San Jose-themed Valentine's Day gift

This year, why not get a Valentine's Day gift that will directly benefit the local economy? The Guadalupe River Park Conservancy has created an "Adopt a Rose" package that includes a box of Schurra's Chocolates (made in San Jose, and they are awesome), a Cafe Too! gourmet cookie, one free red rose each month for a year from Citti's Florist, and a personal message on a plaque by the rose bush of your choice in the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden. Oh, and it is tax deductible as well (you don't have to tell your significant other that part).

For more details, head over here!

Latest SJSC renderings

News has been slow on Downtown San Jose towers actually breaking ground, but I did come across a new render for the SJSC mixed-use project across the street from city hall. The towers will have residential units, offices, and retail all in the same project. Completion is targeted for 2019.

Source: robertee and hillrise from the San Jose Development Forum

San Jose Airport Expansion

As a follow up to last week's post about SJC growing faster than any other major airport in the US, we now have more info on the physical expansion of the airport. The SVBJ article mentioned that the airport was adding two new gates, but provide no other information. Thanks to Brandon Stevens who posted in the comments, we now have a better idea of exactly what is going down.

Originally, I assumed that the airport was simply going to better incorporate the two awkward gates between Terminals A and B (also know as the international gates, located directly under SJC's only lounge and above border control and customs). Now we know for certain that the new gates are a true expansion of the airport on the South end.

Gates 29 and 30 will be very conveniently located to the left after going through the Terminal B security checkpoint. It will be a much shorter walk than most of the other Terminal B gates. In addition, there is plenty of room to continue expanding in that direction. The original plans for the SJC expansion called for 6 additional gates when demand permitted. Gate 31 is already referenced in some of the drawings. It looks like we may be getting many more new flights in the near future!

South First Fridays happening tomorrow in SoFA

Experience the South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk tomorrow from 7-11pm in Downtown San Jose's SoFA District. 20 different venues will be open late and featuring a variety of local art and entertainment. To learn more about the participants before the walk, head over to the South FIRST FRIDAYS website over here!

SJC grew faster than any other airport last year

We may not have a very large airport, but I would argue it is one of the best in the country. San Jose International is convenient to get in and out of, the central Silicon Valley location is great, it's clean, security moves fast, and staff seems way friendlier than most airports. Thanks to all of the new international and domestic routes SJC nabbed, it has also become the fastest growing airport in terms of passenger count in the country (among the 50 largest airports). SJC grew passenger volume by a whopping 10.2% in 2016!

Delta was the top contributor of additional flights, followed by Alaska and Southwest. SJC is now up to 10.8 million passengers a year, adding one million new passengers last year in its fourth straight year of growth. The increased traffic means hundreds of million of dollars injected into the economy, more tax dollars, and the likelihood of even more international and domestic routes.

2017 already has some many new flights scheduled. JetBlue is adding four flights to Long Beach, United is adding two flights to Chicago O-Hare and one to Newark, Alaska is adding a Newark route of its own and three flights to Burbank, Delta is adding two more flights to Atlanta, Southwest will be adding a new Reno flight, and Air Canada will be adding a third nonstop to Vancouver. The SVBJ also mentions two new gates being added to Terminal B, but I can't find any additional details. I'm assuming they are annexing the two "international" gates between Terminal A and B, but would be thrilled if this is part of a 6-gate expansion originally slated for the very end of Terminal B.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Women's March

Below is a beautiful photo that gives some idea of how many people showed up for the Women's March in January. This was taken by prawngeorge.

Source: cardinal2007 from the San Jose Development Forum

Digging for San Jose's Subway begins in two years

Thanks to the election last November, San Jose is getting a legitimate subway system consisting of three stations: Downtown San Jose, Diridon Station, and Alum Rock. Construction is coming sooner than you think. Shovels should hit the ground in late 2018 and continue until 2023. The $4 billion subway is slated to begin service in 2026.

While the idea of a BART subway in our city is very exciting, it will mean epic construction projects, street closures, and all sorts of temporary inconveniences. Currently there are two potential options for building the subway, a single bore (photo below) or twin bore. The SVBJ lists the pros and cons of each, but there is no way around the fact that streets will completely be torn up to build the stations. The tunnels themselves will be deep enough underground to not have a huge impact on the surface.

Other areas up for discussion are whether to build the Downtown San Jose station in the East between Third and Fifth Street (closer to City Hall and SJSU) or in the West between Market and Third Street (closer to the Downtown core). Either option should attract the same number of riders and will permanently change the face of Santa Clara street.

There are obviously a lot of big questions and decisions, but it will certainly be a very exciting decade for South Bay transportation improvements.

Source: SVBJ

VTA Next Draft Plan

Fortunately, the VTA logo isn't the only thing that is changing about our transit system. There are significant route changes in the works to coincide with the arrival BART in the fall that sound very promising. In general, VTA is planning to reduce or eliminate routes with very low usage and re-utilizing that budget in highly trafficked corridors.

The proposed changes are too numerous to mention (list over here), but below you can see what the travel times from Downtown San Jose would look like before and after the changes. The area you will be able to get to within 30 minutes of Downtown will roughly double in size. However, your mileage may vary. If you live in the suburbs, say deep in Evergreen or Almaden, then your coverage area will likely shrink. To see exactly how you may be impacted, you can do your own simulation over here.

Current VTA Travel Times from Downtown San Jose

Proposed VTA Travel Times from Downtown San Jose

Our Light Rail system will get a major overhaul as well. The lines will finally be named after colors like most other metro systems in the world and a brand new line will be added that will run from the Alum Rock to Mountain View. Here are the proposed changes:

• Green Line (902)
• Northern end would become Old Ironsides
• Increase frequency from 30min to 15min during the weekday, all day long
• Yellow Line (Commuter Express)
• Northern end would become St. James Park
• Double frequency from 3 trips per peak period to 6 trips
• Orange Line (NEW)
• New line between Alum Rock and Mountain View that would connect Light Rail to BART
• Would run every 15min during the weekday and 30min during the weekend
• Potential express service is under review
• Blue Line (901)
• No changes
• Purple Line (900)
• No changes

If all of these changes get implemented that means Light Rail will run every 7.5 minutes (not including express trains) all day long during the workweek throughout all Downtown, Milpitas, Santa Clara, North San Jose, and East San Jose Stations. That would be a significant increase in service.