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I noticed Bay Area streets, freeways, empty lots, creek sides had became very trashy in the recent years. The sidewalk in many neighborhoods in San Jose are now obstacle courses formed by unwanted items of all sorts. Its also often necessary to dodge road hazards of piles of spilled garbage on roads when driving. Coyote Creek is basically a "landfill" as seen from Coyote Creek trail near Tully rd. In many parts of San Jose and other Bay Area cities places that were once had visible landscapes are now buried in mountains of spilled garbage from trash trucks. Freeway interchanges such as 101 and 880 now look no different from the middle of a dump. It wasn't nearly as bad when I moved in 15 years ago till about 5 years ago as I go through these parts often. I noticed the street litter issue got much worse in the years following the proliferation of those Single use bag litter reduction ordinances starting from San Jose. Ironically cities that did not pass such ordinances in contrast have far less litter on the streets in fact sometimes the streets in those cities look clean enough to eat off. The contrast may be very big just across city borders i.e between SJ and Milpitas even though Milpitas is just as dense with immigrant population.
I now spend more time in Socal particularly Orange County and San Diego county and commute every day and I find the streets and freeways are virtually litter free compared to back in San Jose and the Bay Area. And we don't have such large city to city contrast in terms of littering in Orange county and San Diego county cities. I wonder why. As those areas the population is just as dense and we have just as many immigrants who are less than careful with litter. The city's Santa Ana, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, and Westminster has demographics pretty similar to San Jose. One thing that is even harder to explain is I also spent a half a year in Los Angeles back in 2013 and back then it appears even Los Angeles is relatively clean compared as San Jose that year. Even though Los Angeles is always known as trashy and I travel between downtown, Chinatown, skids row, Lincoln Park, and other parts of the city including the less desirable parts a lot both on city streets and freeways.
Out of curiosity I look at Google street view images since 2007 of the trashy spots in San Jose and I notice in the same spots in SJ the street view images since 2012 generally has far more garbage than any pictures before that. In fact in many of the street view images taken prior to 2011 in those very spots there were hardly any litter in various pictures taken back then compared to today and I was surprised to see the original landscape visible. Today the original "landscape" became unrecognizable because of the layers of trash covering it. The same situation appeared in the Peninsula as well i.e in Redwood city and on Willow rd. to Bay front expressway leading to 84 Dumbarton Bridge in Menlo Park. I just wonder why?
Last edited by citizensadvocate; 03-02-2016 at 01:52 PM..
I think Norcal towns are a little more walkable than the OC (in general) and that's probably why... you can't litter in the street if you're not on the street yourself. There's probably also more homeless people.
If you are seeing big differences in cleanliness across city borders, most likely it is because the "dirtier" city has cut back on cleaning crews, not because the residents of one city are inherently cleaner than the other. I would not be at all surprised if San Jose has done this just as it has reduced many other services over the past 10 years or so.
The margins of the 101 freeway have looked like crap for as long as I can remember, not a very appealing sight for visitors to the tech capital of the world. I don't know what level of government handles the cleaning of freeways - it's a federal highway, but I'm guessing Caltrans is responsible for this.
I think the highways are generally not the responsibilities of local governments. If you got beef with trash on the highways, you need to complain to the State.
That said, a report from last year has stated that there are now less plastic trash that ends up in creeks and rivers than before. These are actual numbers recorded by volunteers who do trash cleanup. So just because your eyes see something may not be what the actual situation is.
There's a new sales tax from San Jose on the next ballot. I'm voting for it. We need more money to do cleanup and provide for public safety, and I'm willing to do it.
I think Norcal towns are a little more walkable than the OC (in general) and that's probably why... you can't litter in the street if you're not on the street yourself. There's probably also more homeless people.
Thats not very accurate there are plenty of Bay Area sidewalks that are in neighborhoods where there are barely any pedestrian traffic yet has many trash either illegally dumped by residents or more often flown off trash or construction trucks. I notice quite an increase in garbage on the streets in the days following the neighborhood's trash collection day. This does not always correspond to the number of homeless people in the area. Even though homeless people do produce more garbage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbunniii
If you are seeing big differences in cleanliness across city borders, most likely it is because the "dirtier" city has cut back on cleaning crews, not because the residents of one city are inherently cleaner than the other. I would not be at all surprised if San Jose has done this just as it has reduced many other services over the past 10 years or so.
The margins of the 101 freeway have looked like crap for as long as I can remember, not a very appealing sight for visitors to the tech capital of the world. I don't know what level of government handles the cleaning of freeways - it's a federal highway, but I'm guessing Caltrans is responsible for this.
It appears the contrast occurred between city to city was not as stark as in the recent years.
According to Google Street View images the freeway and the streets in the city the freeway runs through was not as bad in the years between 2007 and 2011 and there are multiple images a year. Therefore one cannot just blame whether a picture is taken before a storm or a cleanup and the other afterwards.
Yes Caltrans cleans 101 just like they clean up any other state route in the state.
I would wonder why would Caltrans clean the freeways beside certain communities better and not others. Though I am pretty certain the stretches of state routes across the trashy areas are cleaned with the same scheduled frequency as state routes anywhere else. Though Caltrans somehow cannot keep up with sharp increase in litter spilled from local cities such as San Jose and many other Bay Area cities unless they greatly increase manpower or funding for more cleaning. I went to Sacramento quite a few times in the past few years and I was surprised to see all the state routes and freeways virtually litter free a large contrast to what I see in the Bay Area on the way there. It appears the majority of the garbage on the highways are too big to come out of a car window therefore it appears to be released from large construction trucks and garbage trucks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobby_guz_man
I think the highways are generally not the responsibilities of local governments. If you got beef with trash on the highways, you need to complain to the State.
That said, a report from last year has stated that there are now less plastic trash that ends up in creeks and rivers than before. These are actual numbers recorded by volunteers who do trash cleanup. So just because your eyes see something may not be what the actual situation is.
There's a new sales tax from San Jose on the next ballot. I'm voting for it. We need more money to do cleanup and provide for public safety, and I'm willing to do it.
Though areas with trashed highways often have even more trashed streets within the city. Willow is a city street in Menlo Park while 84 is a state highway but both are similarly littered as with 101 and El Camino Real and intersecting streets in much of the Peninsula. Though one exception to this rule is Milpitas in SC county where once within its juristication there is barely any litter but once outside it i.e San Jose, freeways, etc lots and lots of litter. Though it appears San Jose stopped cleaning up some of its neighborhoods completely and city contracted trucks often spill tons trash while its passing by city streets as well as the freeway. I doubt caltrans clean the freeways more or less in the Bay Area compared to Sacramento or LA, Orange, and San Diego county its just that the Bay Area produce too much spilled trash for their cleaning crews to keep up without increasing manpower or budget.
The city and the media will continuously use false promises to get citizens to pay more to seemingly give better services which really isn't the case. They would often spend it on projects that would prove to be a waste of money that don't . I been scammed by so many tax and fee measures in SJ I stopped voting for them altogether.
All those VTA light rail lines to places with very low population density and were people would loathe to ride it just takes money away from where its needed. VTA permanently cut many bus lines that happens to be the lifeline to many car less low income communities to fund these lightly used rail lines to nowhere. If VTA really wants to make a difference they should had built a rail\ line between Santana Row, Diridon Station, downtown San Jose santa clara street(build it like SF's market street subway with the new BART line, down McLaughlin or 101 median where there are many high density housing, and Tully Road toward Eastridge transit center which is one of the three busiest transit centers in the valley. Though now they want to build it down Capital Expressway towards capital station. No sane commuter would ride a rail line like that.
There are many many other issues that would take too much typing if I was to explain it all therefore I am not going to mention them on this forum.
If you are seeing big differences in cleanliness across city borders, most likely it is because the "dirtier" city has cut back on cleaning crews, not because the residents of one city are inherently cleaner than the other. I would not be at all surprised if San Jose has done this just as it has reduced many other services over the past 10 years or so.
Yes, this^^. San Jose has cut back on a lot of services. Some have been restored in the last year, but they're still now what they used to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbunniii
The margins of the 101 freeway have looked like crap for as long as I can remember, not a very appealing sight for visitors to the tech capital of the world. I don't know what level of government handles the cleaning of freeways - it's a federal highway, but I'm guessing Caltrans is responsible for this.
Yes, I agree with this. 101 could really use some help, but that's not a new issue.
All those VTA light rail lines to places with very low population density and were people would loathe to ride it just takes money away from where its needed. VTA permanently cut many bus lines that happens to be the lifeline to many car less low income communities to fund these lightly used rail lines to nowhere. If VTA really wants to make a difference they should had built a rail\ line between Santana Row, Diridon Station, downtown San Jose santa clara street(build it like SF's market street subway with the new BART line, down McLaughlin or 101 median where there are many high density housing, and Tully Road toward Eastridge transit center which is one of the three busiest transit centers in the valley. Though now they want to build it down Capital Expressway towards capital station. No sane commuter would ride a rail line like that.
There are many many other issues that would take too much typing if I was to explain it all therefore I am not going to mention them on this forum.
I used to ride the lightrail everyday. I'm pretty sane
San Jose is a low-density city, any light rail built here will inherently go through low-density population. We'll just have to start packing up the density around the stations. I agree with a rail line between the Row and Diridon, and a rail line to Eastridge would be great as well. Oh well....
But the light rail works great if you're on a north-south commute. East-west, not so much.
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