FORECAST: Plan would triple transit use on roadway by 2035, officials say
Posted: 10/22/2011 10:04:50 PM PDT
Updated: 10/23/2011 09:45:39 AM PDT
El Camino Real could undergo
a major transformation over the next five years -- one that would
impact everyone from motorists to bus riders to bicyclists to
pedestrians from San Jose to Palo Alto.
The proposed changes on El Camino will draw the most debate -- especially the VTA's plan to remove two lanes of traffic and turn them into bus-only lanes running down the middle of the road for 10 miles -- from Lafayette Street in Santa Clara to Showers Drive in Mountain View.
It's all part of what's being called the Grand Boulevard Initiative for El Camino from San Jose to San Francisco. While it's now mostly a vision in San Mateo County, Santa Clara County officials are getting ready to turn the idea of a more transit- and pedestrian-friendly roadway into reality.
"I don't think I have ever run across anybody who says El Camino is great the way it is," said VTA transit planner Kevin Connolly, who led a two-bus caravan Saturday along El Camino to explain the proposed changes to elected officials, city planners and the public. "No one ever says that."
The express buses would be sleek and look more like light-rail trains, with ticket areas in the median and signals that turn green as a bus approaches an intersection. They could run every five minutes during commute times, with fewer stops than regular service.
A 3-inch curb would separate the bus lanes from cars, enough to alert motorists who may wander into the transit-only lanes. The curbs would be low enough to allow emergency vehicles access.
The issue is this: Will people be happy with fewer lanes for motorists and more lanes for buses and bicycles, along with more pedestrian crossings, on the VTA's most heavily traveled bus route?
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Submitted by Jim Alex
14 comments:
That's a great plan, and hopefully they can convert it to light rail at some point. Too bad the NIMBYs have blocked Pacifica from ever having any mass transit alternatives.
How Pacifica lives!!!
Note that no lanes are being added and the roadway isn't being expanded.
This is the type of traffic management that ought to be applied to our Highway 1: not an expansion, but a redesign that more efficiently uses existing space.
It's also interesting to note the steps Burlingame took to "quiet" their stretch of El Camino by zoning it as residential (no business frontage) and reducing it to two lanes (from three) in each direction. It seems to work very well for them.
Typical. After the NIMBYs constantly obstruct any chance at the types of dense housing that could actually support mass transit, they then obstruct improving the individual vehicle traffic WHICH THEY HAVE ENSURED IS THE ONLY WAY TO COMMUTE.
A big part of Burlingame is trees on both sides of El Camino Real. Only a small part down by the hospital has some commerical on it!
Pacifica opted out of any real population growth-the kind that can support modern mass transit-several decades ago with the land giveaways and the failure of the 380 connection. And we're not on the magic Peninsula Corridor connecting SF to SJ. Just a tacky little beach town on the way to somewhere else, and, depending on your POV, either paralyzed or preserved by city politics.
The selfish prevention of dense development in the quarry (Measure L) killed the best opportunity we ever had to develop financially sustainable and eco friendly mass transit in Pacifica.
Thanks to inept and non-visionary leadership we are left to build more hiways to accomodate urban sprawl.
Or we could not let sprawl happen Mike. If we did as you suggest, halt all building because the infrastructure can't support it, that would be a very ballzy visionary thing indeed. I support you in your quest as it seems logical. :)
It would have taken a lot more development than anything ever proposed in the quarry to result in any real improvement to mass transit out here. If the land given over to the feds was developed the town might have reached the 100,000 population originally envisioned. But we'd probably be just as broke as we are now with declining property values, falling tax revenue, and an even bigger infrastructure debt. And we wouldn't have the beautiful hills and such. There's no easy solution and we sure can't unring the bell.
Unfortunately the world's population has tripled in our liftime. If we insist on spawning without check then we are going to have to agree live in a more dense environment.
Live/work/play developments (Quarry - Measure L)which leverage infrastructure are the perfect antidote for urban sprawl.
The no-vision NIMBY's wrecked a golden opportunity to create a 21st century example of enjoyable, civilized living which celebrates the surrounding environment and respects the limitations of our resources.
If an opportunity like this ever comes along again, we will have to unite more than ever before, to deny these misguided purveyors of poverty.
Mike, that's the horse you're going to ride to the next battle, uh, "golden opportunity"? Really?
Leave the hills alone. The hills have eyes, you know.
And the night has a thousand eyes.
It's a town without pity.
and sometimes teeth
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