There is clearly a benefit to high gas prices beyond reduced deaths, pollution, and improved national security from less drivng. Communities like Martinez and Benicia benefit when refiners go out of business. The economic rationalism that reigned over our political, economic and business worlds has ignored the public health while subsidizing a toxic world. The risks were always clear, as defined by rational science, while a logical analysis of the economics showed acting early was cheaper than acting late. For example a UC Davis study showed that living within 500 feet of a major roadway resulted in permanent lung damage for children. Yet a strange kind of religious and ideological zealotry holds federal policy in its grasp ignoring public health at the expense of declined national security.
Ethanol's problem stems from starving people to feed our cars. Instead the Federal government should push for walkable communities on the transit corridors. Growing Cooler from the Urban Land Institute shows that walkable communities on the transit corridor can lower green house gases by 40% and Robert Cervelo at UC Berkeley says that if Transit can capture the landuse value created by its presence and that if done right, like in Hong Kong, transit can be operated on a profit with conventional economic models. The green house gas reduction could reach as high as 60 percent, Cervero added, compared to the level of per-capita emissions that would result from continuing business-as-usual sprawl-inducing policies.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Ralston 101 next step
History
Design started in 1998. Scott Mace of Mid Pen Bicycle Coalition warns about danger to cyclists and pedestrians. There are three authorities. Redwood City is the lead authority. Belmont and Caltrans are the other two.
Issues from the past
1- Belmont and Redwood City decide that bike accommodations are not necessary because a parallel bike bridge will be constructed shortly. Government penalizes walkers and cyclists today, for some Clean Air Act fix in the future, like the TDA-3 over-crossing of Ralston 101 which is now ten years late.
2- Caltrans accommodates compromised access provisions despite its district protests over such design elements on Page Mill Road at 280 and the resulting bicycle fatality that required an interchange restripping plan.
3- Redwood City is able to add two north bound ramp lanes in front of Oracle to 101 from Marina Parkway (which is what Ralston is called on the Redwood City side) to meet their Congestion Management Level of Service (CM-LOS) provisions because of acceptance of compromised access for bicycles and pedestrians today. (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
Status-
1- Interchange is still not signed off by Belmont because the landscape provisions have not been completed.
2- The onramp to 101 southbound from Ralston has the most pedestrian bicycle crashes in Belmont.
3- The bicycle bridge ten years later is less than 25% funded, mostly from TDA-3 funds (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
4- Numerous complaints about the interchange safety for bikes and peds followed from 2002 onward on the lines of the Scott Mace's notice of dangerous conditions. Peter Voramasenti, Peter Ingram, Dwight Caldwell, Ray Davis, and Julian Caroll were involved. The bridge was opened in 2004.
5- A subsequent meeting in May 2008 with Rich Napier, Dwight Caldwell, Paul Pang, Tom Madalena, and Peter Voramasenti resulted in a decision to review the striping of the interchange.
6- Redwood City painted a dashed pocket lane left of the two onramp lanes from Oracle as part of a larger (well done) restriping program in Redwood Shore in September 2008.
Paint Expectations
1- Caltrans will complete their restriping plan from the May 2008 meeting to allow a bike lane to the gore when westbound on Marina Parkway past the two onramps.
NOTE: subsequent update- Peter Dalgado in RWC said that RWC, as the lead authority on the unsigned off plan (see item 1 under status) would paint in the lanes on their dime if Caltrans can finish the drawings.
2- Belmont will draw and paint bike lanes from Ralston and Hiller to Ralston and Old County.
NOTE: subsequent update- Council member Bill Dickenson, lead to the Belmont Green Advisory Committee, said he would take this provision up with the Belmont City Council.
3- Peter Delgado in RWC said he might paint the pocket lane on Marina Parkway in solid lines after a bike lane to the gore is painted in. This would made the automotive design elements in the present striping plan safer since it causes motorists to rethink cutting in at the last minute.
Plan Expectations
1- CCAG will write a policy for interchanges that requires routine accommodations- bike and ped access will be designed into all projects and fully funded at the design stage. Sandy Wong, assistant director at CCAG acknowledged before the CCAG board, July 10th 2008, in response to question from Kelly Furgusson on item 4.10 pulled from the consent calendar, that this would be necessary.
2- CCAG needs to address how its CM-LOS goals result in designs like this 2004 interchange which compromise bicycle and pedestrian safety, comfort, efficiency, health and access elements.
3- Todd McIntyre of the Transit Authority was asked by Committee For Green Foothills, the Sierra Club, and Gladwyn d'Souza in the reauthorization of Measure A to only include funding for road projects that fully include bicycle and pedestrian access in August 2008.
4- Rich Napier said in May 2008 that he would look into getting full funding of bike and ped access in road projects from other road funding sources like the project budget itself. CCAG needs to write this into their project design requirements.
5- Belmont's unfunded bike bridge takes riders almost a mile off course with severe egress and exits time compromises. Egress issues are prevalent for all POCs including the Belmont Bike Ped bridge which seeks to provide access to the Bay Trail and links an east 101 Belmont neighborhood with Nesbit Elementary School. Caltrans is looking into egress and comfort issues on the upcoming Woodside interchange which could be a model of how future projects are designed. General plan circulation elements should state that POCs should be part of an Urban Trail System that provides complete regional access for children's land uses.
6. Caltrans District 4 needs to fully implement DD-64
7. MTC and the TA needs to review how CM-LOS provisions results in denied access and the resulting role of TDA-3 funds in compromised safety and access for non motorized modes.
Design started in 1998. Scott Mace of Mid Pen Bicycle Coalition warns about danger to cyclists and pedestrians. There are three authorities. Redwood City is the lead authority. Belmont and Caltrans are the other two.
Issues from the past
1- Belmont and Redwood City decide that bike accommodations are not necessary because a parallel bike bridge will be constructed shortly. Government penalizes walkers and cyclists today, for some Clean Air Act fix in the future, like the TDA-3 over-crossing of Ralston 101 which is now ten years late.
2- Caltrans accommodates compromised access provisions despite its district protests over such design elements on Page Mill Road at 280 and the resulting bicycle fatality that required an interchange restripping plan.
3- Redwood City is able to add two north bound ramp lanes in front of Oracle to 101 from Marina Parkway (which is what Ralston is called on the Redwood City side) to meet their Congestion Management Level of Service (CM-LOS) provisions because of acceptance of compromised access for bicycles and pedestrians today. (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
Status-
1- Interchange is still not signed off by Belmont because the landscape provisions have not been completed.
2- The onramp to 101 southbound from Ralston has the most pedestrian bicycle crashes in Belmont.
3- The bicycle bridge ten years later is less than 25% funded, mostly from TDA-3 funds (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
4- Numerous complaints about the interchange safety for bikes and peds followed from 2002 onward on the lines of the Scott Mace's notice of dangerous conditions. Peter Voramasenti, Peter Ingram, Dwight Caldwell, Ray Davis, and Julian Caroll were involved. The bridge was opened in 2004.
5- A subsequent meeting in May 2008 with Rich Napier, Dwight Caldwell, Paul Pang, Tom Madalena, and Peter Voramasenti resulted in a decision to review the striping of the interchange.
6- Redwood City painted a dashed pocket lane left of the two onramp lanes from Oracle as part of a larger (well done) restriping program in Redwood Shore in September 2008.
Paint Expectations
1- Caltrans will complete their restriping plan from the May 2008 meeting to allow a bike lane to the gore when westbound on Marina Parkway past the two onramps.
NOTE: subsequent update- Peter Dalgado in RWC said that RWC, as the lead authority on the unsigned off plan (see item 1 under status) would paint in the lanes on their dime if Caltrans can finish the drawings.
2- Belmont will draw and paint bike lanes from Ralston and Hiller to Ralston and Old County.
NOTE: subsequent update- Council member Bill Dickenson, lead to the Belmont Green Advisory Committee, said he would take this provision up with the Belmont City Council.
3- Peter Delgado in RWC said he might paint the pocket lane on Marina Parkway in solid lines after a bike lane to the gore is painted in. This would made the automotive design elements in the present striping plan safer since it causes motorists to rethink cutting in at the last minute.
Plan Expectations
1- CCAG will write a policy for interchanges that requires routine accommodations- bike and ped access will be designed into all projects and fully funded at the design stage. Sandy Wong, assistant director at CCAG acknowledged before the CCAG board, July 10th 2008, in response to question from Kelly Furgusson on item 4.10 pulled from the consent calendar, that this would be necessary.
2- CCAG needs to address how its CM-LOS goals result in designs like this 2004 interchange which compromise bicycle and pedestrian safety, comfort, efficiency, health and access elements.
3- Todd McIntyre of the Transit Authority was asked by Committee For Green Foothills, the Sierra Club, and Gladwyn d'Souza in the reauthorization of Measure A to only include funding for road projects that fully include bicycle and pedestrian access in August 2008.
4- Rich Napier said in May 2008 that he would look into getting full funding of bike and ped access in road projects from other road funding sources like the project budget itself. CCAG needs to write this into their project design requirements.
5- Belmont's unfunded bike bridge takes riders almost a mile off course with severe egress and exits time compromises. Egress issues are prevalent for all POCs including the Belmont Bike Ped bridge which seeks to provide access to the Bay Trail and links an east 101 Belmont neighborhood with Nesbit Elementary School. Caltrans is looking into egress and comfort issues on the upcoming Woodside interchange which could be a model of how future projects are designed. General plan circulation elements should state that POCs should be part of an Urban Trail System that provides complete regional access for children's land uses.
6. Caltrans District 4 needs to fully implement DD-64
7. MTC and the TA needs to review how CM-LOS provisions results in denied access and the resulting role of TDA-3 funds in compromised safety and access for non motorized modes.
STRS funding needs effectiveness appraisal.
As the state gears up to release $48.5M in Safe Route To School funding they need to look how jurisdictions are spending the money and what the planning agencies are doing to the reduce the occurrence of problems from Level of Service "enhancements."
Measure A money is used by the Transportation Authority in San Mateo County to "relive congestion" from low LOS grades at interchanges with planning through CCAG. The larger permitted traffic take away pedestrian and bicycle facilities. For example the Ralston 101 interchange in Belmont CA took the sidewalk away on the north side and has street furniture in the narrow five foot sidewalk on the south side. The doubled up right turning freeway access lanes to 101 northbound took away a shareable bike lane westbound. Some cyclists began riding wrong way on the south side sidewalk interfering with peds on the narrow sidewalk. And cyclist-vehicle collisions have increased where the sidewalk crosses the access lane to 101 northbound.
Belmont told Caltrans at the interchange design phase in 1998 that they would be building a Pedestrian Over Crossing which is why the ped and bike facilities were compromised. The POC has only secured twenty five percent of its funding ten years later. The city has applied for a stimulus grant because they say it is a shovel ready project. Because of the topography it will add, if and when completed, 7/8s of a mile to a ped trip!
In the neighborhood on the northwest side of the interchange complaints of cut through traffic resulted in a 450k SRTS grant for bulbouts. This was installed without any neighborhood meetings. When other neighbors complained that the bulbouts only made it difficult to get in and out of their side streets and did nothing for cut through traffic on the collector, the city took them out for $500k.
The larger interchange has resulted in higher traffic volumes and off peak speed increases. Complaints from parents of school aged children resulted in a couple of SRTS grants to install lighted crosswalks and a couple for Automatic Speed Radar Display signs. One of the intersections where the SRTS lighted crosswalk was installed is more than 70 feet wide and complaints have persisted from parents about near misses with children. The city is considering removing the lighted crosswalk and going with a zebra crossing instead.
Meanwhile the off peak speed increases have raised complaints that the ASRD signs are routinely ignored. The response from public works is to point to enforcement and the response from police is that the Prima Facie Speed law conflicts with the Speed trap law and they can't do anything about it. However when San Mateo City police chief Mannheimer tried to get the state to allow ASRD signs to also write speeding tickets none of the surrounding jurisdictions supported the effort. In the neighboring city of San Carlos a the police say the same thing after an SRTS funded ASRD sign was installed on San Carlos Ave. When a senior was killed crossing SCA a couple years ago the city's first response was to try and take away the crosswalk. However after protests, I saw this last weekend, that they have paid to signalize the intersection.
Measure A money is used by the Transportation Authority in San Mateo County to "relive congestion" from low LOS grades at interchanges with planning through CCAG. The larger permitted traffic take away pedestrian and bicycle facilities. For example the Ralston 101 interchange in Belmont CA took the sidewalk away on the north side and has street furniture in the narrow five foot sidewalk on the south side. The doubled up right turning freeway access lanes to 101 northbound took away a shareable bike lane westbound. Some cyclists began riding wrong way on the south side sidewalk interfering with peds on the narrow sidewalk. And cyclist-vehicle collisions have increased where the sidewalk crosses the access lane to 101 northbound.
Belmont told Caltrans at the interchange design phase in 1998 that they would be building a Pedestrian Over Crossing which is why the ped and bike facilities were compromised. The POC has only secured twenty five percent of its funding ten years later. The city has applied for a stimulus grant because they say it is a shovel ready project. Because of the topography it will add, if and when completed, 7/8s of a mile to a ped trip!
In the neighborhood on the northwest side of the interchange complaints of cut through traffic resulted in a 450k SRTS grant for bulbouts. This was installed without any neighborhood meetings. When other neighbors complained that the bulbouts only made it difficult to get in and out of their side streets and did nothing for cut through traffic on the collector, the city took them out for $500k.
The larger interchange has resulted in higher traffic volumes and off peak speed increases. Complaints from parents of school aged children resulted in a couple of SRTS grants to install lighted crosswalks and a couple for Automatic Speed Radar Display signs. One of the intersections where the SRTS lighted crosswalk was installed is more than 70 feet wide and complaints have persisted from parents about near misses with children. The city is considering removing the lighted crosswalk and going with a zebra crossing instead.
Meanwhile the off peak speed increases have raised complaints that the ASRD signs are routinely ignored. The response from public works is to point to enforcement and the response from police is that the Prima Facie Speed law conflicts with the Speed trap law and they can't do anything about it. However when San Mateo City police chief Mannheimer tried to get the state to allow ASRD signs to also write speeding tickets none of the surrounding jurisdictions supported the effort. In the neighboring city of San Carlos a the police say the same thing after an SRTS funded ASRD sign was installed on San Carlos Ave. When a senior was killed crossing SCA a couple years ago the city's first response was to try and take away the crosswalk. However after protests, I saw this last weekend, that they have paid to signalize the intersection.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Measure A strategic plan
Meeting with Todd McIntyre of the Transportation Authority and Lenny Roberts of Committee for Green Foothills.
Anticipated revenue over 25 years is $1.5B
Estimated funding match $2.2B
There was almost nothing for bikes and peds in the last cycle except for the bike map. This was because the funding pot was .5% Marginally better for transit because Caltrain got the bullet and shuttle service and Burlingame got a station upgrade from a 30% funding pot.
Still a problem- Highways, local roads make up 50%. Only an additional 1% goes to management.
Comments due- by the end of September. Series of meetings are going to be scheduled around the county. We need to get more pedestrian and bicycle comments in. Todd McIntyre of the TA who gave the presentation was in Public Relations, been on the job only two months, and really knew his material well.
Purpose- the usual: What's worked well, how do we get a better Return on Investment, leverage more value with the matching funds. (We can point out here that building access into projects returns value.)
Goals- Safety, Capacity. (We point out that wider roads are more dangerous that bikes and peds make up 20% of fatalities and historically less than .5% of funding, and that capacity is greatly improved if more butts are on bike seats or walking.)
New Allocation- 3% bikes and peds, 15% grade separation, 30% transit, 27.5% highways, 22.5 % local streets and transportation, 1% management.
Electrification is in the transit dollars. I asked for solararizing ten platforms at 40MW per day or 40,000 panels to meet the 400 MW demand of the system at full electrification. http://cogsmac.blogspot.com/2008/08/electrifiy-caltrain-on-solar-pv.html
The 27.5% highway fund should be 50% discretionary for management programs by cities and county to reduce the need for expansion. This would be in addition to the available flexibility. Prevent Ralston/101 bicycle access deterioration by requiring that all projects need to incorporated and fund multimodality out of the roads budget and not the bike ped account.
The local shuttle program should include a bike sharing program and bike stations. Add downtown area shuttles like SCOOT.
Under accessible services include car sharing and ride matching.
Provide money for an electric bus line on El Camino that would continue the SF line from Daly City.
Highway and Roads program: Sierra Club is opposed to two of the four programs- widening and adding auxiliary lanes which is seen as widening. The Highway parallel Arterial Streets needs to removed or changed to 20 mph streets for alternate vehicles like golf carts. Need to add in hearings for the Environmental Impact statements and include wetlands and water mitigation. The interchange reconstruction component needs to take into account that interchanges have become barriers to accessibility for bikes and peds. (need a Ralston 101 study versus the bike bridge on how the matching funds line up.)
Bike ped program: saw very little of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan built in the last iteration of Measure A and not building in bike access on the Ralston/101 interchange has ended up requiring funding for a ten million dollar plus bike bridge which is already four years late since the interchange opened. Add multimodaltiy criteria to come out of the interchange and highway budget. Midcoast Coastal Conservancy (?) MCC needs sketches for possible alignment, more bite sized trail chunks funded and built, and an assessment. Need an Urban comprehensive trail and highway plan. Bike lane improvements along highways like skyline. A connected off road trails where the gaps are identified and connected. An Urban Trail System where bike boulevards combine traffic calming to deliver a connected alternate mobility system utilizing trails, POCs, and traffic calmed streets. Trails consume $2M per mile. The pedestrian requirement are immense. So the $60M budget over the next 25 years will only meet about 2% of the bikes, ped, and trails needs. This means serious gaps in the system and a continued emphasis on driving resulting in more safety and capacity problems.
Alternate Congestion Relief program needs Next Bus Locator and a Fast Pass style ticketing system. Add Grand Boulevard, electric buses on El Camino and a bus/bike only lane for improved service under AB32.
Program categories: need parallel tracking for freight to rail. HSR will pay for its own ROW. Don't know what the FEDs will require in GreenTEA (begins negotiations in Congress next year and has serious budget shortfalls from the gas tax because of reduced driving.)
Evaluation Criteria- add access to effectiveness distinct from mobility. In other criteria add design review for multimodality.
Anticipated revenue over 25 years is $1.5B
Estimated funding match $2.2B
There was almost nothing for bikes and peds in the last cycle except for the bike map. This was because the funding pot was .5% Marginally better for transit because Caltrain got the bullet and shuttle service and Burlingame got a station upgrade from a 30% funding pot.
Still a problem- Highways, local roads make up 50%. Only an additional 1% goes to management.
Comments due- by the end of September. Series of meetings are going to be scheduled around the county. We need to get more pedestrian and bicycle comments in. Todd McIntyre of the TA who gave the presentation was in Public Relations, been on the job only two months, and really knew his material well.
Purpose- the usual: What's worked well, how do we get a better Return on Investment, leverage more value with the matching funds. (We can point out here that building access into projects returns value.)
Goals- Safety, Capacity. (We point out that wider roads are more dangerous that bikes and peds make up 20% of fatalities and historically less than .5% of funding, and that capacity is greatly improved if more butts are on bike seats or walking.)
New Allocation- 3% bikes and peds, 15% grade separation, 30% transit, 27.5% highways, 22.5 % local streets and transportation, 1% management.
Electrification is in the transit dollars. I asked for solararizing ten platforms at 40MW per day or 40,000 panels to meet the 400 MW demand of the system at full electrification. http://cogsmac.blogspot.com/2008/08/electrifiy-caltrain-on-solar-pv.html
The 27.5% highway fund should be 50% discretionary for management programs by cities and county to reduce the need for expansion. This would be in addition to the available flexibility. Prevent Ralston/101 bicycle access deterioration by requiring that all projects need to incorporated and fund multimodality out of the roads budget and not the bike ped account.
The local shuttle program should include a bike sharing program and bike stations. Add downtown area shuttles like SCOOT.
Under accessible services include car sharing and ride matching.
Provide money for an electric bus line on El Camino that would continue the SF line from Daly City.
Highway and Roads program: Sierra Club is opposed to two of the four programs- widening and adding auxiliary lanes which is seen as widening. The Highway parallel Arterial Streets needs to removed or changed to 20 mph streets for alternate vehicles like golf carts. Need to add in hearings for the Environmental Impact statements and include wetlands and water mitigation. The interchange reconstruction component needs to take into account that interchanges have become barriers to accessibility for bikes and peds. (need a Ralston 101 study versus the bike bridge on how the matching funds line up.)
Bike ped program: saw very little of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan built in the last iteration of Measure A and not building in bike access on the Ralston/101 interchange has ended up requiring funding for a ten million dollar plus bike bridge which is already four years late since the interchange opened. Add multimodaltiy criteria to come out of the interchange and highway budget. Midcoast Coastal Conservancy (?) MCC needs sketches for possible alignment, more bite sized trail chunks funded and built, and an assessment. Need an Urban comprehensive trail and highway plan. Bike lane improvements along highways like skyline. A connected off road trails where the gaps are identified and connected. An Urban Trail System where bike boulevards combine traffic calming to deliver a connected alternate mobility system utilizing trails, POCs, and traffic calmed streets. Trails consume $2M per mile. The pedestrian requirement are immense. So the $60M budget over the next 25 years will only meet about 2% of the bikes, ped, and trails needs. This means serious gaps in the system and a continued emphasis on driving resulting in more safety and capacity problems.
Alternate Congestion Relief program needs Next Bus Locator and a Fast Pass style ticketing system. Add Grand Boulevard, electric buses on El Camino and a bus/bike only lane for improved service under AB32.
Program categories: need parallel tracking for freight to rail. HSR will pay for its own ROW. Don't know what the FEDs will require in GreenTEA (begins negotiations in Congress next year and has serious budget shortfalls from the gas tax because of reduced driving.)
Evaluation Criteria- add access to effectiveness distinct from mobility. In other criteria add design review for multimodality.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
What are the alternatives to smart corridors?
Smart corridors seeks to move traffic on surrounding arterials when a crash backs up traffic on 101. Other arterials are presently encroached on but not systematically because people are afraid of getting lost. By providing directional signage CCAG hopes to use the entire network to move traffic. Similarly surrounding neighborhood streets are encroached on from these arterials by drivers looking for alternatives (more below). Adding more traffic to the arterials exponentially increases the traffic on surrounding streets spreading toxicity and danger.
One alternative to smart corridors would be regulate the causes of crashes in the first place. Speed, aggressive driving, male drivers under 25, distraction, inattention, and alcohol make up 90% of causes on all roads.
The most effective way to manage speed and aggression is with monitors. However because we have bankrupted the state with Prop 13 and elimination of the vehicle license fee the CHP are unable to staff monitors. The state is working on distraction- for example texting becomes illegal tomorrow; and alcohol needs additional tools like breath activated ignition locks. Keeping bad drivers of the road would help! However speed, young drivers, and inattention have been addressed a long time ago in regions as remote as Singapore and as recent as London and Stockholm.
Enter the same technology that CCAG wants to use for smart information. The freeways around London are congestion priced so that all the lanes remain operable at a certain speed which looked like 50 mph. The congestion pricing varies dynamically and is displayed so drivers know the cost of using lanes. The monitor program controls both volume and speed and its all done with video cameras. Caltrans should invite TfL (Transport for London) to learn how to implement these systems. TfL is instructing systems from Seoul to Copenhagen.
Traffic Management through Pricing is on everyone's vocabulary today including Poizner. VTA is in the process of implementing High Occupancy Toll Lanes and CCAG is studying them. For the cost of paint CCAG could generate a revenue stream to make Caltrain and buses viable so that commuters have a viable choice to 101. At a minimum CCAG could manage, with an increased maintenance budget, the existing roadway under its jurisdiction so that surrounding neighborhoods are not turned into traffic sewers for the rat race. Pricing, as the recent run up in gas prices shows, clearly works.
50 mph not only saves gas (i.e the balance of trade and national security), it saves lives from the energy impact in crashes and the reduced pollution because of the efficiencies realized by today's car engine designs. Today's freeways operate at an average speed of 14mph during the peak period. Getting them 20 mph or 35 mph would be huge public benefit and improve safety.
Moving traffic is a problem. Congestion management saw an environmental benefit from moving traffic at a congested node. However the entire network then becomes a pollution matrix. By Braes Paradox the nodes spread to other locations quickly bankrupting the ability of jurisdictions to fund "improvements." Braes Paradox says that additional roads, or network redundancy, add anarchy into a network. The result is increased congestion. Physicists Hyejin Youn and Hawoong Jeong, along with computer scientist Micheal Gastner, looked at the price of anarchy caused by self-interested drivers and showed that closing off roads (options?) improves throughput.
Taking lanes away from Single Occupant Drivers for HOT applications with speed monitoring will improve the overall network under CCAG jurisdiction. For the cost of paint we can replace the $10M neighborhood congestion program known as smart corridors.
Finally provide real alternatives for commuters to choose from. The trains and buses are running empty with low gas prices. And bike lanes don't connect frequently ending at the worst location in major traffic points. If Seattle and San Francisco and Davis can figure this out why can't we?
One alternative to smart corridors would be regulate the causes of crashes in the first place. Speed, aggressive driving, male drivers under 25, distraction, inattention, and alcohol make up 90% of causes on all roads.
The most effective way to manage speed and aggression is with monitors. However because we have bankrupted the state with Prop 13 and elimination of the vehicle license fee the CHP are unable to staff monitors. The state is working on distraction- for example texting becomes illegal tomorrow; and alcohol needs additional tools like breath activated ignition locks. Keeping bad drivers of the road would help! However speed, young drivers, and inattention have been addressed a long time ago in regions as remote as Singapore and as recent as London and Stockholm.
Enter the same technology that CCAG wants to use for smart information. The freeways around London are congestion priced so that all the lanes remain operable at a certain speed which looked like 50 mph. The congestion pricing varies dynamically and is displayed so drivers know the cost of using lanes. The monitor program controls both volume and speed and its all done with video cameras. Caltrans should invite TfL (Transport for London) to learn how to implement these systems. TfL is instructing systems from Seoul to Copenhagen.
Traffic Management through Pricing is on everyone's vocabulary today including Poizner. VTA is in the process of implementing High Occupancy Toll Lanes and CCAG is studying them. For the cost of paint CCAG could generate a revenue stream to make Caltrain and buses viable so that commuters have a viable choice to 101. At a minimum CCAG could manage, with an increased maintenance budget, the existing roadway under its jurisdiction so that surrounding neighborhoods are not turned into traffic sewers for the rat race. Pricing, as the recent run up in gas prices shows, clearly works.
50 mph not only saves gas (i.e the balance of trade and national security), it saves lives from the energy impact in crashes and the reduced pollution because of the efficiencies realized by today's car engine designs. Today's freeways operate at an average speed of 14mph during the peak period. Getting them 20 mph or 35 mph would be huge public benefit and improve safety.
Moving traffic is a problem. Congestion management saw an environmental benefit from moving traffic at a congested node. However the entire network then becomes a pollution matrix. By Braes Paradox the nodes spread to other locations quickly bankrupting the ability of jurisdictions to fund "improvements." Braes Paradox says that additional roads, or network redundancy, add anarchy into a network. The result is increased congestion. Physicists Hyejin Youn and Hawoong Jeong, along with computer scientist Micheal Gastner, looked at the price of anarchy caused by self-interested drivers and showed that closing off roads (options?) improves throughput.
Taking lanes away from Single Occupant Drivers for HOT applications with speed monitoring will improve the overall network under CCAG jurisdiction. For the cost of paint we can replace the $10M neighborhood congestion program known as smart corridors.
Finally provide real alternatives for commuters to choose from. The trains and buses are running empty with low gas prices. And bike lanes don't connect frequently ending at the worst location in major traffic points. If Seattle and San Francisco and Davis can figure this out why can't we?
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Drug warnings instead of clean energy- the policy problem
This is like the foreclosure problem. Instead of working on home owners the government tries to bail out banks and sinks the economy.
Washington's new tact: Helping home owners
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: December 4, 2008
WASHINGTON — After pouring vast amounts of money into financial institutions of almost every type, and having little to show for it, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve are suddenly taking a new look at ordinary homeowners..
The Treasury Department is working on a plan to boost the housing market by subsidizing 30-year home mortgages with rates as low as 4.5
The government should be working on cars and their pollution to prevent the causes of asthma. Instead the government is allowing a failed business model to continue
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and BILL VLASIC
Published: December 4, 2008
WASHINGTON —
In a sign of the growing pessimism among the Democratic leadership, Mr. Dodd; Ms. Pelosi; Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee; and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, wrote to President Bush after Thursday’s hearing urging him to rescue the auto industry.
by only placing warnings for the drugs used.
Warning Given on Use of 4 Popular Asthma Drugs, but Debate Remains
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — Two federal drug officials have concluded that asthma sufferers risk death if they continue to use four hugely popular asthma drugs — Advair, Symbicort, Serevent and Foradil. But the officials’ views are not universally shared within the government.
As long as experts consultants and policy makers feed from same trough they will be blind to solutions. Messing up renewable energy to benefit a failed business models in autos and fossil fuels is now used as an excuse to not build a successful model.
By KATE GALBRAITH and MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: December 4, 2008
The Energy Challenge
Energy Goals a Moving Target for States
An oil well in the shadow of wind turbines in Abilene, Tex. The state gets 4.5 percent of its electricity from the turbines.
The structure and aggressiveness of the targets varies widely among states...While the country has no shortage of entrepreneurs hoping to build wind turbines and solar arrays, they have been slowed by problems like finding suitable sites, overcoming local political opposition and securing financing. In a few cases, including some in upstate New York, allegations have been made that the developers bribed officials to win approval of their projects.
Fines for missing the targets can run to $25 million a year, but because of fine print in the regulations, the San Diego utility and Pacific Gas & Electric said they did not expect to incur fines; a representative for Southern California Edison said he was not sure.
The government needs to take its own advise on American optimism and just do it. Not closet up back room deals with thugs and failed business executives bent on harming the health of Americans.
Washington's new tact: Helping home owners
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: December 4, 2008
WASHINGTON — After pouring vast amounts of money into financial institutions of almost every type, and having little to show for it, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve are suddenly taking a new look at ordinary homeowners..
The Treasury Department is working on a plan to boost the housing market by subsidizing 30-year home mortgages with rates as low as 4.5
The government should be working on cars and their pollution to prevent the causes of asthma. Instead the government is allowing a failed business model to continue
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and BILL VLASIC
Published: December 4, 2008
WASHINGTON —
In a sign of the growing pessimism among the Democratic leadership, Mr. Dodd; Ms. Pelosi; Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee; and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, wrote to President Bush after Thursday’s hearing urging him to rescue the auto industry.
by only placing warnings for the drugs used.
Warning Given on Use of 4 Popular Asthma Drugs, but Debate Remains
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — Two federal drug officials have concluded that asthma sufferers risk death if they continue to use four hugely popular asthma drugs — Advair, Symbicort, Serevent and Foradil. But the officials’ views are not universally shared within the government.
As long as experts consultants and policy makers feed from same trough they will be blind to solutions. Messing up renewable energy to benefit a failed business models in autos and fossil fuels is now used as an excuse to not build a successful model.
By KATE GALBRAITH and MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: December 4, 2008
The Energy Challenge
Energy Goals a Moving Target for States
An oil well in the shadow of wind turbines in Abilene, Tex. The state gets 4.5 percent of its electricity from the turbines.
The structure and aggressiveness of the targets varies widely among states...While the country has no shortage of entrepreneurs hoping to build wind turbines and solar arrays, they have been slowed by problems like finding suitable sites, overcoming local political opposition and securing financing. In a few cases, including some in upstate New York, allegations have been made that the developers bribed officials to win approval of their projects.
Fines for missing the targets can run to $25 million a year, but because of fine print in the regulations, the San Diego utility and Pacific Gas & Electric said they did not expect to incur fines; a representative for Southern California Edison said he was not sure.
The government needs to take its own advise on American optimism and just do it. Not closet up back room deals with thugs and failed business executives bent on harming the health of Americans.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Digging a deeper hole
Policy makers seem caught in the headlights like deer. Paulson's plan to drive people more into debt is obviously wrong at a time when debt is causing the global economy to tank. "In part, that's because as federal officials reach further out for ways to ease the credit freeze-up that's hogtying the overall economic recovery, they have little choice but to adopt strategies carrying greater risks."
Well not quite. Not at all. You solve debt with jobs. Green jobs that refuel, repower and rebuild will allow people to make their own decisions on how to get out of debt. A revenue carbon tax can encourage better consumption, Removing the deduction for debt will change behavior.
However the infrastructure for energy consumption is the economy and experts do not know any other way around it. That's why they are stumbling today and digging the hole deeper. Strangely environmentalists can align with Republicans to limit the state's ability to build infrastructure for consumption.
Well not quite. Not at all. You solve debt with jobs. Green jobs that refuel, repower and rebuild will allow people to make their own decisions on how to get out of debt. A revenue carbon tax can encourage better consumption, Removing the deduction for debt will change behavior.
However the infrastructure for energy consumption is the economy and experts do not know any other way around it. That's why they are stumbling today and digging the hole deeper. Strangely environmentalists can align with Republicans to limit the state's ability to build infrastructure for consumption.
Need indicators to measure energy consumption caused by infraastructure
Can we measure how cities have managed to increase energy consumption? And what rules are used to shape energy consumption? For transportation its easy. The increase in road, public works budgets, increasing speed limits, road designs are readily available as physical measures of how fuel consumption has increased with infrastructure. The rule used in Level Of Service. But what about other areas like water and garbage?
Climate change is resonant with the public today which is why we have an interest in less driving and green buildings etc. About 40% of the community Green House Gas footprint comes from building energy use. 55% of GHGs in this area come from the buildings location. Our inability in the past to address the toxic results of city actions, by just addressing pollution through the EPA and CEQA, has resulted in species declines and rising resource prices destabilizing the globe through resource wars, droughts, hurricanes, and fires. We have brought on our own four horsemen of the appocalypse.
On the Belmont Green Committee to address climate change, we just added a debate item, to do a postmortem analysis of city council actions to highlight how the working of city hall and the general plan shape energy consumption.
It was good to see the reporter take back this message:
The article goes on to write: Cities and counties make the rules that shape energy consumption. Why fight at City Hall against carbon dioxide emissions? Because about 45 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions come from transportation, and 28 percent from electricity generation and natural gas burning to heat and power buildings, according to Bay Area air quality officials.
Strangely the inability of city hall to address climate change is itself leading to a global decline from the effects of peak resources. The depression is causing all kinds of good things like a move to more home gardens, and declining energy use.
Climate change is resonant with the public today which is why we have an interest in less driving and green buildings etc. About 40% of the community Green House Gas footprint comes from building energy use. 55% of GHGs in this area come from the buildings location. Our inability in the past to address the toxic results of city actions, by just addressing pollution through the EPA and CEQA, has resulted in species declines and rising resource prices destabilizing the globe through resource wars, droughts, hurricanes, and fires. We have brought on our own four horsemen of the appocalypse.
On the Belmont Green Committee to address climate change, we just added a debate item, to do a postmortem analysis of city council actions to highlight how the working of city hall and the general plan shape energy consumption.
It was good to see the reporter take back this message:
The article goes on to write: Cities and counties make the rules that shape energy consumption. Why fight at City Hall against carbon dioxide emissions? Because about 45 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions come from transportation, and 28 percent from electricity generation and natural gas burning to heat and power buildings, according to Bay Area air quality officials.
Strangely the inability of city hall to address climate change is itself leading to a global decline from the effects of peak resources. The depression is causing all kinds of good things like a move to more home gardens, and declining energy use.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Congestion is a poor measure of mobility.
Congestion management, or building us out of congestion, is a poor way of measuring mobility, which is why access issues for bicycle and pedestrian mobility get locked out of the funding and design streams. CCAG has not been able to implement many of its bicycle master plan provisions over the last two iterations since 1995, and is looking for a new plan, because congestion management has wiped out the routes and created the need for expensive replacement which lack any funding capability in TDA-3. One example is Ralston over 101 where the two right turning lanes on 101 northbound wiped out access and a replacement with the Ralton bike bridge is now more than eight years late and seriously funding challenged. Greg Marsden has proposed alternate measures.
Looking in the TEP for alternate funding is also wrong. SMCTD Transportation Expenditure Plan Program Categories Pedestrian and Bicycle 3 0% $45.0 million $25 million (page 7) to implement either Millbrae Avenue/US 101 pedestrian/bike overcrossing (Millbrae)
or US 101 near Hillsdale Boulevard pedestrian/bike overcrossing (San Mateo) are replacement funding for not providing routine accomodation. Both Pedestrian overcrossings should have been included as Routine Accomodation fundings when Caltrans and Bart completed the projects that left these projects up to the local municipalities. When all is said and done, there would be all too little money left in the pot to fund any other project that the 19 other Cities might propose.
In the Economist building out, or Braes Paradox, was recently described and the following letter received:
SIR – It may be of interest to your readers to know that it was actually economists who first figured out that an individual's selfish behaviour when selecting an optimal travel route would yield different traffic flows and times than if one were to assign flows in a centralized manner to try and minimize the cost to society ("Queuing conundrums ", September 13th). Arthur Pigou wrote "The Economics of Welfare" in 1920, by which time he was well aware of the distinction between different traffic behaviours.
Curiously, traffic and queuing problems keep on getting (re)discovered by different disciplines; now it seems to be the turn of the physicists.
Anna Nagurney
Director
Virtual Centre for Supernetworks
Isenberg School of Management
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Note the solution- permanent Sunday Streets!
Looking in the TEP for alternate funding is also wrong. SMCTD Transportation Expenditure Plan Program Categories Pedestrian and Bicycle 3 0% $45.0 million $25 million (page 7) to implement either Millbrae Avenue/US 101 pedestrian/bike overcrossing (Millbrae)
or US 101 near Hillsdale Boulevard pedestrian/bike overcrossing (San Mateo) are replacement funding for not providing routine accomodation. Both Pedestrian overcrossings should have been included as Routine Accomodation fundings when Caltrans and Bart completed the projects that left these projects up to the local municipalities. When all is said and done, there would be all too little money left in the pot to fund any other project that the 19 other Cities might propose.
In the Economist building out, or Braes Paradox, was recently described and the following letter received:
SIR – It may be of interest to your readers to know that it was actually economists who first figured out that an individual's selfish behaviour when selecting an optimal travel route would yield different traffic flows and times than if one were to assign flows in a centralized manner to try and minimize the cost to society ("Queuing conundrums ", September 13th). Arthur Pigou wrote "The Economics of Welfare" in 1920, by which time he was well aware of the distinction between different traffic behaviours.
Curiously, traffic and queuing problems keep on getting (re)discovered by different disciplines; now it seems to be the turn of the physicists.
Anna Nagurney
Director
Virtual Centre for Supernetworks
Isenberg School of Management
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Note the solution- permanent Sunday Streets!
Universal health care should be the first priority.
THE NY TIMES reported today that AIG will need another $40B on top of the 121B already spent. Without addressing the underlying landuse issues, of failure on the outskirts of the driving economy, we are leaving this problem to fester and worsen.
Hurricane Katrina and the fires in California have created other problems with insurance companies. Florida, Louisiana were looking to join CA in providing state insurance for disasters because insurers were bailing out. The load on employers have also taxed the ability of insurance companies to provide health insurance and states are trying to grapple with this problem too.
HR 676 cost of a $60bn-$110bn plan to provide universal health insurance for Americans is insignificant relative to the broken system we have today. We should replace it and reduce out costs quickly and help employers reduce their burden. This will allow employers to use critical funds elsewhere in rescuing their business. Then the government can tackle the investment in the urban environment to reduce the need to drive with the balance of the bailout bill.
Bailing out GM and other losers of the past system without using a gas tax is just bad policy.
Hurricane Katrina and the fires in California have created other problems with insurance companies. Florida, Louisiana were looking to join CA in providing state insurance for disasters because insurers were bailing out. The load on employers have also taxed the ability of insurance companies to provide health insurance and states are trying to grapple with this problem too.
HR 676 cost of a $60bn-$110bn plan to provide universal health insurance for Americans is insignificant relative to the broken system we have today. We should replace it and reduce out costs quickly and help employers reduce their burden. This will allow employers to use critical funds elsewhere in rescuing their business. Then the government can tackle the investment in the urban environment to reduce the need to drive with the balance of the bailout bill.
Bailing out GM and other losers of the past system without using a gas tax is just bad policy.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Green TEA goals
Cities should receive credits for reducing speeds limits to 20 mph to enable neighborhood electric vehicles. Cities and counties should receive clean air credits for coordinating landuse decisions within a 1/4 mile of a transit center to better the bottom line of the agency and remove the structural deficit.
Transportation corridors should use electric buses. This is because the global warming problem has been left to fester too long and the alternate fuel issues are not viable any more. San Francisco has proved that electric buses are cheap reliable and Zero Emission Buses. Programs like the Grand Boulevard are ideal places for ZEB. The Grand Boulevard is also an opportunity to make the land use partnership that will ensure a sustainable revenue stream to the transit agency.
We need a floor tax on gasoline to ensure that alternatives continue to be developed. If oil drops below $75 a barrel the tax should kick in. The last year shows the clear benefits of high gas prices to reduce global warming with choice.
Transportation corridors should use electric buses. This is because the global warming problem has been left to fester too long and the alternate fuel issues are not viable any more. San Francisco has proved that electric buses are cheap reliable and Zero Emission Buses. Programs like the Grand Boulevard are ideal places for ZEB. The Grand Boulevard is also an opportunity to make the land use partnership that will ensure a sustainable revenue stream to the transit agency.
We need a floor tax on gasoline to ensure that alternatives continue to be developed. If oil drops below $75 a barrel the tax should kick in. The last year shows the clear benefits of high gas prices to reduce global warming with choice.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
More duh from McCain
In the midst of the bond collapse which means cities and CCAGs and Caltrain has problems raising money and may even have lost some in the collapsed financial institutions McCain proposing to have the government replace/reset bad mortgages with new ones at lower value with lower payments to keep people in their homes.
McCain's always been the more pragmatic politician on the latest issue, a sort of Johnny-come- lately. There is campaign finance reform, global warming, oversight of Pentagon spending, we don't torture, etc.. The problem has been the results. Take the last one for example. If someone had proposed torture ten years ago they would have been yelled out of the room, considered a crazy person, out of touch, a Klan nut. Then Charles Manson takes over the White House and everyone is marching under the holy cross of Abu Grahib. So McCain after saying he had the experience and was a supporter of Geneva Conventions then proceeds to embrace reform (torture reform sounds nuts) in name only, i.e. excepting the special circumstances of the presidency (which was claimed) and putting a few ridiculous restrictions in elsewhere ( which wasn't claimed and was now watered down.) Instead of saying, it's unacceptable to live in a world in which torture can be discussed rationally, we got the present dispicable situation.
You can see the same thing with Campaign Finance. After reform, media, friends, and issue groups were legal to bring in much more money than was previously possible, completely tilting the elections in favor of sound bites and entertainment and the stupendously crazy claims from the competing like Obama raised $60M in September. Can you imagine how much that would feed instead of feeding Fox and ABC?
So I'm wary of johnny come lately touching another important issue and adding his special blend of incompetence; which comes from a past understanding of a problem, instead of the social morality of the global community. For one thing what is he trying to solve? Is it the decline in home prices which is dragging down everything or an attempt to arrest the bleeding from bad mortgages? The latter may already be solved by the bank defaults and the federal buyout. Its a small function of the problem: which is that entities like Fannie Mac and Mae who did not have toxic loans also collapsed when valuations dropped for their legal loans. These issues in taxes, revenue, and spending also need to arrested by negatively capitalizing the loses in the entire market with similar formulations used in the real estate market segments of the Federal Reserve.
McCain's always been the more pragmatic politician on the latest issue, a sort of Johnny-come- lately. There is campaign finance reform, global warming, oversight of Pentagon spending, we don't torture, etc.. The problem has been the results. Take the last one for example. If someone had proposed torture ten years ago they would have been yelled out of the room, considered a crazy person, out of touch, a Klan nut. Then Charles Manson takes over the White House and everyone is marching under the holy cross of Abu Grahib. So McCain after saying he had the experience and was a supporter of Geneva Conventions then proceeds to embrace reform (torture reform sounds nuts) in name only, i.e. excepting the special circumstances of the presidency (which was claimed) and putting a few ridiculous restrictions in elsewhere ( which wasn't claimed and was now watered down.) Instead of saying, it's unacceptable to live in a world in which torture can be discussed rationally, we got the present dispicable situation.
You can see the same thing with Campaign Finance. After reform, media, friends, and issue groups were legal to bring in much more money than was previously possible, completely tilting the elections in favor of sound bites and entertainment and the stupendously crazy claims from the competing like Obama raised $60M in September. Can you imagine how much that would feed instead of feeding Fox and ABC?
So I'm wary of johnny come lately touching another important issue and adding his special blend of incompetence; which comes from a past understanding of a problem, instead of the social morality of the global community. For one thing what is he trying to solve? Is it the decline in home prices which is dragging down everything or an attempt to arrest the bleeding from bad mortgages? The latter may already be solved by the bank defaults and the federal buyout. Its a small function of the problem: which is that entities like Fannie Mac and Mae who did not have toxic loans also collapsed when valuations dropped for their legal loans. These issues in taxes, revenue, and spending also need to arrested by negatively capitalizing the loses in the entire market with similar formulations used in the real estate market segments of the Federal Reserve.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Get off the fossil fuel drug
The journal featured a discussion of carbon footprints which most green groups also tend to get wrong. In WSJ.com - Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints Ball starts with the wrong assumptions and then backs into the foretold conclusion.
1- That the fossil fuel economy can be adapted to a low carbon future.
2- that a style of green consumption can reduce carbon sufficient for 350ppm future.
Lead to the foretold conclusion that small incremental steps to correct global warming are unclear, insufficient,and risk carrying the stigma of greenwashing.
The library is filled with millions of dust collecting solutions to each aspect of the fossil fuel economy because the constitution sees nature as property and gives rights over it to the corporations that deliver consumable desires. Cap and trade is an example of the constitution selling rights to the biosphere which rent our lungs out for asthma and cancer.
Seeking to spread confusion from his wrong assumptions and conclusion Ball writes: So far, these efforts raise as many questions as they answer. Different companies are counting their products' carbon footprints differently, making it all but impossible for shoppers to compare goods. And even if consumers come to understand the numbers, they might not like what they find out.
Rather we need to be slower and smarter, meaning disengaged from consumerism as the primary avenue of experience. Get more from less- reuse existing streets to increase zero CO2 mobility. Ball instead is mired in the other paradigm.
Why slower? I can deliver a truck load, 1400 cubic feet, of fava beans from Half Moon Bay to Belmont every half hour. On a bicycle I can maybe deliver 20 cubic foot in eight hours- 30 if I pushed myself. But fossil fuels also mean I can build houses in Belmont and leave the agriculture to HMB and Chile. HMB meanwhile chafes under the property prices for agriculture versus growing homes and can't wait for the road to come through. The established solution to green house gases is to go slower allowing an economy to develop around the bicycle and horse and burro and walking and the golf cart.
The silver bullet of SB375 and electric trucks and hydrogen cars can still come on line later. We don't have the time to wait for the silver bullet to work and to get enacted and to deliver results. Species are going extinct now, oceans are collapsing, food riots are spreading. Hyping the silver bullet is just another way of saying lets do nothing. We need to get of the toxin of going faster with fossil fuels now.
1- That the fossil fuel economy can be adapted to a low carbon future.
2- that a style of green consumption can reduce carbon sufficient for 350ppm future.
Lead to the foretold conclusion that small incremental steps to correct global warming are unclear, insufficient,and risk carrying the stigma of greenwashing.
The library is filled with millions of dust collecting solutions to each aspect of the fossil fuel economy because the constitution sees nature as property and gives rights over it to the corporations that deliver consumable desires. Cap and trade is an example of the constitution selling rights to the biosphere which rent our lungs out for asthma and cancer.
Seeking to spread confusion from his wrong assumptions and conclusion Ball writes: So far, these efforts raise as many questions as they answer. Different companies are counting their products' carbon footprints differently, making it all but impossible for shoppers to compare goods. And even if consumers come to understand the numbers, they might not like what they find out.
Rather we need to be slower and smarter, meaning disengaged from consumerism as the primary avenue of experience. Get more from less- reuse existing streets to increase zero CO2 mobility. Ball instead is mired in the other paradigm.
Why slower? I can deliver a truck load, 1400 cubic feet, of fava beans from Half Moon Bay to Belmont every half hour. On a bicycle I can maybe deliver 20 cubic foot in eight hours- 30 if I pushed myself. But fossil fuels also mean I can build houses in Belmont and leave the agriculture to HMB and Chile. HMB meanwhile chafes under the property prices for agriculture versus growing homes and can't wait for the road to come through. The established solution to green house gases is to go slower allowing an economy to develop around the bicycle and horse and burro and walking and the golf cart.
The silver bullet of SB375 and electric trucks and hydrogen cars can still come on line later. We don't have the time to wait for the silver bullet to work and to get enacted and to deliver results. Species are going extinct now, oceans are collapsing, food riots are spreading. Hyping the silver bullet is just another way of saying lets do nothing. We need to get of the toxin of going faster with fossil fuels now.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Why we need car free TOD now
We need to bailed out of the fossil fuel economy.
Yesterday the government had to bail out AIG because it was "too big to fail." Today three banks, JP Morgan, Citicorp, and Bank of America have reached the size of being too big to fail because of mergers engineered by the Federal Government. What moral bind are we in down the road for irresponsible actions from these Goliaths?
Rising gas prices forced consumers to confront the hole they had dug for themselves by greedily consuming the toxic products put out by rising bank stars on Wall Street on the fringes of the commute beltway in Tracy and Merced and Modesto and Stockton. The average commuters costs have gone up 25% because of rising gas and related food prices (from $2500 to $3000,) and upto 50% of homes are in or will be in foreclosure. Meanwhile the government was quietly funding its illegal war, in Iraq for Halliburton and Exxon's benefit, on the basis of consumer borrowing from the home equity.
Despite owning Iraq, gas prices have and will continue to rise because of peaking supply and increasing demand. Another 25% increase seems reasonable in the next eight years making the housing problem worse. Simultaneously, foreclosures will continue to put downward pressure on homes values by increasing the supply of depressed inventory. The next government will need to provide another bailout. The pattern of home value collapse on the fringe of the commuting suburbs outside the urban job centers in San Francisco and Silicon Valley needs to be addressed. A bailout needs to remove incentives for Americans to live far from where they work. Policies to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled will solve the problem of rising gas and falling home prices with locational choice. Carfree Transit Oriented Development is a logical bailout policy initiative if we want to escape the fate of the post soviet empire.
Yesterday the government had to bail out AIG because it was "too big to fail." Today three banks, JP Morgan, Citicorp, and Bank of America have reached the size of being too big to fail because of mergers engineered by the Federal Government. What moral bind are we in down the road for irresponsible actions from these Goliaths?
Rising gas prices forced consumers to confront the hole they had dug for themselves by greedily consuming the toxic products put out by rising bank stars on Wall Street on the fringes of the commute beltway in Tracy and Merced and Modesto and Stockton. The average commuters costs have gone up 25% because of rising gas and related food prices (from $2500 to $3000,) and upto 50% of homes are in or will be in foreclosure. Meanwhile the government was quietly funding its illegal war, in Iraq for Halliburton and Exxon's benefit, on the basis of consumer borrowing from the home equity.
Despite owning Iraq, gas prices have and will continue to rise because of peaking supply and increasing demand. Another 25% increase seems reasonable in the next eight years making the housing problem worse. Simultaneously, foreclosures will continue to put downward pressure on homes values by increasing the supply of depressed inventory. The next government will need to provide another bailout. The pattern of home value collapse on the fringe of the commuting suburbs outside the urban job centers in San Francisco and Silicon Valley needs to be addressed. A bailout needs to remove incentives for Americans to live far from where they work. Policies to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled will solve the problem of rising gas and falling home prices with locational choice. Carfree Transit Oriented Development is a logical bailout policy initiative if we want to escape the fate of the post soviet empire.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Say no to Smart Corridors
Agenda item 7B on the Belmont council agenda tonight is an MOU on behalf of moving traffic from 101 in the event of major crash. Smart Corridors is a symptom of a social problem- how we spend massive public resources- $10M in this case- making the roads appear safe so that traffic can move. In the process we permanently impair city government and forever postpone the promise to deliver on walkable neighborhoods and livable streets.
On Friday night a drunk driver ran into a stopped vehicle at the red light on El Camino at Harbor. The stopped vehicle was knocked 100' down the road. One fire truck from the Belmont/San Carlos fire department showed up along with four police cruisers- you know the costs involved. Two lanes were blocked by the cruisers and traffic was diverted through the left turn lane. The crash was cleared up, street swept, cars towed in two hours and you would never have known that a serious incident had occurred. AAA says crashes cost us $169B per year. 17% of crashes are due to drunk drivers, about the same percentage is caused by teenagers, and 19% result from speeding and aggressive driving.
Clearing the street helps move traffic, which means more opportunity to speed and increased volumes which results in the type of raised speed limits and conflicts with neighbors; and huge public expenditure to add more lanes and traffic lights to move more traffic, again over the objections of residents. More importantly clearing the street quickly means people are unaware of the dangers inherent in our corridors. I asked two residents of Redwood Shores their opinion of El Camino and if they would walk there. No they said the street was safe and clean, but they don't like it, and only go if they have to. I got the same reaction from two friends up at Hallmark.
Now as you know I live here and this Friday a crash happened in front of Rockets the new ice cream store on El Camino. I asked the owner- you've been here one month what is your crash scorecard. He said three crashes and one fatality. Just 100' to the north is our neighborhood bike shop, California Sports. A car has driven into the store three times in the last ten years, the most recent incident damaging the structural support of the building. California Sports has a large sign in the door that reads drive through closed. Two months ago a large tree with a five foot rootball was knocked over in the median in front of California Sports. The water pipes nearby had a large steel cage around it. Is was demolished and flattened. The pipes were fixed in a couple of hours. The landscaping was cleaned up in two weeks. Across from Rockets the new shopping center that was built after our house, where Sylvan and Dominos are housed, has had three trees knocked down and broken in the last three years. When I tell my friends in Redwood Shores and Hallmark these stories they say good god I never had an inclination that the street was so dangerous.
We should leave the crash there for a week with a large photo of the driver and say this public mess was caused by this drunk, this teen, this irresponsible person. Please drive carefully because our neighborhoods are fragile and we love our friends and family. We want sustainable schools and don't want to send our kids to Iraq because of failed public policies. Today the landscaper was replacing the tree that was demolished in front of the drive through bike shop. What's the point I wonder of this redone immaculately groomed median? To send a message that we are in control of the mess we have allowed the public space to evolve into?
In Belmont El Camino is two lanes with parking allowed in each direction. The shoulder lane has room for a moving car or bus, a bicycle, and parked cars. But in San Mateo these provisions go away. The street is three lanes with noticeably higher speeds, 30% higher, and the shoulder lane is not wide enough for a bus let alone shareable with a bicycle. Drivers will blow their horns and buzz cyclists sending a message that a fraction of a second on their commute is not worth the life of person not polluting the street or killing kids. This dangerous and rude behavior is a result of the expectation that arise from the infrastructure we have provided at the local level over the last 50 years. Its why a trucking company in Hayward does not need to upgrade its fleet with an safer diesel traps and brakes. This breakdown in civil society occurs because they don't see the child in the parking lot at Molly Stones who ends up as a disconnected statistic to their irresponsible actions.
Lets look at some other problems with the MOU submitted on behalf of moving cars from 101 after a crash to our neighborhood streets. One of the major problems with this MOU is the vision statement which reads from our General Plan/Vision Statement:
This Smart Corridor project will encompass the idea of Belmont’s “Ease of Mobility” vision
statement; “we put a priority on getting out of, into, and through town efficiently”
Notice where they have taken what we want to do in town and how we want to move around town and used it for a conflicting vision on how to get through or bypass the town.
And notice that the statement only applies to cars, not buses which are stuck in the resultant traffic, or bikes which lack room or connected bike lanes on the associated roadways. But consider the case of pedestrians-
Sunday traffic was backed up on the El Camino by a crash on 101 it backed up traffic on all the side streets. These drivers were now having to make right turns while watching traffic from the left and so not paying attention to crossing pedestrians since cars gridlock the crosswalks to get in under the light. Given the short phase of the walk signal I ended missing the walk cycle at Harbor when returning from the Farmer's Market and had to stay for another cycle because I was worried about the traffic turning from Harbor westbound to El Camino north bound. It makes getting to the train station, restaurants, and the farmers market unpleasant, noisy, smelly and dusty (resuspended dust is actually the cancer agents that no one- Air Quality District, Metropolitan Transportation Agency, ABAG know how to deal with) and dangerous.
The added mobility for cars means that drivers don't have to deal with the consequences of their bad decisions which are toasting the planet and making life difficult for residents of neighborhoods near the El Camino. Instead of helping us have a great neighborhood where we can access services while walking and our kids can play in our yards and cross the street we end up as a sewer for passing traffic where we have to worry about strangers with mobility and our kids. Drivers in turn learn bad habits, like how to use our streets, to bypass minor annoyances on the freeway.
There is related issue of pollution within the 500' school envelope for schools like Nesbit and Central. You cannot build a -NEW- school in CA within 500' of a highway because the pollution has been shown to permanently impair the lungs of children.
Finally the vision statement only sees Belmont as an impediment. The goal is to put a priority on getting through, not stay and visit or call it home. You'd think they were designing around South Central LA. Belmont becomes an accident of the road, a city displaced to make room for moving cars on the associated roadways, a roadside eye sore to dump pollution and display anti social behavior. Yesterday following a crash on 101 northbound cut through traffic from El Camino was running stop signs throughout the downtown. I called Belmont PD but an officer showed up for only 5 minutes and then left, not excusable, but understandable given the cost for us to provide PD with the needed resources.
What I told you so far only covers the public cost for incidents between Friday night and Sunday morning. Our public resource should instead be spent on a sustainable city government which can provide for safe walkable neighborhoods and and a healthy environment for our children to grow and play. Alternatives like the Alameda north of Ralston show that traffic does not have to destroy a neighborhood.
On Friday night a drunk driver ran into a stopped vehicle at the red light on El Camino at Harbor. The stopped vehicle was knocked 100' down the road. One fire truck from the Belmont/San Carlos fire department showed up along with four police cruisers- you know the costs involved. Two lanes were blocked by the cruisers and traffic was diverted through the left turn lane. The crash was cleared up, street swept, cars towed in two hours and you would never have known that a serious incident had occurred. AAA says crashes cost us $169B per year. 17% of crashes are due to drunk drivers, about the same percentage is caused by teenagers, and 19% result from speeding and aggressive driving.
Clearing the street helps move traffic, which means more opportunity to speed and increased volumes which results in the type of raised speed limits and conflicts with neighbors; and huge public expenditure to add more lanes and traffic lights to move more traffic, again over the objections of residents. More importantly clearing the street quickly means people are unaware of the dangers inherent in our corridors. I asked two residents of Redwood Shores their opinion of El Camino and if they would walk there. No they said the street was safe and clean, but they don't like it, and only go if they have to. I got the same reaction from two friends up at Hallmark.
Now as you know I live here and this Friday a crash happened in front of Rockets the new ice cream store on El Camino. I asked the owner- you've been here one month what is your crash scorecard. He said three crashes and one fatality. Just 100' to the north is our neighborhood bike shop, California Sports. A car has driven into the store three times in the last ten years, the most recent incident damaging the structural support of the building. California Sports has a large sign in the door that reads drive through closed. Two months ago a large tree with a five foot rootball was knocked over in the median in front of California Sports. The water pipes nearby had a large steel cage around it. Is was demolished and flattened. The pipes were fixed in a couple of hours. The landscaping was cleaned up in two weeks. Across from Rockets the new shopping center that was built after our house, where Sylvan and Dominos are housed, has had three trees knocked down and broken in the last three years. When I tell my friends in Redwood Shores and Hallmark these stories they say good god I never had an inclination that the street was so dangerous.
We should leave the crash there for a week with a large photo of the driver and say this public mess was caused by this drunk, this teen, this irresponsible person. Please drive carefully because our neighborhoods are fragile and we love our friends and family. We want sustainable schools and don't want to send our kids to Iraq because of failed public policies. Today the landscaper was replacing the tree that was demolished in front of the drive through bike shop. What's the point I wonder of this redone immaculately groomed median? To send a message that we are in control of the mess we have allowed the public space to evolve into?
In Belmont El Camino is two lanes with parking allowed in each direction. The shoulder lane has room for a moving car or bus, a bicycle, and parked cars. But in San Mateo these provisions go away. The street is three lanes with noticeably higher speeds, 30% higher, and the shoulder lane is not wide enough for a bus let alone shareable with a bicycle. Drivers will blow their horns and buzz cyclists sending a message that a fraction of a second on their commute is not worth the life of person not polluting the street or killing kids. This dangerous and rude behavior is a result of the expectation that arise from the infrastructure we have provided at the local level over the last 50 years. Its why a trucking company in Hayward does not need to upgrade its fleet with an safer diesel traps and brakes. This breakdown in civil society occurs because they don't see the child in the parking lot at Molly Stones who ends up as a disconnected statistic to their irresponsible actions.
Lets look at some other problems with the MOU submitted on behalf of moving cars from 101 after a crash to our neighborhood streets. One of the major problems with this MOU is the vision statement which reads from our General Plan/Vision Statement:
This Smart Corridor project will encompass the idea of Belmont’s “Ease of Mobility” vision
statement; “we put a priority on getting out of, into, and through town efficiently”
Notice where they have taken what we want to do in town and how we want to move around town and used it for a conflicting vision on how to get through or bypass the town.
And notice that the statement only applies to cars, not buses which are stuck in the resultant traffic, or bikes which lack room or connected bike lanes on the associated roadways. But consider the case of pedestrians-
Sunday traffic was backed up on the El Camino by a crash on 101 it backed up traffic on all the side streets. These drivers were now having to make right turns while watching traffic from the left and so not paying attention to crossing pedestrians since cars gridlock the crosswalks to get in under the light. Given the short phase of the walk signal I ended missing the walk cycle at Harbor when returning from the Farmer's Market and had to stay for another cycle because I was worried about the traffic turning from Harbor westbound to El Camino north bound. It makes getting to the train station, restaurants, and the farmers market unpleasant, noisy, smelly and dusty (resuspended dust is actually the cancer agents that no one- Air Quality District, Metropolitan Transportation Agency, ABAG know how to deal with) and dangerous.
The added mobility for cars means that drivers don't have to deal with the consequences of their bad decisions which are toasting the planet and making life difficult for residents of neighborhoods near the El Camino. Instead of helping us have a great neighborhood where we can access services while walking and our kids can play in our yards and cross the street we end up as a sewer for passing traffic where we have to worry about strangers with mobility and our kids. Drivers in turn learn bad habits, like how to use our streets, to bypass minor annoyances on the freeway.
There is related issue of pollution within the 500' school envelope for schools like Nesbit and Central. You cannot build a -NEW- school in CA within 500' of a highway because the pollution has been shown to permanently impair the lungs of children.
Finally the vision statement only sees Belmont as an impediment. The goal is to put a priority on getting through, not stay and visit or call it home. You'd think they were designing around South Central LA. Belmont becomes an accident of the road, a city displaced to make room for moving cars on the associated roadways, a roadside eye sore to dump pollution and display anti social behavior. Yesterday following a crash on 101 northbound cut through traffic from El Camino was running stop signs throughout the downtown. I called Belmont PD but an officer showed up for only 5 minutes and then left, not excusable, but understandable given the cost for us to provide PD with the needed resources.
What I told you so far only covers the public cost for incidents between Friday night and Sunday morning. Our public resource should instead be spent on a sustainable city government which can provide for safe walkable neighborhoods and and a healthy environment for our children to grow and play. Alternatives like the Alameda north of Ralston show that traffic does not have to destroy a neighborhood.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Grand Boulevard Initiative another vision
Yesterday at the GBI meeting, Rich Napier, ED for CCAG, championed the Smart Corridors program. Until fairly recently the Incident Management portion of SMART was only to divert traffic from 101 onto El Camino when there is a really big crash as opposed to the almost daily crashes. But at the GBI meeting it was rolled out as a way to manage traffic on the El Camino too, i.e. a combined traffic management of all the freeways and highways.
A developer from Palo Alto presented and said much where I didn't agree with him. His presentation had nothing on transit, great neighborhoods, or the air resource problem even though these end up being the basis of legal challenges. He took aim at Measure W and environmental groups for not walking the talk on density and instead using referendums to bypass the zoning process- the GBI process should instead formulate the mechanism and then build it into the landuse structure of the general plans so that they can't be overturned. The development at any cost presentation was peppered with parking parking parking (actual bullet in one of his slides) and imploring the cities to create an umbrella CEQA landuse plan which would exempt the developers from going through the process. He went on to condemn the GBI as trying to design Santana Row for upscale customers instead of building for the larger affordable mandate and other demographics- in other words lots more housing and lots more parking and lots more traffic management for Napier. He even promoted Laurel Street as a good model- a cities business district off the main thoroughfare; said thoroughfare to be used only for density without amenities like plazas and wide sidewalks (actually singled out as unfunded and unbuildable) which is quite in keeping with Napier's CCAG/GBI agreement to maintain ECR auto capacity at present levels.
There was no representation from Belmont and the task force has vacancies. Serious landuse decisions must start with transit; rather than retail which assumes that the mobility mode will be pollution and driving; and within the GBI corridor offer an excellent opportunity for the task force to engage the issue and the goals and then provide guidelines for implementation at the city level. I'm sure Mike Scanlon, ED for Caltrans and Samtrans, knows this. Instead Baer etc were an indication that the task force was going to the take the easy way out and sell density with parking as green, implicitly acknowledge that transit was a failure, and that the green movement was a means of attracting more dollars to their pocketbooks with business as usual. PA CC member Yoriko Kishimoto asked if unbundled parking and other known parking based solutions would work. Without acknowledging the attraction of lower cost housing from unbundled parking on the corridor the developer's response was that the market may not bear it; and then blew the economics and implicated the landuse choices he was advocating by saying that other jurisdictions offering free parking would take customers away. Correctly everyone on the taskforce and the developers condemned everybody else for not working toward the vision specified.
A developer from Palo Alto presented and said much where I didn't agree with him. His presentation had nothing on transit, great neighborhoods, or the air resource problem even though these end up being the basis of legal challenges. He took aim at Measure W and environmental groups for not walking the talk on density and instead using referendums to bypass the zoning process- the GBI process should instead formulate the mechanism and then build it into the landuse structure of the general plans so that they can't be overturned. The development at any cost presentation was peppered with parking parking parking (actual bullet in one of his slides) and imploring the cities to create an umbrella CEQA landuse plan which would exempt the developers from going through the process. He went on to condemn the GBI as trying to design Santana Row for upscale customers instead of building for the larger affordable mandate and other demographics- in other words lots more housing and lots more parking and lots more traffic management for Napier. He even promoted Laurel Street as a good model- a cities business district off the main thoroughfare; said thoroughfare to be used only for density without amenities like plazas and wide sidewalks (actually singled out as unfunded and unbuildable) which is quite in keeping with Napier's CCAG/GBI agreement to maintain ECR auto capacity at present levels.
There was no representation from Belmont and the task force has vacancies. Serious landuse decisions must start with transit; rather than retail which assumes that the mobility mode will be pollution and driving; and within the GBI corridor offer an excellent opportunity for the task force to engage the issue and the goals and then provide guidelines for implementation at the city level. I'm sure Mike Scanlon, ED for Caltrans and Samtrans, knows this. Instead Baer etc were an indication that the task force was going to the take the easy way out and sell density with parking as green, implicitly acknowledge that transit was a failure, and that the green movement was a means of attracting more dollars to their pocketbooks with business as usual. PA CC member Yoriko Kishimoto asked if unbundled parking and other known parking based solutions would work. Without acknowledging the attraction of lower cost housing from unbundled parking on the corridor the developer's response was that the market may not bear it; and then blew the economics and implicated the landuse choices he was advocating by saying that other jurisdictions offering free parking would take customers away. Correctly everyone on the taskforce and the developers condemned everybody else for not working toward the vision specified.
Landuse and transit
Why not make the tough landuse decisions and fund the infrastructure so that it will be successful? Large transit projects need to be able to control density and retail on the corridor and prevent autos from gumming up the works with free parking, and clogged traffic lanes that delay buses and make grade separation costly. Europe and Japan are able to do this successfully. But we don't emulate them because our best government that money can buy was owned by Detroit.
Times have changed. Writing in the LA Times on the financial meltdown Rosa Brooks observes: As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system." Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."
The Clinton Climate Initiative/C40 “Best Practice” transport profiles San Francisco as A world-leading low emissions transport system with zero-emission vehicles because more than half of the city’s Municipal Railway (MUNI) fleet, consisting of buses and light rail, is comprised of zero-emission vehicles. Other profiles include ciclovias in Bogota and BRT systems around the world. Implementing an electric bus/bike shoulder lane on El Camino would give us the best of these profiles at a fraction of the cost going into hydrogen buses, smart corridors, Ralston/101 style freeway expansion, freeway slip lanes and expensive rail enhancements.
Times have changed. Writing in the LA Times on the financial meltdown Rosa Brooks observes: As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system." Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."
The Clinton Climate Initiative/C40 “Best Practice” transport profiles San Francisco as A world-leading low emissions transport system with zero-emission vehicles because more than half of the city’s Municipal Railway (MUNI) fleet, consisting of buses and light rail, is comprised of zero-emission vehicles. Other profiles include ciclovias in Bogota and BRT systems around the world. Implementing an electric bus/bike shoulder lane on El Camino would give us the best of these profiles at a fraction of the cost going into hydrogen buses, smart corridors, Ralston/101 style freeway expansion, freeway slip lanes and expensive rail enhancements.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
HSR up the Caltrain tracks- No on 1A
There is more (bad) auto intensive planning, only more clearly apparent, in the HSR case, since its supposed to an alternative.
Sacramento and San Diego are supposed to added on after HSR from LA to SF is profitable. There isn't a public agency with a profitable revenue stream- so go figure.
Unless the agency can control the landuse decisions around the station, a 1/4 mile for Caltrain and five miles for HSR, these agencies will lose money and the books will have to be gerrymandered to achieve profitability. The result will be significant time delay as the legislature goes through the process of sanctioning the gerrymandering and developers grease the process. For developers greasing the process see the conclusion of this long article on the housing bust in Merced.
Instead of cementing the needed landuse changes for the transit agency, we leave the transit environment in the favor of the automobile, and end up doing what the North County Times reported in early September, with road expansion precluding present alignment- meaning transit is what you get after you've toasted the planet to the mostest by driving. The rules are fast and loose if we are spending other people's money (fed gas tax, etc.) that we decide to fund and build a system ourselves. A bridge to nowhere (actually an airstrip for private- planes- the basis of most transport planning) is possible with OPM.
With driving and developer greased sprawl we need airport expansion in of all places San Jose! The HSR tracks were realigned from the logical population intensive Altamont Pass to come through Northern California's largest city- for what purpose?
Bicyclists note the airport expansion destroyed the only bike connector, Airport Boulevard, between District 5 (used to Ken Yeager) and District 3 (Chuck Reed, now mayor) that I had commuted on for 20 years from south San Jose to work across the airport from Guadalupe Creek (its now a narrow fast four lane high highway slip lane going to six lanes across Terminal C,) and will preclude an alternate bike-ped boulevard on Airport Parkway that was a settlement with SJDOT, from the Downtown Access Committee, that I was on, because SJ Airport now needs two ten story garages and they will be located on Airport Parkway.
Sacramento and San Diego are supposed to added on after HSR from LA to SF is profitable. There isn't a public agency with a profitable revenue stream- so go figure.
Unless the agency can control the landuse decisions around the station, a 1/4 mile for Caltrain and five miles for HSR, these agencies will lose money and the books will have to be gerrymandered to achieve profitability. The result will be significant time delay as the legislature goes through the process of sanctioning the gerrymandering and developers grease the process. For developers greasing the process see the conclusion of this long article on the housing bust in Merced.
Instead of cementing the needed landuse changes for the transit agency, we leave the transit environment in the favor of the automobile, and end up doing what the North County Times reported in early September, with road expansion precluding present alignment- meaning transit is what you get after you've toasted the planet to the mostest by driving. The rules are fast and loose if we are spending other people's money (fed gas tax, etc.) that we decide to fund and build a system ourselves. A bridge to nowhere (actually an airstrip for private- planes- the basis of most transport planning) is possible with OPM.
With driving and developer greased sprawl we need airport expansion in of all places San Jose! The HSR tracks were realigned from the logical population intensive Altamont Pass to come through Northern California's largest city- for what purpose?
Bicyclists note the airport expansion destroyed the only bike connector, Airport Boulevard, between District 5 (used to Ken Yeager) and District 3 (Chuck Reed, now mayor) that I had commuted on for 20 years from south San Jose to work across the airport from Guadalupe Creek (its now a narrow fast four lane high highway slip lane going to six lanes across Terminal C,) and will preclude an alternate bike-ped boulevard on Airport Parkway that was a settlement with SJDOT, from the Downtown Access Committee, that I was on, because SJ Airport now needs two ten story garages and they will be located on Airport Parkway.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Drilling is bad public policy
The social benefits of high gas prices clearly outweigh the downside. Reducing sprawl puts more money in peoples pockets since they have less need to carry the fixed cost of an automobile. Immigrant families know this. They flock to cities not suburbs. They ride the bus until they can afford a car. We should be ensuring that services are available in walkable radius so people don't need to drive. Instead of discussing the benefits of high gas prices policy makers want to drill off the coast.
Drilling off the coast is bad policy. Numerous editorials have said that we will not make a difference in the price because we consume more than we produce plus what reserves are estimated off the coast. Based on available supplies and consumption trends (imports) drilling will bring 4 cents of relief ten years from now. So why aren't we developing walkable cities and implementing existing technologies now? and making this policy?
More importantly lower gas prices don't make sense. Because of the import dependency we create national security problems like Georgia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We put forward a sham of health care as a consequence of losing our money to war to protect oil sources. We end up with the worst of friends from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and the most abject losers from Tibet to Aung San Suu Kyi. Our newspapers become government mouthpieces bemoaning the loss of
the dictator Musharraf while championing democratically elected governments in Georgia where we clearly don't intend to act.
Politics is about oil and the transfer of $2T in the last eight years to oil companies is the culmination of that policy. Bush is not just sleep walking through history- he is filling his and his cronies pockets along the way. Politicians blab on about religion and non issues like gods in marriage, talking about stuff that even the average American has a hard time believing in or holding up, and worse, firmly believe politicians hypocrits in this regard. They talk to preachers that the average American has a hard time trusting.
Then to make matters worse they can't even define who's rich. The average American earns 40k- $5M leaves out everybody. If you spent $1000 a day for the rest of your life it would not equal $5M. A frugal person with $250,000 could grow their own 100 sq foot vegetable plot and purchase health insurance and not work for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine an annual salary of 250k?
Without a quality discussion like politicians were capable of in the mid seventies on petroleum we get stuck on affordable (fossil fuel versus renewables and the poisoned be damned) practical (sprawl instead of walkable cities, Saudi Arabia Prince Bush versus Tibet's Dalia Lama) and available (now versus hydrogen's promise in the future- but not the siren call of technology: instead our continued dependence on hummers and priuses to consume greenbelt and Mexican peppers.)
Nancy Pelosi needs to do more than just accommodate the latest bad policy. She and others needs to articulate the modern security concerns and its implications toour pocket book and health care.
Drilling off the coast is bad policy. Numerous editorials have said that we will not make a difference in the price because we consume more than we produce plus what reserves are estimated off the coast. Based on available supplies and consumption trends (imports) drilling will bring 4 cents of relief ten years from now. So why aren't we developing walkable cities and implementing existing technologies now? and making this policy?
More importantly lower gas prices don't make sense. Because of the import dependency we create national security problems like Georgia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We put forward a sham of health care as a consequence of losing our money to war to protect oil sources. We end up with the worst of friends from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and the most abject losers from Tibet to Aung San Suu Kyi. Our newspapers become government mouthpieces bemoaning the loss of
the dictator Musharraf while championing democratically elected governments in Georgia where we clearly don't intend to act.
Politics is about oil and the transfer of $2T in the last eight years to oil companies is the culmination of that policy. Bush is not just sleep walking through history- he is filling his and his cronies pockets along the way. Politicians blab on about religion and non issues like gods in marriage, talking about stuff that even the average American has a hard time believing in or holding up, and worse, firmly believe politicians hypocrits in this regard. They talk to preachers that the average American has a hard time trusting.
Then to make matters worse they can't even define who's rich. The average American earns 40k- $5M leaves out everybody. If you spent $1000 a day for the rest of your life it would not equal $5M. A frugal person with $250,000 could grow their own 100 sq foot vegetable plot and purchase health insurance and not work for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine an annual salary of 250k?
Without a quality discussion like politicians were capable of in the mid seventies on petroleum we get stuck on affordable (fossil fuel versus renewables and the poisoned be damned) practical (sprawl instead of walkable cities, Saudi Arabia Prince Bush versus Tibet's Dalia Lama) and available (now versus hydrogen's promise in the future- but not the siren call of technology: instead our continued dependence on hummers and priuses to consume greenbelt and Mexican peppers.)
Nancy Pelosi needs to do more than just accommodate the latest bad policy. She and others needs to articulate the modern security concerns and its implications toour pocket book and health care.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Electrifiy Caltrain on Solar PV
I live a block from the Caltrain line in overcast Belmont. From solar PV I average 3.2 MW per year from 20 panels which equal 250 sq feet and generate 15% surplus power per year. However I face southeast. Similar sized south facing and southwest facing installations generate 4-5MW per year. 4MW is what one electric Caltrain needs per day. That would translate to square footage of panels equal to 250x365 sq ft= 92,250 or round it up to 100,000 sq feet which an area 100'by 1,000' ft. Most station areas are a mile in length which would be five this amount or 20MW per day. If the station area solarized was 200 feet wide then only ten stations would need to be solarized for the entire train at 40MW per day from 40,000 panels.
From the EIR/EIS the accurate power requirements to operate a 100 train per day Caltrain system is approx. 300 MWh PER DAY. A full build out scenario of more trains per day would require 400 MWh per day. That would imply 20 stations areas covered in solar panels. Or some equivalent length of track could be solarized. Given the sunny location of most trains this facilities are more likely to produce about 40% more power. This can be used to provide hybrid and golf cart charging stations at the park and ride and to power homes such as the San Carlos Transit Village with 370 rental units.
Sierra Nevada Beer put in a nice shaded solar parking lot.
http://www.gizmag.com/solar-powered-beer-sierra-nevada/8671/
From the EIR/EIS the accurate power requirements to operate a 100 train per day Caltrain system is approx. 300 MWh PER DAY. A full build out scenario of more trains per day would require 400 MWh per day. That would imply 20 stations areas covered in solar panels. Or some equivalent length of track could be solarized. Given the sunny location of most trains this facilities are more likely to produce about 40% more power. This can be used to provide hybrid and golf cart charging stations at the park and ride and to power homes such as the San Carlos Transit Village with 370 rental units.
Sierra Nevada Beer put in a nice shaded solar parking lot.
http://www.gizmag.com/solar-powered-beer-sierra-nevada/8671/
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