From the November/December issue of Eco-structure
http://digimag.rrd.com/spiderweb/ecostructure/200711/
Adobe’s three towers are all rated LEED Platinum. Truly something to get excited about in San Jose!
Santa Clara VTA only accommodates 30,000 riders on the light rail with many trains not at full capacity. Cities like Portland offer free rides on their streetcars within the downtown area. There is an opportunity cost of having free rides which is less maintenance fees. There is also a savings in not having to have staff to even check for tickets and such. San Francisco has considered free rides, but has a transit system that serves a far larger percentage of the population and was unable to implement.
Free ride? Fat chance: Muni fares will stay
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Eliminating fares on San Francisco’s Municipal Railway - an idea Mayor Gavin Newsom wanted explored - would worsen delays, overcrowding and financial burdens on the already strained transit system.
That bleak assessment by private consultants who evaluated the free-rides idea has led Newsom to quietly abandon the concept, top administration aides told The Chronicle on Monday.
“It’s not something that we plan to pursue at this time,” said Stuart Sunshine, the mayor’s top transportation aide.
Newsom asked transit officials in March to study a no-fare system, saying at the time, “If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere.” His suggestion was aimed at luring people out of their cars to reduce air pollution and traffic.
The consulting team hired by the city, led by Sharon Greene & Associates, looked at what happened when other jurisdictions adopted free transit programs. In larger cities, such as Austin, Texas, Trenton, N.J., and Denver, ridership increased by nearly 50 percent.
If that happened to Muni, which now provides nearly 700,000 trips on an average day, the annual operating and maintenance costs would rise by nearly $69 million. Muni’s annual budget is about $670 million.
Article is truncated for pertinent material, ie all reference to Las Vegas has been taken out. Original article found at Economist.com
Mar 1st 2007 | LAS VEGAS AND SAN JOSE
“You do not have to spend long in the company of a San Jose official before the old photographs come out. Chuck Reed, the mayor, has an aerial view of the city centre from the late 1970s on a wall in his office. Tom McEnery, who held the same post in the 1980s, has a bigger one showing several acres of empty lots. The point is to show how far the city has come in the past few decades. If downtown San Jose had really been transformed into the throbbing heart of Silicon Valley, though, it would not need old pictures to prove it.”
“San Jose has attempted to create a commercial heart by selling city-owned land or even giving it away to developers. The city offers tax breaks and uses a portion of the property tax to pay for improvement projects. Since the late 1970s the redevelopment agency has shelled out $2 billion, almost two-thirds of it on downtown. It has built museums and theatres to lure people to the centre. Trams have been supplied to entice them out of their cars.”
“Such largesse has indisputably made the middle of San Jose more appealing than it used to be. By any measure other than an historical one, though, the campaign has been a failure. The office vacancy rate in downtown stands at 21%—higher than it was four years ago, during the dotcom slump, and almost twice as high as the Silicon Valley average. The theatres, which were supposed to lift downtown, now depend on the council to bail them out of trouble. In a city of 912,000 people, just 30,000 passengers ride trams each day. All this in a wealthy metropolis that has higher house prices than anywhere else in America, according to the National Association of Realtors.”
“One of San Jose’s obvious problems is that it must compete against San Francisco, which lies 48 miles (77km) to the north. Yet the strongest competition is local. Suburban shops exert such a strong allure that it is hard to persuade retailers to open downtown… San Jose has (sic) tried to jump-start redevelopment by building shopping malls in the urban core; both attempts failed utterly.”
“Not so long ago, downtown shops could at least claim to offer an urban alternative to the strip malls and boxy stores dotted about the suburbs. No longer. Santana Row in San Jose is a shopping street with distinctive, French-accented architecture, art galleries, shops and pavement cafés, with some apartments mixed in. It is exactly the kind of urban environment that the downtown boosters say they want, but for two details. Santana Row is three miles from the city centre, and was built in 2002. This fake downtown, with ample parking and no homeless people, is doing so well that similar schemes are mooted elsewhere.”
“‘San Jose needs to be more than just a nice, suburban community,’ says Mr Reed, the mayor. But perhaps it does not. An unconvincing downtown has not held down home-prices in San Jose (sic). All it has done is give officials a sense of inferiority.”
It seems to me that at these conferences, it’s much more of a social reunion. Even I saw a few people I’ve come across. Most of the seminars have been decent, but certainly not groundbreaking. Lots of CEQA, a little form-based code, and not so much else. The speakers were also a little less than inspiring, they had planners from Anaheim (no less) discussing how they’ve made density a reality. Anaheim!
There was a walking tour that focused on shopping and the requisite visit of Santana Row, Valley Fair, and San Jose Market Center. Valley Fair and planning are kinda diametrically opposed, or at least malls and good planning that is. Santana Row, while it has many downsides to it, may offer a training opportunity for suburbanites to be more “urban.”
San Jose Market Center however piqued an interest. I asked the concierge whereabouts it is. She informed me that it used to be the old rail yards off Taylor St. I started thinking of the Sacramento rail yards project, and quickly started imagining an urban mixed-use development that had light rail connection and many inviting sidewalks. I soon became disheartened to find yet another strip mall. The only unique aspect I could see was that it used a fair amount of brick. Perhaps the brick will confuse everyone into thinking they’re in one of those east-coast towns. Not only was it another strip mall, it was a veritable who’s who of chain stores and such: Target, Office Depot, Cost Plus, and the like. This was to be highlighted? Absolutely pathetic.
And as far as getting in, I snuck in for free. It was a pretty easy process, just walk around like I belong there. Unfortunately I didn’t get a nifty bag, a lanyard & tag with my name on it, or a bunch of other handouts. I did however get a program that someone left behind.
All in all, the conference reinforced for me the old notion that it’s “not what you know, but who you know.”
They are charging $275 for onsite registration for students! If you were to have registered by July 31st, the rate would have been $225. This is a terribly egregious amount. I emailed Lynne Bynder, a coordinator for the evnt, and shared my thoughts on the price - especially in comparison to the national conference I had previously attended in Philadelphia. Her lame response was that the event is catered, whereas the national was not. There seems to be a great disconnect in the logic here. The chief motivations of a typical college student is to learn a thing or two and meet some people who can help get them a job. Not for mediocre hotel food. And why is at the Fairmont? To me, it would seem that since planning isn’t the highest paid profession, that having the conference there seems a bit indulgent.
I find it highly hypocritical that the APA which touts itself as an educational institution would setup such a huge financial obstacle to those who are at institutes of higher education. There also has been absolutely no outreach to UC Davis, a registered APA Planning Student Organization (PSO)
Out of my own personal interests I want to go desperately. Out of spite, I’ll be sure not to pay and crash the event. My original intent was to go Sunday, but I’ve been feeling under the weather, we’ll see how things turn out today.
TED, a veritable genius-fest that takes place in Monterrey, Ca has many speakers, none as hilarious and sobering as Kunstler. This is well worth watching.
Read: craft fair = Tapestry in Talent
San Jose - Morning traffic West and Eastbound on Hostetter Rd (Mabury Rd) has been terrible in the past 10 years as far as I can remember. I noticed the construction of Costco right next to the San Jose Post Office main office over the summer while I returned home to San Jose. My immediate thoughts was the expected, increased bottleneck of the streets trying to get to the supermarket giant. To my surprise, however, the traffic algorithm seems to have improved allowing more traffic. I give the Costco construction green lights where I can purchase food for less and cheaper gas. Other local supermarkets better change gear in what they offer, otherwise I see a potential Costco takeover coming soon.
TURNING INDUSTRIAL LAND INTO HOUSING CAN HURT TAX BASE
After Google-ing other cities and the word “plan” or other related words and then trying San Jose, I was astonished (perhaps I shouldn’t be) to find that there were a scant few pages to be had for my beloved hometown. This will change. I invite others to post here as well: rants, raves, and links to articles are all welcome. For the home of so much innovation technologically, there is little socially. This will change.
