San Jose traffic (Santa Clara, San Mateo, Morgan Hill: 2009, live, dangerous)

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

What it's saying is that we need job center consolidation and better public transit.

It was all that recent residential development that plugged up all the arteries. The tax revenue was all the local planners were planning for. I guess they figured everyone would just have to accept the extra traffic. There's absolutely no way to improve public transit now... the on/off ramps are as big as they are going to get. And what businesses are going to move to the Evergreen area to help with job center consolidation? Not a lot of possibilities, unfortunately.

You're right though.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Ludachris

It was all that recent residential development that plugged up all the arteries. The tax revenue was all the local planners were planning for. I guess they figured everyone would just have to accept the extra traffic. There's absolutely no way to improve public transit now... the on/off ramps are as big as they are going to get. And what businesses are going to move to the Evergreen area to help with job center consolidation? Not a lot of possibilities, unfortunately.

You're right though.

I meant that jobs should be consolidated in and around downtown so that transit goes to best use. We can't have office parks scattered all over and expect a few corridors to solve everything.

It's a grand dream, but I feel that a move toward such is inevitable with the change in attitudes both locally and nationally.

[theonlymember]

Well I think the 101 entrance, doesn't really have anything to do with job consolidation so much as poor planning. Everyone's trying to go north on 101, if the jobs were downtown, everyone would still try to go north on 101.

The problem with that portion of 101 is that Yerba Buena, Capitol Expressway West, and Capitol Expwy East all merge into the same entrance onto 101. I mean, its really ridiculous. If you look at Google Maps, they could easily (IMO) remove the divider letting the Yerba Buena folks get on the 101 earlier.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by theonlymember

Well I think the 101 entrance, doesn't really have anything to do with job consolidation so much as poor planning. Everyone's trying to go north on 101, if the jobs were downtown, everyone would still try to go north on 101.

The problem with that portion of 101 is that Yerba Buena, Capitol Expressway West, and Capitol Expwy East all merge into the same entrance onto 101. I mean, its really ridiculous. If you look at Google Maps, they could easily (IMO) remove the divider letting the Yerba Buena folks get on the 101 earlier.

It's not quite that bad.. Capitol Expwy w/b has its own entrance and Capitol Expwy e/b shares an entrance with Yerba Buena, and then after the timing lights, the two merge together. But the timing lights are so slow that either entrance takes 10 minutes plus, and every 30 seconds someone will try to cut in line in front of you. Makes you wonder why rocket launchers aren't standard equipment on cars.

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by theonlymember

Well I think the 101 entrance, doesn't really have anything to do with job consolidation so much as poor planning. Everyone's trying to go north on 101, if the jobs were downtown, everyone would still try to go north on 101.

The problem with that portion of 101 is that Yerba Buena, Capitol Expressway West, and Capitol Expwy East all merge into the same entrance onto 101. I mean, its really ridiculous. If you look at Google Maps, they could easily (IMO) remove the divider letting the Yerba Buena folks get on the 101 earlier.

It was poor planning. But city officials decided that the tax revenue generated from overcrowded development in that area was more important than alleviating any of the traffic issues that were going to be a result of that development. What did they expect was going to happen with so much residential housing density in that area with the freeway access points all jammed together the way they are? It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

I remember right when we made the decision to move we found out that they were planning on developing on the old golf course (Tully/White) and parts of the Evergreen College land - something like another 5k homes... all I could do was shake my head. As if the area needed another 5k+ cars on the road.

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

I meant that jobs should be consolidated in and around downtown so that transit goes to best use. We can't have office parks scattered all over and expect a few corridors to solve everything.

It's a grand dream, but I feel that a move toward such is inevitable with the change in attitudes both locally and nationally.

Even if there were a change in attitudes, do you really see a vision that massive being funded? It's completely opposite from how CA functions. And how would SJ be able to attract the companies to the downtown area? Seems to me they've been working on that for years already without too much success.

Not that this type of dream would have much affect on areas like Evergreen anyway. The nearest light rail station to sonarrat is almost 30 minutes away. I tried that once myself.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by Ludachris

Even if there were a change in attitudes, do you really see a vision that massive being funded? It's completely opposite from how CA functions. And how would SJ be able to attract the companies to the downtown area? Seems to me they've been working on that for years already without too much success.

Not that this type of dream would have much affect on areas like Evergreen anyway. The nearest light rail station to sonarrat is almost 30 minutes away. I tried that once myself.

They are extending the LRT out to my neck of the woods within the next 10 years. But I think that it would be relatively easy to accomplish what krudmonk is suggesting just by rezoning some land. I'm sure the owners of that aforementioned plot at Tully/White would be delighted to see it change to an office park zoning so that they don't have to graze cattle on it anymore. And concurrent with that, they could reroute a couple of bus lines to hit the office park.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Ludachris

Even if there were a change in attitudes, do you really see a vision that massive being funded? It's completely opposite from how CA functions. And how would SJ be able to attract the companies to the downtown area? Seems to me they've been working on that for years already without too much success.

You do it with incentive from current land owners to put their property to higher use through densification on North First. You also broke deals to swap heavy industry on Monterey Road for mid-to-high-rise office space. In the end, it saves a lot more money than it costs via not needing to upgrade miles and miles of roadway nearly as often. Just look at what it's going to cost to reconfigure 280/880 at Valley Fair. Notice our snail's pace progress on resurfacing our streets.

[Ludachris]

Hopefully the planners are interested in pursuing that vision - I'm not terribly optimistic given the track record. It seems the planets would have to come into alignment. But I hope for the sake of people like sonarrat it happens.

[bigdumbgod]

Bit of NIMBYism, maybe? Why in the hell is Evergreen only served by the 31 and the 39 (a little 'community' bus on the half hour)?
Might reflect what's been going on in Los Gatos, where only one normal-sized bus now runs, and a few random little community ones have replaced what were once fairly convenient, reasonably frequent buses that actually went somewhere (48 and 49 only go to the end of the light rail at Winchester station). Oh, those unsightly long boxes coming to our town with...with those people! Can't have that now, can we?

Oh well, let's just build some more Lego-houses to make ourselves feel better.