Why?

Proposition 90: No

2006-11-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

A sign protesting eminent domain abuse sits in front of an older, single-family house across the street from San Jose's Legacy Fountain Plaza apartments.

I've heard very little public dialogue about Proposition 90--and that's sad. Almost any discussion has focused on the part about its controls on eminent domain abuse, but it's dangerously so much more than that.

A conscious voter wouldn't support a measure with both good and destructive components with the intention of enjoying what little good may result. This is why Proposition 90 is such a bad deal.

The measure has two very notable components. One portion, restricting private property seizures through eminent domain, is a natural response to the great public disapproval over last year's related US Supreme Court decision; meanwhile, tacked onto the measure (which originated outside California--so much for California initiative's populist intentions) is what is effectively a moratorium on instituting simple, everyday land use regulation that allows communities to enjoy planned, orderly development while retaining local character.

If Californians approve Proposition 90, say goodbye not only to eminent domain abuse; watch your community's sense of harmony and quality design--or, alternatively, tax dollars--slip away.

In my work as a municipal planner (and I speak as an individual, not as a representative for my employer), I see how important goals, supported by the community and their elected officials, would be not possible to achieve under the restrictions of Proposition 90. Protection of local agricultural economy and its land supply would be severely hindered by this initiative. Neighborhoods finding a growing need to preserve their character could not appeal to their local officials to set rules on change. A community would have reduced ability to expect large developments to compensate for their impacts on the community, e.g., set aside land for schools and parks or pay fees for infrastructure improvements.

Under Proposition 90, these barriers would all appear unless the local government chooses to pay off a small group of private citizens. In order simply to legislate as it has for years, government would have to redirect its taxpayer funding away from benefits like well-maintained roads, libraries open at convenient hours, etc., and instead send it toward private landowners or developers who demand "compensation" for new, Proposition 90-blessed claims of "economic damage" resulting from beneficial, public-interest regulation American communities have practiced and enjoyed since the dawn of zoning in the 1920s. Whereas now cities and counties can simply tell builders of noisy factories and brightly-lit shopping centers not to locate next to residential neighborhoods, the same action after Proposition 90 would require payment of tax dollars to a few landowners--assuming government doesn't just give up and waive regulations.

And exactly how much compensation could these landowners or developers demand? That would be determined by lawyers--many lawyers--arguing over the true meaning of the Proposition 90's vaguely-written language on "just compensation." Local government has a choice--take part in this expensive game of lawsuits or forgo instituting and enforcing otherwise reasonable regulaton altogether.

Wish to regulate and prevent arising nuisances that threaten local welfare? Wish to see your town not develop into an ugly free-for-all of a mess? Wish to prevent the fragmentation and diminishing of America's most productive farmland?

Vote no on Proposition 90.

file under California, Proposition 90, initiative, land use, regulation, government, community, planning, political, politics

Thank You, Jane Jacobs

2006-04-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Jane Jacobs, for teaching us that what makes a city is not "harmonious" homogeneousness, the brand new and very big, and narrowly futuristic thinking, but natural randomness, diverse surprises, small scale, and respect for context and real people.

file under Jane Jacobs, urbanism, cities, city, memorial, appreciation

Never Saw It Coming? Part 2: Bus Rapid Transit

2005-11-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

Light rail safety is held to a double standard. In a collision between a light-rail vehicle and an automobile, light rail takes the blame--even when the car driver is at fault.

Now, bus rapid transit gets the same treatment:

San Fernando Valley residents have offered a range of suggestions for improving Orange Line safety - from more flashing red lights to orange "Busway" signs instead of standard blue ones - after an elderly driver, who may have been on a cell phone, ran a red light and crashed into a bus last week. [Los Angeles Daily News, November 9]

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, transit, public transit, mass transit, transportation, public transportation, mass transportation, BRT, bus rapid transit, bus

Contra Costa Measures K and P: Acres Gained As Good As Lost

2005-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Antioch's Measure K [which passed] would expand the line south of the city to include about 1,000 acres and 1,100 houses, most of them expensive, "executive-style" homes.
. . . . . . . .
Pittsburg voters were favoring Albert Seeno III's proposal [Measure P] to expand the growth boundary around their city by about 1,400 acres, 551 of which could hold up to 1,400 new houses. [Contra Costa Times, November 9]

San Jose and Oakland comfortably fit 10 single-family houses on an acre. San Francisco can fit almost 20 shoulder-to-shoulder, single-family houses on a acre. But residential developers complain eastern Contra Costa County's growth boundaries as drawn are just too stifling--and then gain voters' permission to fill redrawn limits with densities of 2.5 houses per acre or less!

What constrains land supply in Contra Costa--the urban growth boundary or those who waste the land within it?

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, Contra Costa County, Pittsburg, Antioch, election, growth management, urban growth boundaries, urban growth boundary, sprawl, housing, development, developers

Cupertino's Measure C: Overreactionary

2005-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Central San Jose homes with small, economical, and harmless setbacks. Imagine the houses not there, and you get Cupertino's Measure C if San Joseans approved an idential initiative.

Sorry to make a big deal about politics in a jurisdiction where I'm not a citizen--I'm not Senator John McCain--but something strange is happening in Cupertino. Measure C, if approved tomorrow, would forbid building within 35 feet of the street in most areas of the city. Why?

The Cupertino City Council frequently approves amendments to the General Plan and permits developments which are turning our city into more of an urban center.
The recent and rapid increase in building heights and densities is significantly changing our small town character and negatively impacting our quality of life.
Continued rapid growth is also a concern to the people of the city because it would affect the city's ability to provide adequate public facilities to meet the requirements of that growth.
Sensible growth management, such as is contained in this initiative amendment, will help ensure more responsible growth and help preserve the suburban character of Cupertino.
[from Measure C's full text]

Mandating a huge, permanently unbuilt space in front of new structures is "sensible growth management"? Growth prevention is a more accurate term--and perhaps many residents would like that.

But regional growth will happen, won't it? And where will it go if not to Cupertino (or to another similarly not-in-my-front-yard locale)? Oh, you know, just some other place--they can deal with it.

And how much growth could potentially not occur within Cupertino as a result of this? Looking at housing, a 35-foot setback on a relatively modest, 60-foot-wide lot makes for 2,100 square feet of front yard. Assume a subdivision has 15 such lots. If the 35-foot-setback rule were not in place, this subdivision could include six more parcels of 5,250 square feet each, for a total of 21 residences--40 percent more housing than what would be allowed under Cupertino's proposed rule.

Sure, that might be a selling point in Measure C's favor, given housing's cost to local public funding. But imagine the Bay Area housing market's level of affordability today if we had a full 40 percent more supply. Thus, Measure C is a statement in opposition to housing affordability in the region.

And does any actual significant nexus exist between front setback size and city residents' quality of life? What will a 35-foot setback do that a 15-foot setback won't? Don't forget the rule also applies to most commercial development. Front setbacks are screens between structures and streets; to say that businesses need a screen between their building and the street is to say they shouldn't have customers (who come in off the street).

Hey, other Bay Area cities, don't get any ideas.

At a time when companies all over the valley are looking at ways to redevelop outdated office and industrial space -- often replacing low buildings with taller ones to make better use of the land -- these measures would discourage reinvestment in Cupertino.
And while the region's CEO's are convinced that the No. 1 barrier to job growth here is the lack of affordable housing, these measures would shut it down in Cupertino.
The measures' supporters say worries about affordable housing are bogus because density is unrelated to affordability and because the measures can be overridden with a public vote. Both arguments are true in theory but false in practice.
If 10 single homes are built on an acre of land, each will be more expensive than if 20 condos are built. [Mercury News editorial, October 9]

November 9: Good choice, Cupertino--Measure C rejected along with A and B (election results).

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, election, Cupertino, setbacks, growth management, ballot, initiative, ballot initiative, NIMBY

Do You Take Your Lawn Wasteful or Tacky?

2005-10-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

The perfect [artificial lawns] lawns appear to be natural fits for water-short Silicon Valley and California.
``Lawns don't have much place being here in our arid environment,'' said Jerry de la Piedra, senior water conservation specialist for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
He said the average size of residential turf in the county is about 1,500 square feet and requires about 56,000 gallons of water every year to stay alive. [Mercury News, October 29]

With all this in mind, could it be that the widespread practice of mandating deep setbacks (inevitably covered with lawn) is bad policy? In San Jose, the minimum front setback for the R-1 zoning district (single-family housing) is 25 feet. That's 1,500 square feet on a 60-foot-wide lot, and most of that will typically be lawn or other vegetation requiring regular watering. And, if it's left natural with whichever plants that will take root, it'll be "declared a public nuisance and may be abated, and the cost and expense of such abatement may be collected" (§ 9.12.040).

Why should this and other municipalities require such wasteful water usage of its citizens?

Okay, this water usage is technically not required, since homeowners also have the option of fake grass:

Somewhere she had heard about a new generation of synthetic grasses that looked like the perfect lawn. She and her husband, Steve, were sold at first sight. They've joined over 1,000 other homeowners willing to pay up to $15 a square foot -- $22,500 for the average-size 1,500-square-foot lawn in the county.
. . . . . . . .
``They can't tell the difference from real grass,'' Homan said about her children. ``I don't have to worry about dirt, fertilizers, pesticides and other stuff they could be getting on their skin.''
. . . . . . . .
Not everyone is sold on the plastic grass. Bill Thompson, editor of Architecture Landscape magazine, said the new stuff may work in arid regions but, ``It's a mixed bag because it seals off the soil.''
Without a steady supply of water or sunlight, you can't have worms, insects and moisture underneath -- living systems that hold soil firm, prevent flooding and nourish birds, bees and other animals and plants. Some researchers believe artificial turf belongs only in indoor stadiums already separated from the soil system.

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, zoning, San Jose, lawns, lawn, grass, artificial turf, water, landscaping, environment

Carpool-Lane Hybrids Are Still Single-Occupancy (Usually)

2005-10-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

Hybrids have made it into the carpool lanes. Lots of additional cars, most of the same size and passenger capacity as conventional cars, and most carrying a single occupant. What do they enjoy that previously only bus riders, vanpoolers, and carpoolers--who per person consume less gas and emit less pollution and who, unlike hybrid drivers, help free space on the pavement--could enjoy?

Jim Gessling has shaved 30 minutes off his afternoon commute from Palo Alto to Walnut Creek. Tim Robertson's drive from downtown San Jose to the Peninsula is 20 minutes faster. And Tammi Hersrud has cut her Hollister-to-Santa Clara trip by at least 15 minutes.

Way to encourage long-distance, solo commuting, state and federal government!

file under transportation, hybrids, carpool, carpooling, commuting, commute, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area

Census Defunded

2005-10-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

You can't get to the heart of America without the United States Census Bureau.

But Senator Richard Shelby (Alabama Republican) and his Senate Appropriations subcommittee have shrunken its funding. Why? It's just government bloat, I guess (aside from its 1787 mandate in Article I of the US Constitution). So now what?

Census Bureau Director C. Louis Kincannon said in an interview this week that he will have to kill a monthly household survey that is supposed to replace the long form, abandon plans to automate data collection for the 2010 count, scrap a test census in two counties next year, and lay off thousands of employees unless Congress approves the House budget figure.

(Thanks to matt at 1115.org.)

file under census, United States Census, demographics, appropriations, Richard Shelby, Senate, government

Taking "High Occupancy" Out of High-Occupancy/Toll Lanes

2005-10-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

Initially I didn't like the idea of high-occupancy/toll lanes because I thought they encouraged single-occupancy driving and would crowd the carpoolers out of what had been lanes meant for them, though now I see that they can raise funds for additional express public transit service and would be priced for occasional use, not habitual use. But according to this commentary in the East Bay Business Times, the problem with HOT lanes is the part about high-occupancy vehicles--that is, continuing to allow them at no charge:

The weakness in the current plan is the proposal to exempt car pools from tolls. It is understandable that the authorities are reluctant to eliminate an existing privilege to carpoolers, but retention of this perk has two disadvantages:
* First, as no reliable method has been found to count the occupants of all moving vehicles, enforcement requires that vehicles be stopped if the number of their occupants is in doubt. This is bad for public relations and particularly disruptive on busy roads.
* Second, as more HOVs are allowed toll-free, possibly to be followed by electrically powered vehicles, hybrid vehicles, low polluters, ambulances, fire-engines, police cars and government-owned vehicles, the financial bases of the HOT lanes get weaker. The immediate effect is that tolls required to maintain congestion-free travel become higher on other vehicles than they would otherwise have been. In the long term, as the financial viability of HOT lanes weakens, fewer will be provided.
If exemptions are considered desirable, it would be better to confine them to readily identifiable vehicles such as buses or vanpools, irrespective of the number of occupants.

file under transportation, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, HOT lanes, commuting, commuters, transit, freeway, freeways, roads

Users of Unmarked Crosswalks Are Not Jaywalking

2005-09-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

The typical argument against creating marked crosswalks is that they create a false sense of security for their users--that pedestrians assume drivers know they have the right-of-way and then step onto the asphalt without consideration that drivers might not stop.

But I suspect that unmarked crosswalks give car drivers a false sense of entitlement. How many drivers do you think are unaware or disrespecting of the fact that pedestrians, unless instructed otherwise by a clearly visible signage, always have the right-of-way at an intersection of streets? A very large percentage would be a good guess.

The rule is explicitly stated in the California Driver Handbook--you can't call yourself a licensed California driver without having read it. If California communities won't paint crosswalks because their residents are too ignorant to recognize crosswalks' purpose, perhaps the state should start expecting more from its drivers and set stricter standards for license issuance.

The rules, directly from the handbook (and emphasized):

A pedestrian is a person on foot or who uses a conveyance such as roller skates, skateboards, etc., other than a bicycle. A pedestrian can also be a person with a disability in a self-propelled wheelchair, tricycle, or quadricycle.

Always stop for any pedestrian crossing at corners or other crosswalks. Do not pass a car from behind that has stopped at a crosswalk. A pedestrian you can’t see may be crossing.

Do not drive on a sidewalk, except to cross it at a driveway or alley. When crossing, yield to any pedestrian.

Do not stop in a crosswalk. You will place pedestrians in danger.

Remember—if a pedestrian makes eye contact with you, he or she is ready to cross the street. Yield to the pedestrian.

Pedestrians have the right of way at corners with or without traffic lights, whether or not the crosswalks are marked by painted white lines.

Allow older pedestrians more time to cross the street. They are more likely to die as a result of a crash than younger pedestrians.

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, California, crosswalk, crosswalks, law, laws, pedestrians, drivers, license

If San Jose's Not a City, What Is?

2005-09-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Perhaps, maybe in some fantasy utopian future, a place with a thriving counterculture, several live music clubs, street pranks, world famous neighborhoods, historical landmarks that people under 70 actually care about, skyscrapers, a functional public transportation system, killer Russian delis, 100 art galleries, a million different things to do past midnight and cops who don't act like power-hungry meatheads who couldn't make the football team in high school. [Gary Singh, "Silicon Alleys," San Jose Metro, September 7]

But--SJ's population is larger than Detroit's, which nullifies the above complaint, doesn't it? Thank you, 1950's annexation wars.

file under Bay Area, San Jose, city, community, urbanism

On the Freeway with Richard Pombo

2005-09-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Just dissecting a recent news article on the proposed Diablo Range freeway...

What have environmentalists "claimed" that Representative Richard Pombo from Tracy has been up to lately? The Manteca Bulletin says:

They have tried to claim that Pombo is proposing studying a corridor that would go up Del Puerte Canyon out of Patterson.

So someone questions whether Rep. Pombo has ever supported developing a transportation corridor somewhere between the Altamont and Pacheco Passes? From the first session of the 109th Congress, HR 723 (introduced by Rep. Pombo):

To direct the Secretary of Transportation to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of constructing a highway in California connecting State Route 130 in Santa Clara County with Interstate Route 5 in San Joaquin County, and to determine the feasibility of constructing a fixed guideway system along the right-of-way of the highway.

Okay, so we got that one out of the way. Now, details, please?

[1] It would leave the valley near the junction of Interstates 5 and 680 south of Tracy. It would head over the hills in a southwest route and ultimately connect with freeways in San Jose.
[2] "It would be a toll road only with no truck traffic allowed,' Pombo said.
[3] He believes the terrain as well as a condition that access points be limited. That means there won't be any growth inducement along the corridor.
[4] "It would pretty much be like the Altamont portion of 680," Pombo said.

1) For the highway to head over the hills southwestward from the Interstate 5-Interstate 580 junction (the writer surely means 580, since 680 doesn't touch I-5) definitely means it will pass through almost completely virgin land, including Joseph D. Grant County Park.

2) Pombo says truck traffic will be prohibited; if this is because of weight concerns, does this mean a fully-loaded bus would not be allowed? (In fairness, the corridor would supposedly include a "fixed guideway" for transit.)

3) How "limited" will the highway's access points be? Case after case shows that junctions along new roads spark growth. If any loophole allows an interchange anywhere between the floors of the Central and Santa Clara Valleys, there will be growth and development in the Diablo Range--guaranteed, unless the affected counties completely prohibit development in that area. (And no, as phrased, the first sentence in that paragraph does not make sense.)

4) Is that a good thing?

Furthermore:

The congressman also contends the expressway wound eliminate a lot of idling that is responsible the waste of energy and increased air pollution.
"About 20 to 25 percent of the traffic that goes over the Altamont continues over the Sunol Grade out of Pleasanton to the Silicon Valley," Pombo noted.

Hence, the Sunol Grade (I-680 between Pleasanton and Fremont for you out-of-regioners) will be decongested as more drivers choose the Diablo Range route instead.

Wasted-energy-and-increased-air-pollution is a valid point, but that's the same argument the highway lobby uses to persuade the public to expand and widen roads--yet the enlarged and new roads allow motorists to drive more miles, which in itself causes increased energy consumption and pollution. Should this argument be accepted, the Diablo Range will see existing Tracy-to-Bay-Area commuters plus road-induced, Patterson-area population growth consuming more fuel than ever and emitting pollutants never before smelled in that area.

To repeat: is all this a good thing?

P.S. A shout-out to ザイツェブ at Tracy Today.

file under Tracy, Central Valley, Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, Altamont Pass, Pacheco Pass, Diablo Range, Richard Pombo, Pombo, Congress, House of Representatives, federal government, freeway, freeways, commuting, environment, population growth

Katrina Disaster: O'Toole Again Redbaits Smart Growthers

2005-09-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

Was "extreme dependence on cars and the lack of planning for public transportation, both for regular use and for emergencies," the reason so many poor were left in the New Orleans flood waters? Or was it government's failure to buy a car for every single Gulf Coast resident at risk of being displaced by natural disaster?

I'm surprised Randal O'Toole is considered a libertarian. In his most recent update to The Vanishing Automobile, he reasons that, in those areas pulverized by Hurricane Katrina and flooding, if a government entity had spent their money not on public transit but on automobiles for all, so many lives and livelihoods could have been spared.

This, of course, would have required a much wider Interstate 10, US-90, etc., and more parallel roads as well as a broader contraflow plan. It would also require so much space--land, multistory garages, etc.--for storage of these automobiles during times of nonemergency. And how would individuals of the public mobilize this fleet of vehicles when the need arises? The government would need to institute a massive coordination plan simply to get the cars loaded with evacuees, out of storage, and on the road in an orderly manner. All this would require huge amounts of tax revenue that a libertarian would ordinarily advocate not spending and instead returning to its payor.

Alternatively, jurisdictions could, given sufficient warning of disaster, direct the public to the center of their neighborhoods to board municipal and school buses normally used for public transportation and schoolchildren--buses the jurisdictions already own and can't use for their usual purposes anyway under the circumstances. Assuming the municipality owns enough such buses, and assuming public compliance with governmental orders to evacuate, the masses will be evacuated--perhaps more efficiently than in an all-automobile fleet as a result of fewer vehicles' crowding the roads.

But, prior to this particular disaster, the poor effectively had neither option. They were forced to stay for lack of transportation--contrary to some government officials' criticism that all those remaining had foolishly chosen to stay.

Sure, owning an automobile is advantageous to those in the path of disastrous weather. But, considering all costs to all parties, wouldn't an extensive bus evacuation have performed the same function, at lower cost to the taxpaying public and potentially more expeditiously than the everyone-get-in-your-state-issued-car method?

No, that would be communist, says O'Toole.

(Recall also O'Toole's comparison of smart growth ideals to communist East Germany.)

file under New Orleans, flooding, floods, flood, Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, hurricane, evacuation, evacuate, emergency, disaster, transportation, communism, smart growth, parking, Randal O'Toole, libertarian, redbaiting, government, Gulf Coast

Yes, Virginia, Single-Occupancy Hybrids are Defeating the Purpose of Carpool Lanes

2005-08-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

[New York Times via Planetizen] In Virginia, where [hybrids]'ve been allowed for years in the car pool lanes, the lanes have become so clogged that an advisory committee has repeatedly recommended their banishment. The same problem will occur in California, where some of the car pool lanes were congested even without hybrids.
As traffic slows down, there will be more idling cars burning more gas and emitting more pollution, but politicians will be reluctant to offend hybrid owners by revoking their privilege.

No surprise there, as the HOV-lane privilege has made those cars all the more popular:

"Many customers are telling us the carpool lane is the main reason for buying now," said Dianne Whitmire, Carson Toyota's director of Internet sales. She charges a $2,000 premium to anxious Prius buyers unwilling to wait for supplies to increase once deliveries of the 2006 models begin in November. [Los Angeles Times via Planetizen]

file under transportation, hybrids, carpool, carpooling

How to Get Out of Town

2005-08-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

New Orleans on a sunny July 2001 day.

If you have to get away, you'd better have a car.

Now, after taking cover in makeshift shelter, and after not having had the opportunity to leave before the fact, those with no other transportation means are being evacuated by bus:

NEW ORLEANS - The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans' breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.

file under New Orleans, flooding, floods, flood, Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, hurricane, evacuation, evacuate, emergency, disaster, transportation

Rep. Richard Pombo's Conflict?

2005-08-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

The current state of the State Route 130 corridor.

Of course it's more than acceptable for a local guy such as Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) to represent the interests of his hometown and its vicinity in the federal government. But when his family is personally invested in projects he has worked hard for the federal government to provide, and especially when the investment is among that congressional district's largest, Mr. Pombo dances very close to the conflict-of-interest threshold.

Take his proposed Dia blo Range freeway along the State Route 130 corridor. Surely it would drain Bay Area real estate demand into the Greater Tracy; with that in mind, remember what words you see on roadside signs along the Altamont Pass corridor: "Pombo Real Estate."

This congressman will need to do a lot to prove that slicing an environmentally degrading mountain freeway carrying Bay Area commuters to their new Central Valley homes built on subdivided tracts of formerly high-quality California farmland is in the best interest of anyone other than himself and his personal circle.

October 2: More on Pombo's conflict from the Gilroy/Hollister Sunday Pinnacle (emphasized):

A group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington recently named Pombo as one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress. Pombo press secretary Brian Kennedy called the assertion "baseless." Pombo is accused of paying $357,000 in campaign funds to his brother and his wife and supporting the wind power industry before Congress without disclosing that his family makes hundreds of thousands a year in royalties from turbines on their ranch.

Since Pombo first ran for public office at the age of 29, he has run on a platform of pro-growth and property rights. A longtime critic of the Endangered Species Act, Pombo has been instrumental in reforming the act, or "gutting it," depending on point of view. In Pombo's view, it ties up needed development and growth, and keeps property owners and farmers from using their land how they want. Environmentalists argue that the revised act would bury biologists in paperwork, and take protections away from threatened species.

[Jerry] McNerney [Pombo's Democratic opponent in the next District 11 election] said that what Pombo is really after by changing the ESA is the freedom to make money from his own property. It wouldn't be the first time Pombo has been accused of legislating on his own behalf. Pombo recently appropriated millions to study building new freeways to connect the Central Valley with the East Bay, right through his family's property. The route was called impractical because of the environmental havoc it would wreak, the time it would take to drive, and the high building cost. But the Pombo family's 1,500 acres would have skyrocketed in value. Some called the idea "Pombo's folly."

October 5: And what about that other up-and-coming Tracy-to-Bay Area highway, Byron Road, also known as the Route 239 corridor? From the August 24 East Bay Express article (with added emphasis):

One of Pombo's freeway plans, known as the state Route 239 project, would run along the path of the two-lane Byron Highway from the western end of Tracy northwest to Brentwood. There, it would connect with the Highway 4 bypass currently scheduled for construction. Brentwood political leaders have been pushing for the new freeway to provide the city with a thruway to Interstates 5, 580, and 205. The plan is to attract white-collar and industrial businesses and transform the city from a bedroom community to a job center. "It's essential for Brentwood -- they need a better connection to the south," said Bob McCleary, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority. The new freeway proposal also will give Tracy commuters a connection to the north, and an alternative commute route to the East Bay.
But the arrival of the $14 million in federal funds for the 239 project also happens to coincide with a multimillion-dollar land deal currently underway with members of Pombo's family. And for the Pombos, the new freeway proposal appears to be a timely solution to some family financial difficulties compounded by the 2000 slow-growth measure.
For the past decade, public records show, the congressman's aunt, uncle, and first cousins have been selling Pombo family real estate to pay off debts. The debts came from the estate of the congressman's uncle, Ernest Pombo, who died in 1994. At his death, his assets were valued at $20 million, most of which was large pieces of property he owned around Tracy, according to probate records. But he also owed at least $4.7 million in outstanding loans, plus millions more in state and federal taxes. According to probate records, the debts have to be paid off before his family could divide the estate and split the millions they were slated to inherit.

file under Tracy, Central Valley, Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, Altamont Pass, real estate, conflict of interest, Richard Pombo, Pombo, Congress, House of Representatives, federal government, freeway, freeways, commuting, environment, housing

Split at Pacheco Pass: Santa Clara vs. San Benito

2005-08-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

VTA graphic

Mercury News readers frequently complain to Mr. Roadshow about the difficulty of passing along eastbound Route 152 at its intersection with Route 156. The column has recommended, either at the suggestion of readers or Mr. Roadshow himself, alternatives to the 152-to-Pacheco-Pass route including 25-to-156-to-Pacheco-Pass, 101-to-46, and 101 all the way to Los Angeles. In any case, the alternative will involve detouring through the roads of San Benito County (SBt), a place threatened by Bay Area overflow growth à la Tracy.

Now, VTA recommends that SBt accept Bay Area cut-through traffic with its design for the expanded 152-156 crossroad. Under the agency's proposed arrangement, westbound traffic will be given the option of either keeping left and going straight for a "through" route (156) to Hollister or taking an "exit" ramp toward the traditional route to Gilroy and the Bay Area (152).

Is this not backwards? Surely the majority of Pacheco Pass traffic consists of Bay Area-bound and -originating traffic, not Monterey-Salinas-Hollister-Watsonville traffic. The former is the primary population center, not the latter. Unless a new SBt Route 25 freeway (the proposed "3-in-1" road between 101 and Pacheco Pass) intended for Bay Area and Central Coast residents alike is built, why should the interchange's design direct Bay Area people onto SBt-maintained roads (especially given 152 and the intersection's location within Santa Clara County)?

file under Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, Hollister, San Benito County, Gilroy, highway, highways, traffic, road, roads

San Jose the Converse of Boston (Or: The Decentralized Density of the West)

2005-08-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

San Jose is now the USA's tenth-largest city; what does that mean when the city's boundaries are drawn so broadly as to include as much far-flung population as possible? It means San Jose can be a big city without its citizens perceiving it as such. This is the opposite of Boston, one Cyburbian comments:

Since I was born in (and often visit) San Jose and now live in Boston, I find it interesting how local perceptions can clash with the reality of development. In Boston, people see the high density core and refuse to believe that the suburbs are so sprawled, despite the fact there must be several dozen towns of about 15 - 20 square miles with about 10K - 15k population. Greater Boston is really Eastern Massachusetts, with parts of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and even Connecticut and Maine thrown in. And the sprawl is getting worse.
In San Jose, people find it difficult to conceptualize that they live in a big city, even as the city itself is now the 10th largest in the country and the total valleypopulation is approaching 1.7 million people. Because they have run out of land, more and more high rise developments are being proposed. It will be interesting to see how perceptions might change in another 20 years.

This Cyburbia discussion thread is in response to this Planetizen-linked Washington Post article, which concludes urban areas of the American West are denser than the East's, at least when measured at the metropolitan level (emphasis added):

Odd as it may seem, density is the rule, not an exception, in the wide-open spaces of the West. Salt Lake City is more tightly packed than Philadelphia. So is Las Vegas in comparison with Chicago, and Denver compared with Detroit. Ten of the country's 15 most densely populated metro areas are in the West, where residents move to newly developed land at triple the per-acre density of any other part of the country.

And almost half of the 15 densest "urbanized areas" are in Northern California:

rank	"urbanized area"	people per square mile
2	San Francisco-Oakland	7,004.3
3	San Jose	5,914.1
6	Davis	4,845.4
7	Vallejo	4,681.9
9	Tracy	4,621.6
14	Fairfield	4,355.7
15	Stockton	4,218.4
--2000 United States Census via Washington Post

But numbers do not tell all, as density can indicate both luxury and hardship:

In upper-income quarters of metro Los Angeles, density can be an aesthetic kick. When wedded to smart design and careful planning, it is a high-energy stimulant for suburban ennui, luring high-end stores, protecting open space and paying for toll roads that reduce traffic. But in poorer parts of the region, especially where large immigrant families have settled, density is a just fancy word for severe overcrowding.

And the fact that the top 15 list includes most of the Bay Area, even the decidedly unurban Fairfield and Tracy, does not mean this region contains no sprawl. Density is quantitative; sprawl is qualitative. When neighborhoods are indistinguishable from another when citizens needs cars to go everywhere, when "public" space is overwhelmingly located on private property, and when each unit of land use consumes so much land as to deplete land supply and force land prices upward, population density alone will make little difference on whether a community is "sprawling."

file under San Jose, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, city, big city, Boston, Massachusetts, New England, sprawl, density, low density, West, metropolitan

Caltrain Schedule: Great for Some, Backwards for Others

2005-08-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

It's odd that Caltrain's new schedule provides more frequent service to lesser-used stations at midday than at rush hour. Belmont, for example, receives two trains per direction per hour from about 9 to 4, but service is hourly during potentially higher-ridership times.

The same is true for San Antonio and its newly transit-oriented environs, the subject of a Mercury News report today. As in Belmont, here the trains stop more frequently between the rush hours than during them. Despite various parties' obvious long-term commitment to providing (or at least attempting to provide) for Caltrain a dedicated community of riders by establishing a dense, mixed-use neighborhood at the tracks' edge, Caltrain reduced service to the location to allow Baby Bullet and limited-stop trains to skip the station. While managing to increase and speed up overall service during a time of funding shortage is impressive and is beneficial to a large subset of riders (including me in Downtown San Jose), it's not without drawbacks:

If you're going to clear the tracks for high-speed trains, you have to cut the number of locals. And San Antonio isn't the only loser. Thousands of people were sidetracked by the Baby Bullet boom when service to their stations was reduced or killed altogether. My husband is sputtering about the cuts at his station, California Avenue near the Stanford Research Park, where trains now stop only once an hour during commute times.
But the slow death of San Antonio is particularly noteworthy. It shows that fostering a long-term vision is tough when the only thing that counts is today's ridership figures.

file under Mountain View, Belmont, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, Caltrain, transit, commuter rail, TOD, transit-oriented development, transportation, Baby Bullet, Baby Bullets

Goodbye Carpool Lanes

2005-08-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Now that the president has signed the transportation bill, and since the bill authorizes hybrid vehicles to enter high-occupancy vehicle lanes without being high-occupancy, and given the rising popularity of hybrid vehicles, let's all say "goodbye" to HOV lanes (along with a tentative "hope to see you again soon"):

The [California Air Resources Board] announced Wednesday that drivers of the Toyota Prius, as well as Honda's hybrid Civic and Insight, may now apply for the [$8 permit] decals. On July 29, when the [transportation] bill passed out of Congress, attorneys at the Air Resources Board were still poring over the 1,800-page legislation to make sure it allowed the California program to proceed.

file under hybrid, hybrids, carpool, carpooling, transportation, California, Prius

Go Bother Someone Else

2005-08-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

This entry pretty much amounts to some links that I thought about but didn't get around to posting--and here they are:

Sunday's Mercury News had a good, in-depth section devoted to the San Jose's new City Hall. If you don't live around here, what this project is is a relocation of the local government from its essentially out-of-the-way headquarters north of town and from scattered rented space into a single location directly in the center of San Jose. It's good for symbolic reasons, and the architecture is good, although that massive blank wall on Santa Clara Street is not exactly a great addition to the streetscape. And the building's color--as bleak as Le Corbusier.
The latest Project for Public Spaces newletter is full of worthwhile analysis. Read it and learn some site design lessons--please? By the way, I wonder how PPS would rate the new City Hall, its plaza, and its "Parade of Floats."
And it appears The Bay Area Was Talking last month (as I said, the links are not brand new) about a handy, Mac-only program that graphically illustrates (is that redundant?) BART's schedule. If only Apple would cede some of its overwhelming dominance in the PC software market to benefit us oppressed Windows users, maybe I could give it a try. I suggest that BART's webmaster and maybe 511.org rip off some of this program's ideas for their respective websites' text-heavy trip planners.
Oh yeah, and Don Perata is hilarious--and Neil Diamond is supposedly still cool.

file under San Jose, Downtown San Jose, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, San Jose City Hall, City Hall, public space, architecture, Le Corbusier, transit, widget, BART, Don Perata, Neil Diamond

Federal Government's Mixed Messages on Hybrid Technology

2005-08-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

From a Sacramento Bee editorial (with emphasis added):

The [federal transportation] bill expands tax breaks for all hybrid cars, giving hybrid buyers not just tax deductions, as previous laws did, but straight, dollar-for-dollar tax credits of up to $3,000.
Under the bill, the higher the fuel efficiency, the higher the credit. That's not a bad thing - except that the tax credit is based on weight class. So buyers of gas-guzzling hybrids, a big SUV or pickup that uses some hybrid technology, but gets as little as 15.1 miles per gallon, can still qualify for a federal tax credit. That's absurd.
The law also apportions the credits among car manufacturers, allowing for a tax break on only the first 60,000 hybrids sold. So by 2007, buyers of the fast-selling Toyota Prius hybrid that gets 60 mpg in the city won't receive any tax credits at all, while buyers of GM's Chevy Silverado hybrid pickup truck, which gets only 17 mpg, would qualify for more than $1,000 in federal tax breaks. That's no path to energy independence.

And then, as the editorial discusses, the bill endorses single-occupant hybrids' use of carpool lanes. Buyers of high-mileage hybrids deserve incentives, but not that.

file under transportation, federal government, tax breaks, taxes, tax, hybrids, fuel efficiency, fuel economy, legislation, Congress, carpool, carpooling

Public Transit's Success Unfairly Measured

2005-08-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Repeating an earlier point, a letter to the Examiner reminds us that regional public transit's effect on traffic congestion is grossly underrated--and that this fact says little about whether transit experiences success:

In truth, [regional transit agencies] made a huge dent in [long commutes and traffic], but we don't appreciate this until a BART strike or something similar. Over 1 million Bay Area trips are made each day on transit. If we had to accommodate them by car, the number of freeway lanes would have to double.
Transit never makes freeway traffic disappear. Roads in Paris, New York and Tokyo are no freer flowing than here. Good transit gives people a choice and helps a region move and grow without more freeways. A quiet success story of San Francisco is that our air is cleaner with fewer freeways and more transit riders than 20 years earlier. Congestion is a feature of a thriving, healthy city, not a sign of failing transit.
Peter Albert
The City

Very right; didn't Bay Area traffic become lighter and smoother only after the economy dove?

And the logic of reduced congestion as a sign of transit's success reeks of "98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others." Why would a car owner take public transportation to a destination if the road is faster? To avoid parking fees in denser spots, to make a pro-mass transit statement, etc., but the car usually wins this matchup. So, if public transit's success is measured by the convenience of driving a personal automobile, mass transportation will always fail.

file under San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, public transportation, mass transportation, public transit, mass transit, transportation, transit, congestion, traffic congestion, road congestion, BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, SamTrans, San Mateo County Transit District, success

Don't Underestimate Nonfamily and One-Person Households

2005-07-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

Creating housing for families is very important, and it is a great shame that many places in the Bay Area do not have enough housing suitable for families. But the number of nonfamily and one-person households is very sizeable and should not be dismissed as an irrelevant fringe demographic, as is often done.

	United States	California	Bay Area
total housing units	115,904,641	12,214,549	2,651,275
total nonfamily households*	33,277,342	3,526,531	891,870
% of housing units occupied by nonfamily households	28.7	28.9	33.6
% of housing units occupied by one-person households	23.5	22.1	24.9
--2000 United States Census, Summary File 3, Tables H1 and PCT2
* This includes householders living alone as well as those living with nonrelatives.

As these statistics show, more than one in every five housing units in the United States as well as in California (and almost two in five in the Bay Area) are occupied by individuals living without relatives, and most of them live alone. Hence, it should not be seen as unreasonable for a locality to accommodate potential development of housing marketed toward small, childless households. The common statement that urban apartments and stacked condos will only appeal to singles and empty-nesters might often be true, but it does not imply per se that the market is tiny enough to relegate these housing types only to "adult Disneylands" like downtowns and novel mixed-use developments.

August 18: "Households of Singles Go to First in U.S." says the Los Angeles Times (Hartford Courant printing of story linked by Planetizen):

The [Census Bureau] report, based on new calculations of the 2000 and 1990 tallies, found that solo households grew by 21% over the decade, while the next-largest category, married couples without children, grew by 11%. As a result, married or unmarried couples with children make up 31.3% of all homes. Individuals make up 31.6%. [Emphasis added.]

file under housing, San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, demographics, apartments, condominiums, families, residential

also file under census, United States Census

DC: Nothing to See Here (Or: Security Through Obscurity)

2005-07-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

I was watching a TV program on Washington, DC, and I located some of the places around town on Google Maps, just to satisfy my curiosity. I was also looking at these spots in satellite view and found something odd: the details of the Capitol building and the legislators' office buildings are mosaicked out of view. (And, ha ha, here's the corresponding ground-level view of the Capitol.)

At first glance, it appeared that the White House is not given the same treatment, but after reading up on this quirk I looked again and found the WH and its two neighbors have a kind of unearthly flatness because of colored shapes placed over them.

I kind of wonder why these places are censored in Google Maps, considering that the service's orthographic views are not especially close-up and that images of these locations are already available through other sources anyway.

On an unrelated note, Google Maps is a lot better now that it finally has a scale. I don't know why the scale was not originally included.

...And, oh yeah, I forgot the Pentagon--the heart of the American military, attacked on 9/11, but left uncensored.

file under Google Maps, Washington (DC), maps, mapping, map, censored, censorship, security, national security, White House, Capitol