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

RIP: Silver Creek High School
student killed
photo: dbking

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

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

Dangerous By Design

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where have all the tables gone?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


View 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

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

Ghost bike for a fallen cyclist.
Charles Schaffer.
RIP

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

As I mentioned in a recent post;

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

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

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


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Bikes collide on a downtown street; one injured.

First responder to the incident
scene comforts a young cyclist.

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

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

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

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

A new stardard for civility. How about liveability?

Gone! No more street furniture.
Such a gorgeous day, too.

What a beautiful day today. At lunch I ran over to the Safeway Marketplace to get a bowl of soup. Since it was wonderfully warm outside I proceed to grab me a spot on one of the tables before they were all taken. As a headed out the door and around the corner I was surprised that all the tables and chairs were gone.

I stepped inside to ask the manager what happened to this wonderful space. She said that (you can insert your standard orders from headquarters speech here) they were removed the day before yesterday. When I pressed her a bit more for information she mentioned that their had been fights and other behaviours that warranted their removal.

Its funny that we use terms like "canary in the coal mine", and "indicator species" to euphemistically highlight environmental sustainability but we are ignorant to indicators for civic sustainability or civic vitality. Cities can print out reams of LOS (Level of Service) data or traffic volumes cross tabulated by time of day, but we don't track or show concern for indicators of civility or even personal safety.

Another change since the store opened
 is the addition of this turnstile.
Most urban folk walk and thus carry
bags that make this a real obstacle.

The only statistic or indicator that cities, especially San Jose has historically relied on is the annual homicide rate as if this is a true indicator of livability.

This comes after last year's removal of the street furniture in front of the only downtown Peet's Coffee shop. I do wish we somehow could figure this thing out. Cities in countries like France, Italy, Romania, and even here in North America, Montreal seems to have it figured out.

Oh well, at least the weather was nice.

Recent and related posts:
New building going up in the heart of downtown Campbell

Cafe Culture in Romania

They make great coffee, just not great places

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

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

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

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

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

What do you think?

Photo: Richard Masoner @ Cyclelicious

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

Is There any There There?

Grand Central Terminal
New York City

Play this game for me. Ask your friend to name a city and then say what first pops into your mind visually. If the city is Seattle; is it the Space Needle, evergreen trees or Pikes Place Market? If its New York is it one of the many place icons within the five boroughs ; the Statue of Liberty, the Chysler Building, or Grand Central Terminal?
One of the easiest and most lasting ways we remember cities is their iconic buildings, structures, artwork, topography, or natural features. Name a city and we instantly recall these images. When we talk about placemaking today, these images play a huge role in a city's identity. City's work hard to keep those images in your mind to get you to keep coming back, to locate a business, or to buy a home.

Featauared in Women's Health
In a recent issue of Women's Health (January/February 2012), the magazine featured an article "The Healthiest Cities for Women", highlighting the top ten as well as the bottom ten of their list of the 100 largest cities in America. The article also described just what makes them the healthiest.

Women's Health Magazine
January / February 2012
from my iPhone

The first page is a stunning visual of 3 of the top cities; Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my current city, San Jose, California. The photo of Minneapolis soon caught my eye. I had seen pictures of this Midwestern skyline, and the iconic Stone Arch Bridge built over 100 years ago in 1883. The bottom picture shows part of the beautiful Lady Bird Lake Trail in Austin, Texas.

However, as I glanced at the top photo, showing two young women taken at close range, I hesitated. This photo looked different. The visual of the two runners with big smiles on their faces almost seemed posed. The background was blurred and referenced no visual clues. It almost; shall I say look staged.

But then I got to thinking. What would the photo show anyway? Do we have a vista point in the city to show off a skyline. Do we have a trail system that rivals Austin's Lady Bird Lake Trail, or New York's High Line. Well we don't, and that's a sad thing.

When a national magazine can insert some generic photograph using staged models to represent your city, that's the collective collective American databank telling you that there may be nothing memorable about your city. That it falls into the many generic backdrops of similar post-World War Two "drive-bys" such as Phoenix, Dallas, Anaheim, and sadly in many cases San Jose.

Cities are defined by their ability to evoke a sense of place. No generic photo would ever take the place of a Manhattan skyline, a Diamond Head, or the US Capitol. The miles upon miles of beautiful orchards which used to evoke the phrase "The Valley of Hearts Delight" are gone. What image will now take their place.

Plan Bay Area - Santa Clara Valley Version

Last night I had the opportunity to attend Plan Bay Area, the public forum highlighting the new Regional Transportation Plan for the seven counties  surrounding San Francisco Bay. The intent was to introduce the plan and allow for public comment. This was my first time to get involved on a regional basis for transportation issues affecting the Bay Area and did I come away both surprised and shell shocked.



Sheriff removing
protester from podium

Let's just say that there never really was a meeting. From the start it got hijacked by a group intent on disrupting everything. From the very start with MTC Commissioner and San Jose City Council Member Sam Liccardo's opening remarks the group of demonstrators attempted to take control of the meeting. At one point a Santa Clara County Sheriffs officer had to escort one individual who had approached the speakers podium.  Not wanting to wait until the formal comment period angry participants just stood up and attempted to talk over the speaker.
The plan was to intimidate participants who had an opposing view from making their own public comment. Only one brave women spoke in opposition to the group.The meeting was supposed to be an open venue for Santa Clara County residents to share their concerns for their county ended up being just another stop for this group. Many mentioned that this was their fourth meeting that they have attended, going against the spirit of having one forum in each county for local residents.

The sad part is that their voice, their opinions were wasted by their behaviour. Attempting to state your views and then questioning the very venue in which they are voiced doesn't do much for a group's credibility. I sure this will not be the last we hear from this group.

iPhone App Review - SJ Transit Lite v 2.0

New update for VTA Transit app

Category: Navigation

Updated: Jan 17, 2012

Version: 2.2.1

Size: 3.2 MB

Language: English

See previous review for SJ Transit.

Tuesday the author of VTA Transit Lite posted a completely new version of an existing transit app on the iTunes store. This was most likely to coincide with VTA's normal January schedule of changes.  As I mentioned in the previous review the app was not much better than the traditional paper maps that it was intended to replace.

Map view showing bus stops

Even with my lack of support for this app it will never really be useful until there is some type of GPS or "Next Bus" type of functionality included with it. Given the spread out suburban nature of the Santa Clara Valley, many times it doesn't matter what time the bus should be there, but where is it now and when is expected to arrive at its destination. This is especially important in the valley due to the less frequent schedules compared with San Francisco's which see buses every 5 minutes on some routes. If you miss one bus another will be along shortly.

I checked out the new version on iTunes and the screenshots looked promising so I downloaded the app even after reading that it was prone to crash. After downloading the app the user is required to download the data portion of the program; a 10MB file containing the time schedules. This is a good idea since it frees users from having to download a new app for each VTA schedule change. The download took less than five minutes.

Route View showing
 both directions

After the download was complete I started the SJ Transit Lite back up and was elated at the many positive changes the author made to the app. A long awaited "favorite" star was there to make sorting through a long list of routes easier. All bus stops were listed alphabetically and on a google map (see screenshot above). This made it easy to "favorite" your daily bus stops. For example I could favorite the 64 southbound stop at Diridon station. By instantly pulling up that station I could see when the next bus is expected at its timeline along the remainder of the route. I could also show the route on the map with a pin point of each bus stop along the way.

The author has included both the major time points as well as estimations of arrival times on all bus stops. You also have the ability to see only the time points or all bus stops with time estimations.

However....

Initially many users were never able to open the program due to crashes. Soon after posting the new version the author posted a new fix. I downloaded the new version and starting using it; going through all the new features. But my excitement wouldn't last long. Yesterday morning it would crash a few times but by evening it would crash once the app was opened and I haven't been able to get it to work since. Its sad because this had the look and feel of really being a useful app, one that is sorely needed in this valley. So until this major flaw gets fixed I guess I just wait for a new VTA app to come along. Whenever that is.

SJ Transit Lite on iTunes

Congress, we can do better than this

Here in the San Francisco Bay area I, like many other employees have the opportunity to purchase transit passes (although we are slowly moving towards the Clipper Card payment system). Depending on your commuting needs these passes can be purchased for BART, Caltrain, several ferry lines, light rail, or one of the many bus systems in the Bay Area.

Three things are great about the program (in my case the administration is handled by WageWorks);

1. My company will pay half of the cost of my pass or Clipper Card purchases.
2. My contribution is deducted from my income over the year reducing my taxable income.
3. It's all handled through my paycheck. No need to make a separate payment.

Although I only purchase $70 in transit passes each month through my employer, there is a limit on the amount the IRS will allow an individual to reduce their income. Car commuters are also allowed to deduct car parking expenses from income but I was completely floored when I found this note included with my monthly statement from WageWorks.

Important Note: The temporary $230 monthly pre-tax transit limit set by Congress in 2009 will expire at the end of 2011. Beginning with the January 2012 benefit month, the pre-tax transit limit will decrease to $125 a month and any election amount over $125 will be deducted from your pay on an after-tax basis. Beginning with the January 2012 benefit month, the monthly pre-tax limit for parking will increase from $230 to $240.

So beginning next month solo (or not) vehicle drivers will have a greater tax advantage to use our streets, bridges, and freeways than public transit users

Contact your congress member today to tell them how wasteful this policy is, while also increasing traffic congestion and air pollution. Better yet go to this link on the Transportation for America website

San Pedro Square Market



San Jose Eats actually about 10 food trucks
line up on West Saint John Street to celebrate
the opening of San Pedro Square Market. 

As part of several "soft" openings the developers os San Pedro Square Market hosted San Jose Made/San Jose Eats. San Jose Made consists of mostly T-shirt and ball cap vendors. I don't quite get it beacause none of the T-Shirts and hats said "Made in .....San Jose, California, or even made in the USA".

I tried some 5-spice pulled pork off of one of the food trucks and it was fantastic. I didn't get a chance to try some ice cream off of the Treat Bot truck but I have had some before it it is always good.





Bicycle Parking was
non-existent at today's event.


Two things that need to be addressed but is so typical of San Jose events, you keep asking why. Why is it always this way.

The first is the ever present and public show of police in this town. I spotted two pedestrian officers and one on a bicycle for a peak crowed of about 800 people. Later on it dwindled down to about 400 people mostly couples or family members.

I've often been to San Francisco's largest farmers market at the Ferry Building. The market is always packed with at least over ten times as many visitors and I have yet to see one police officer. It seems as though any public gathering requires some type of police presence in San Jose. I'll have to investigate further as to the severe requirements. At least the cops were on foot and not in cars.

This doesn't need to happen.
SF Farmers Mkt. has
free valet parking.

The second item that needs to be addressed is the need for bicycle parking on West Saint John Street. As you can see from the pictures, adequate parking is lacking. Given that this is intended to be a prime downtown location it doesn't make sense that the city didn't require the developer to construct adequate parking before issuing an occupancy permit. So please contact the developer, contact the San Jose Downtown Association, the District 3 (downtown) Councilmember and ask why they were issued building permits and made no requirements for bicycle parking.

So to summarize; too many cops not enough bike racks. Other than that a nice time was had by all.







- Posted from my iPhone

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

Cafe Culture is for Canadiens not for Californians

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

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

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

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



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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