Moffett Park Clusterfuck

This is Moffett Park station — a stupendous example of  VTA incompetence. This photo below is of Moffett Park Dr, the main street running past the station.

Note the total lack of sidewalks, or bike lanes of that matter. And the special touch of making transit riders climb over a railing, just to reach the platform:

See that parking garage in the distance? Here is a closer look:

Believe it or not, this 1217-space parking garage was built as part of a Sunnyvale “Green Building” Initiative. Another fine example of promoting transit-oriented development in Silicon Valley!

Moffett Park station, by the way, is one of the least used VTA LRT stations. I can’t imagine why that is?

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Putting Lipstick on the Capitol Expressway Pig

As the name suggests, “Capitol Expressway” is the most unlikely street to blow $60 million (!) on pedestrian and streetscape improvements. Or for that matter, building a $310 million light rail line:

San Jose, Calif. – On Friday, October 5th, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) will celebrate the completion of pedestrian safety and access improvements along Capitol Expressway and future VTA rapid transit and light rail corridor. The Capitol Expressway Transit Improvement Project will ultimately transform Capitol Expressway into a multi-modal boulevard offering rapid transit, light rail transit, and safe pathways with connections to the regional transit system. Phase 1 of improvements includes new sidewalks, enhanced and additional street lighting, and a landscaping buffer between the sidewalk and roadway. A ribbon-cutting event is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Beshoff MotorCars – Mercedes-Benz, 3000 E. Capitol Expressway in San Jose.

“The long awaited transformation of East San Jose has begun and I could not be happier for our community,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese. “These fundamental improvements have made this corridor much safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, especially children who are walking and riding to many of the local attractions in the Evergreen area.”

This Press Release is insane. No parent is going to allow their children to walk or ride a bike on this monstrosity, no matter how much landscaping gets added:

Oh, and what exactly are the pedestrian improvements?

Upgraded street lighting for automobiles; and newly installed pedestrian lights to better illuminate bus stops and pathways. Fencing has also been added along the corridor to discourage people from jaywalking.

As you can see from the photo above, it is obvious why jaywalking is a problem.

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VTA Parking Glut

Turns out there is a silver lining to VTA’s dismal light-rail ridership. The agency has a glut in parking spaces at its park-and-ride stations:

(Click the chart to enlarge.)

For transit-oriented-development, it doesn’t get much easier than this. Unlike BART, there is no need for expensive parking-replacement garages because there is no parking demand (or any other riders for that matter). The only challenge is dealing with the stations located inside a freeway median, but that is not an insurmountable problem.

And while the VTA study identifies the problem, it falls short on solutions. It proposes two parking scenarios for year-2035 planning purposes. The first option would actually increase parking supply, based on ludicrous ridership projections. The second option, which was clearly preferred by the consultants, would decrease parking slightly (no more than 15%), while still maintaining a healthy surplus of 3,000 parking spaces.

Surely they can do better than that.

 

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Costly BRT

Here is the cost breakdown of the proposed BRT network in Santa Clara County:

As you can see from the chart, this is fake BRT because there is only a small bit of dedicated bus lanes. But even that small bit is going to cost a huge amount: 1/4 billion dollars for a just 4.87 miles of dedicated bus lanes. One main reason for the cost blowout is an unwillingness to reduce any parking or automobile capacity — meaning the road gets widened in numerous places.

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Father of VTA Podrail

He will do for podcars what he’s done for light-rail and high-speed rail:

Rod Diridon, Sr., chair emeritus of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, will give a presentation at the Podcar City Berlin 2012 conference September 19-20. Mr. Diridon will address inter-connectivity between high-speed rail (HSR) and automated guideway transit (AGT), popularly known as “podcars.”

“Core redistribution around HSR stations – as well as airports – must include AGT which connects to the metropolitan mass transit systems and to nearby businesses, universities, lodging, and other trip generators,” said Mr. Diridon. “Electrically powered AGT should be considered for every major rail station around the world to promote the use of mass transit as a system.”

Rod Diridon is an accidental expert on podcar systems. With its near empty cars, his VTA light-rail is nearly the functional equivalent of a podcar system.

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Running the Gauntlet

The VTA has produced their revised Technical Guidelines for bike facilities. It is supposed to promote “best practices” for bike facilities in Santa Clara County.

The document is all well and good — if the year were 1999. For a year 2012 publication, it looks rather dated. Perhaps they just dusted off the 1999 version?

For example, here is the recommended design for accommodating bicycles through an expressway interchange with a merging/auxiliary lane:

Does that look like a fun place to ride a bike? Now compare to how the Dutch might design this:

View Larger Map

If you look carefully at the signal head, you will see that cars wanting to enter the ramp have a red arrow, while the cycle path has a green “bike” light. Much safer and less confusing — for all road users.

Even better: that right-turn arrow for automobiles can serve as a ramp metering signal so as to moderate the flow of traffic onto the freeway. All over the Bay Area, the MTC has been installing ramp metering signals. Problem is, they are being installed in the wrong location.

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BART Or Freeways?

BART or freeways? All too often, the answer is both.

Latest example: the VTA.

The VTA has started work on an I880 widening project, adding two new lanes at a cost of $100 million. This highway expansion will compete directly against the BART-San Jose extension — also under construction by the VTA.

One agency building two incompatible transportation projects. The irony is that VTA was chartered by Santa Clara County to combine all road and transit planning under a single agency. You know, to create synergies…

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The Wit and Wisdom of Gary Richards

These past two decades, Gary Richards has done some serious wanking for the BART-San Jose project. It’s tough narrowing down his most idiotic BART wankage, but this Q&A gets to the heart of the matter:

Q We could have Caltrain running from Fremont to San Jose within six months and for pennies on the dollar of what it would cost to  ring in BART. Caltrain ran trials on this route back in 1995, and I can take my bike on Caltrain. To hell with BART and their blasted tax.
Bring on Caltrain.

-Deborah Goldeen

A There was a plan in place in 1996 to run Caltrain-style trains from the BART station in Union City to downtown San Jose. But those efforts died for a couple of reasons. Residents living along the proposed route did not want this type of service, fearing for pedestrian safety and train crashes at intersections, problems that have plagued Caltrain on the Peninsula. Then, as the dot-com boom began and traffic on I-680 and I-880 became horrible, the call to bring BART to San Jose took off, resulting in nearly 71 percent of voters approving the Measure A tax plan in 2000. However, that half-cent tax is not enough to build BART and other transit improvements promised voters in that election.

In fact, the 1996 voter-approved plan was for modern European DMU’s running on conventional track. At $100 million, it was a bargain — and would have paved the way for future HSR service. Instead, VTA brainiacs decided to convert to BART gauge, increasing costs 100 fold and delaying rail service by decades.

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BART Wanker

With yesterday’s groundbreaking of the BART-San Jose project, it seems only appropriate to honor its biggest promoter. No, no, not Guardino, but Mr. Roadshow. In recognition of two decades of BART wanking, let’s highlight some of the most outlandish things he’s written about the project. Starting with yesterday’s column!

 Q: Why doesn’t BART make a right turn in Milpitas and go right up Highway 237? That’s where all the traffic is going.

A: Far too costly, and these trains need to go to downtown San Jose.

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Mountain View Votes Against BRT

Two years ago, Berkeley sabotaged a BRT plan in the East Bay. Now, will Mountain View be the South Bay version of Berkeley?

The [Mountain View] City Council spent two and half hours discussing a plan for dedicated bus rapid transit lanes on El Camino Real on Tuesday, coming to the same position it came to after a similar discussion in June — opposed. The council took a 4-2 vote in the study session, with council members Mike Kasperzak and Margaret Abe-Koga in support of the dedicated lanes and member John Inks abstaining.

The plans would reduce El Camino Real from six lanes to four, and add two dedicated bus lanes down the middle of the street and bike lanes on each side. With two bus stations located on the median, one at Castro Street and one at San Antonio shopping center, BRT buses would run every 10 minutes, 18 hours a day.

Plans for BRT on El Camino Real are part of an ambitious “Grand Boulevard” effort. It would convert the highway from a  automobile strip-mall thoroughfare into a more bike/ped friendly environment. The bike and bus lanes are projected to quadruple the number of bike trips, and generate 18,000 new transit trips. BRT would also serve as a feeder to Caltrain and any future HSR stations.

But Council seems to have other priorities, and is more concerned with maintaining the route for high-speed auto traffic.

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