxanne Miller and Kelly Doyle for their support and guidance through the State's legislative processes, the IM Division for helping develop the condition assessment report, Johnny Phan of the Attorney's Office for his assistance in negotiating the relinquishment agreement and Zahir Gulzadah for manging the relinquishment process on the City side.

City of San Jose to host public meetings on bikeway improvements

Photo: StreetsblogSF

The City of San Jose's Department of Transportation will be holding two neighborhood meetings highlighting exciting changes to downtown streets. Come get the latest and most detailed information and provide input to these long awaited projects.

Please also pass this information along to your bicycling friends as well. (Check map links for detail room locations at City Hall)

10th &11th Street Bike Lane Improvement Project
Neighborhood Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM
Location:  City Hall Wing, Room W-119 & 120, 200 E. Santa Clara Street
Description: Class II Bike Lanes on 10th & 11th Streets (between Hedding and Keyes Streets)

Agenda:
  1. Sign In
  2. Project Overview Review 
  3. Project Update and Schedule                    
  4. Question and Answer Portion                        
  5. Adjournment


3rd  Street, 4th Street & Almaden Blvd Bike Lane Improvement Project
Neighborhood Meeting

Date: Monday, February 27, 2012
Time: 6.30 PM
Location: City Hall Wing, Room W-119 & 120, 200 E. Santa Clara Street
Description:  Class II Bike Lanes on 3rd & 4th Streets (between Julian/St. James and Reed Street)
                    Class II Bike Lanes on Almaden Boulevard (between St. John and Grant Street)

Agenda:                
  1. Sign In            
  2. Project Overview Review
  3. Project Update and Schedule 
  4. Question and Answer Portion   
  5. Adjournment

Innovating our way to congestion

Valley Fair 1958

Like the greeting "Aloha" which is heard constantly in the Hawaiin Islands to inflect several meanings, here in the Silicon Valley you hear the word "innovation" so many times you just want to call a hyperbolic time out.

In almost any San Jose city function or staff presentation, the word is often used in a sentence such as, "San Jose is an innovative city', as if some of the Valley's fairy dust somehow sprinkles everything done here even if it is not tech related. At a neighborhood meeting several months back, after hearing the word proudly proclaimed yet another time, I had to stand up list examples of real civic innovation, mentioning the work on Broadway in the Times Square area of New York, Portland's Greenways , along with San Francisco growing use of "parklets". These I mentioned are real urban innovations. I have yet to see anything that I could add to the list from this area.

Valley Fair & Santana Row 2007

In Monday's  (December 19, 2011) edition of the San Jose Mercury News the "I" word was used in a front page article in both the heading and the first paragraph no less ("New York throws down the innovation gauntlet") and in the first sentence in an opinion piece ("VTA's creative solution require Caltrans' help") written by Michael T. Burns, General Manager for VTA the Santa Clara countywide transportation agency. See also last Wednesday's post, "San Jose's coming of age?"

The first paragraph sets the stage

Focus and innovation. Here in Silicon Valley, these are words you usually hear from high-tech firms, but the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is taking these principles to heart. We are looking to employ focus and innovation in a new way to accelerate highway projects and get them done more cheaply. And we need Caltrans' help.

VTA is responsible for planning, designing and, in some cases, constructing highway improvements in Silicon Valley, as well as for building and operating the public transit system. On a daily basis, we move 700,000-plus commuters along our county's highways, not including the number of commuters coming in from neighboring counties. Because of this, VTA has a close and important working relationship with Caltrans. VTA has several high-priority highway projects awaiting funding, while at the same time, local, state and federal funding sources are diminishing. Not satisfied to accept the status quo, VTA is looking for creative solutions to address our county's highway needs. (emphasis in bold is my own)

The opinion piece goes on to describe how "simple interchange improvement in Santa Clara County competes for staff time with the building of the new Bay Bridge; the reconstruction of Doyle Drive, which is the gateway to San Francisco off the Golden Gate Bridge; and the $2 billion Devil's Slide project". But making administrative and approval processes more efficient to build more congestion is like handing two large spoons to the

In addition to the 700,000 commuters mentioned above, according to MTC, there was a 47% increase in the number of commuters to Santa Clara County from surrounding areas, with over 100,000 daily commuters coming from the east.

The simple interchange improvement is one of the most congested intersections in the Bay Area handling traffic coming directly into the county from Gilroy, Los Banos and Salinas from the south valley, Santa Cruz from the coast, Oakland and the East Bay from the North East and San Francisco and the Peninsula from the northern peninsula.

The expansion of two regional shopping areas (Valley Fair and Santana Row) have now "necessitated" the expansion of this interchange. And when the construction dust has settled Valley Fair is seeking to expand the center with two additional anchor stores along with small shops. Meanwhile downtown San Jose has a Ross discount store and San Jose's small number of traditional merchant districts such as Japantown and Willow Glen find it more difficult to compete.

By concentrating the massive single use regional shopping development near a equally massive freeway interchange we have a created an auto dominated, congested, polluted gateway to the city of San Jose. While the state, with the recent passage of SB 32 and SB 375 seeks to reduce the region's congestion and auto pollution (through a reduction in VMT or Vehicle Miles Travelled) and the city seeks to do the same as stated in the recently prepared 2040 General Plan

Most recently Sam Liccardo, the council representative for the downtown and airport area also used "the word" in a Sunday, Juanuary 8 Op/Ed piece ("Redevelopment is gone, but downtown can thrive") to describe the city's Economic develoment team. The essay went on to describe all of the great improvements being made to the downtown and airport areas. I would caution however that anything that increases parking in the downtown core is not "innovative". Innovative would be tyring to bring more residents, employees, and visitors downtown without increasing the demand for parking.

I applaud the desire to make the process more innovative and efficient, however we need to realize that our innovations haven't done much to decrease our freeway frustrations. With an economy that is struggling, most Silicon Valley freeways and expressway are at a standstill at rush hour and beyond. With shopping activity having been promoted in mall and big box configurations roadways around these developments are packed during the weekends and holidays.

We can do better. But instead of wearing a false badge of innovation on our sleeve, lets look to other cities and what they have done. Long Beach has promoted the bicycle as a way for businesses in each of their four traditional business district to attract customers, Minneapolis attributes its growth in bicycling and walking to an array of new street improvements such as more bike lanes and special bicycle-and-pedestrian boulevards, and Los Angles has expand their Metrolink rail system.


So for 2012 let's just focus on tackling the big projects, the useful projects because they are right. Let's save real innovation to the tech industry with its R&D labs and rapid obsolescence. So for 2012 lets all agree that the "I" word is now officially off limits.



Online Resources

I280/880 Stevens Creek Interchange
http://bikesiliconvalley.org/content/1747

I-280/I-880/Stevens Creek Boulevard Improvements Project Website

photos: Buena Vista Neighborhood Association


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