Robot shuttles coming to San Jose, SJC and beyond

Autonomous transportation is a lot closer than most people think. It's coming in two forms: multi-purpose where autonomous cars are sharing the road with non-autonomous vehicles (Waymo, Cruise, Tesla FSD) and via dedicated pathways (Las Vegas Loop, autonomous trains/pods). 

San Jose has been struggling with how to connect SJC to Downtown San Jose's Diridon transit center just three miles away, which is destined to become the Grand Central of the West Coast. Plans have been brewing for more than 20 years, and tax dollars have already been collected. Finally, a solution has been approved using a local startup specializing in AVs (Autonomous Vehicles) called Glydways.

These autonomous pods can go up to 31 miles per hour, so they would take about 8 minutes to go from Downtown San Jose to SJC via a dedicated and potentially grade-separated path. Today the ride takes about 30 minutes on local buses. The vehicles themselves carry up to four passengers plus their luggage and are wheelchair accessible. 

The initial route would go between Diridon and Terminal B, with plans to potentially include Terminal A, nearby parking, and other future destinations in Midtown/Uptown San Jose like Valley Fair. Phase 1 would have 200 autonomous pods.

This would be a public/private partnership with the city taking on some costs and an investment group (Plenary) taking another portion. The investors would recoup their investment by charging a fee on each ride. 

The model sounds very similar to the Las Vegas Loop, which will actually be almost entirely funded privately except for a fare-less section at the Las Vegas Convention Center. That project will eventually have over 80 stations serviced by autonomous pods larger in size than what Gyldways is planning. Unfortunately, the Boring Company never responded to San Jose's RFI.

Now for the real bad news. The Glydways project is not expected to get underway until 2028 and could take years to complete--a timeline that may render the whole system obsolete by the time it arrives given how quickly transportation solutions are changing. 

We are already pouring billions into systems that are decades old (Light Rail and BART) so it's critical that this next step is something that will be scalable and move the needle on San Jose transportation for the decades to come. Hopefully there is some way to get this project going much sooner and with flexibility to incorporate innovation as the project is in motion.

Source: SiliconValley.com

Downtown San Jose BART - SJDA Public Meeting on June 10th

If you would like to find out more about the BART subway system that will run from Berryessa to Downtown San Jose, the SJDA is hosting a public meeting at the Tabard Theater this Friday at 8:15am. 

Topics include the tunneling methods, timeline, partnerships, construction mitigation, the designs of the two Downtown Stations, transit-oriented development, and the process for community engagement.

You can watch online or attend in person (registration and proof of vaccination needed) over here.

San Jose is the ultimate electric car hotspot

In order to move the needle on climate change, one of the key transitions we have to make is to move towards sustainable transportation. Fortunately electrics cars are also usually fast and fun to drive, providing further motivation to make the switch. 

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that San Jose is the top metro driving the EV industry. It seems like every other car on the roads is a Tesla, but several new compelling EVs are also hitting the road these days.

Despite being the 10th largest city in the country, San Jose has the 3rd highest number of EVs of any city in the US irrespective of population. It also has 2.4 charging stations for every 1,000 homes, versus the national average of 0.3 stations.

A common complaint for renters interested in EVs is that there are no charging stations at their apartments. In San Jose 12.3% of all rentals actually have stations, which is by far the most of any city. Not to mention most grocery stores and shopping centers have multiple stations, with some places like Santana Row having hundreds of chargers (have a look at the 4th floor of the parking structure on Winchester Blvd).

San Francisco came in as the 2nd best metro for EVs followed by Seattle and LA. For the full article to see all of the criteria used for the study, click here.

Intersections of San Jose

Peter Gorman has created an interesting mashup of art and transportation. He designs minimalist maps that were inspired by a one-year, 11,000-mile, solo bicycle trip around the United States. As part of that he spent about a month exploring the Bay Area and turned some of our most popular intersections into the contemporary interpretations below. It's a neat project and you can view the high resolution image and accompanying comments over here.

San Jose's new bike plan

San Jose has unveiled Better Bike Plan 2025, which will lead to a major expansion of our bike network. The previous plan gave us 392 miles of on-street bike-ways and 62 miles of trails since 2009.

The 2025 plan is nearly as ambitions. It features 79 miles of new separated bike lines, 101 miles of bike boulevards on slow-speed streets, upgrading 293 miles of existing bike lanes with new safety measures, and 37 miles of new trails.

The overall price tag could range between $250 million to $420 million. It sounds expensive but the cost covers hundreds of miles of improvements for less than the two-stop Light Rail expansion to Eastridge Mall.

Source: San Jose Inside

Transportation Innovation

San Jose Spotlight has a great article discussing how we can solve for our future transportation issues. Eventually traffic will return, in fact this past week I did hit a few spots on 101 that reminded me of the good old pre-covid days. We have BART now, which is fantastic, but going forward we should be looking at faster and cheaper solutions.

In fact, there is a grade separated, point-to-point solution that exists today. The Boring Company Loop. Tunnels can be built at $10 million per mile versus $1 billion per mile for a traditional subway, and autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles can transport you from a station to any other station in the network at up to 150 miles per hour. It sounds too good to be true, but so did electric cars that are affordable and fun to drive and reusable rockets that can land themselves. Also, the Boring Company already has two projects in the works. There is a functional test track in LA that goes from SpaceX headquarters to a residential backyard (no joke) and a Loop in Las Vegas that will connect the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Strip, and the airport.

It's a killer suggestion that would help bring our transportation into the future (it is 2020 after all) while improving safety, convenience, and cost-per-mile. Check out Norman Kline's article over here.

Source: San Jose Spotlight

Berryessa BART Station

After many years of effort, BART trains are finally flowing in and out of San Jose! Gillynova from the San Jose Development Forum has captured some nice drone video shots of the new station. Check out the short video below for a sneak peak of Berryessa Station.

BART is finally coming to San Jose!

June 13th. That's the date when BART will officially open in both San Jose (Berryessa) and Milpitas! It took 14 years since we first voted for the extension, but it is finally happening.

The first train will leave the station at 7:56am from San Jose, stop at Milpitas at 7:59am, and then head to Richmond in the North Bay.

The next phase of the BART extension will be a subway that will add three more stations in the Downtown San Jose area and one in Santa Clara. Currently that is slated for completion in 2028.

Source: SVBJ

Silicon Valley rush hour in 2020

There is a new drone video floating around showing what rush hour traffic looked like in March. I can only describe it with one word... chilling.

I never thought I'd see the day where I actually miss traffic. It's a very odd time, not at all what I pictured 2020 to be like. Hopefully this will be over soon and we'll have some normalcy again this year.

Source: Gillynova from the San Jose Debelopment Forum

BART Phase 2 Updates

A video was released a few weeks ago that provides an excellent visualization of how BART Phase 2 will extend from San Jose's Berryessa Station to Little Portugal, Downtown San Jose, Diridon, and finally Santa Clara. I was surprised at how detailed the 3D renders were throughout the entire video.

I was also shocked to see how deep the stations actually were in San Jose. The Downtown and Diridon stations will both have high speed elevators to help get passengers in and out of the stations as quickly as possible.

Source: aphelion2100 from the San Jose Development Forum

Diridon-SJC People Mover concepts

Last year, Mayor Sam Liccardo started collecting innovative ideas for connecting Diridon to both SJC and Stevens Creek (Santana Row, Valley Fair, Apple HQ, etc.). He received several interesting proposals ranging from autonomous pods, monorails, handing trains, and hyperloops. The goal would be to use a system with significantly lower costs than the current mass transit options and a shorter deployment time.

The only option that I think is truly feasible at a low cost would be a loop (not hyperloop), which the Boring Company is currently building in Las Vegas to connect various parts of their sprawling convention center. It might be possible for a couple hundred million (including stations) and everything would be underground, minimizing conflicts with other modes of transportation and completely taking weather out of the equation. It would also be scaleable to other parts of San Jose with much additional effort.

Our current transit options are failing us, so I have to applaud the city for thinking outside the box to make these two transit hubs together as quickly and cost effectively as possible.

Source: SVBJ

Latest concept plans for Diridon Station

In order to mitigate the traffic nightmare in the Bay Area, we have to locate jobs and homes close to transit. There is no better transit location in the South Bay than Diridon Station. Millions of square feet of office space, residential units, retail, and hotels are destined to be built near or next to the station. Needless to say, there is a lot of pressure to make the station live up to the attention it is getting. The centerpiece of Downtown San Jose's next phase of urbanization needs to be world class.

Below are some of the latest drawings from Dutch planning firms that are working on the next big redesign of the station. These need to incorporate BART and potentially High Speed Rail, as well as easier access from every direction.

Part of the concept is elevating the tracks for all lines except for Light Rail and BART, which will both meet the station underground. There will also be two main concourses beneath the rail lines with multiple entrances on both Santa Clara Street and San Fernando Street.

The drawings are quite impressive compared to the current layout of the station. I'm optimistic the final product will do the Capital of Silicon Valley justice.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose is a top city for public transit ridership increase

Between 2010 and 2017, public transit ridership increased by 11% in the US while car use only increased by 6%. What is more interesting--and perhaps shocking--is that San Jose's use of public transit shot up by 46.7%. This was the largest increase in the country during this time period.

Now 46.7% of a small number is still a small number. San Jose didn't rank in the top 10 cities for actual public transportation trips even though we are the 10th largest city in the US. In fact, much smaller cities like Portland, Baltimore, and Boston pushed us to 13th place when it comes to actual usage. That being said, the growth rate is reassuring that things are headed in the right direction and one day we will have more options of getting from Point A to Point B.

BART may finally open in December and that will definitely help our standings. Traffic is getting out of hand, a robust transit system will benefit everyone including those that still want to drive.

For more info and stats, hit the link below.

Source: STORAGECafe

SJC's second lounge is now open

San Jose International has an amenity it has never had before--a second travel lounge! The Club SJC has been around for several years and has won a handful of international awards. It's located on the 3rd floor across from the international gates (Gate 15) and has a full bar, food, nice restrooms and showers, and even a great view. It just has one issue... it's doing so well that it is often very full.

The solution was to build a second "The Club SJC" in front of Gate A8. Ironically this is the same space as San Jose's only previous airport lounge, the American Airlines Admirals Club, which was only around when American had a hub in San Jose. Unlike the former Admirals Club, the new lounge is open to anyone for a fee ($39 per person I believe) and provides MUCH better amenities.

The food and snacks at The Club SJC are very good by lounge standards and there is an open bar for visitors with cocktails (bourbon and ginger-ale is default drink there). The new lounge has plenty of comfortable seats, an area with desks and power outlets for work, and a quiet/napping zone. I also found the service to be excellent when I used the lounge a couple weeks ago. There is no better place to hang out in SJC while waiting for your flight.

My only request, would be for them to build another lounge on the other side of the airport in the middle of the B gates. It's an especially long walk between the six temporary gates Southwest is using to either of the lounges. Even then, it's worth it for a snack, drink, and some relaxation before your flight.

If you want to get access to these lounges for free, I highly recommend the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card. Every time you fly, you get access for up to three people into either of the San Jose lounge as well as lounges in just about any major airport in the world (SFO and Oakland included). It has a high annual fee, but you get annual perks easily worth double the fee even if you just travel two or three times a year. If you're interested, here is the link.

Source: SVBJ

Downtown BART subway alterations

After the huge debate between whether to use a double or single bore subway systems for BART's expansion to Downtown San Jose, it appears there is still some controversy with the design. It was decided that the expansion would use a single bore, which would make it the first system of it's kind in the United States. The key benefit of the design is that we would not have to dig up all of Santa Clara Street and disrupt businesses and residents for years. It would actually be less expensive to build. The downside is that this segment of the BART system would be completely different than the rest of the network, and that would require extensive retraining of staff.

Now it appears that there is a compromise solution, and that is to increase the size of the tunnel from 45 feet to a massive 55 feet. By volume, that is about a 50% increase in size. This would allow the trains to run side by side like the rest of the network, but would increase cost and complexity.

It is actually an interesting proposal for me because the extra space above and below the trains could perhaps be utilized for another mode of transportation. It looks large enough for electric buses or even Light Rail. Perhaps, we could see a next generation Loop or Hyperloop system utilize those spaces. While it is clear San Jose needs to be fully connect to BART, we should also think about how we can leverage this project to support the future generation of mobility.

Source: SVBJ

VTA calling for innovative transit ideas to connect SJC

The VTA as well as the cities of San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino are looking for ideas on how to quickly move people between SJC and various parts of Silicon Valley. They want these ideas by September 30th.

Specifically, this consortium is looking for grade-separated mass transit at a significantly lower cost than traditional projects in two segments. The first is integrating SJC and Diridon such that they are viewed as a single facility--which would be amazing! I remember being completely shocked when visiting Hong Kong and realizing there was a special Airport train line where you can check your suitcases at the train station, hop on the train, and walk straight to security. Something that well integrated might not be part of the plan, but there are many airports in the US with people movers between terminals. How cool would it be if Diridon felt like it was just a quick terminal transfer away from the airport?

The second route would link the airport to three urban villages along Steven's Creek (I'm sure Santana Row is one of them), Santa Clara, Cupertino, and DeAnza College. This is a high-traffic route and extending BART or Light Rail down this way would cost billions of dollars.

It sounds like this RFI (request for ideas) is a way to legally satisfy the common government requirement of getting multiple bidders for each project. There is literally only one company right now that might be able to pull off something like this at a low cost, and it is The Boring Company. They are already designing an underground loop for the new Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion at a cost of about $10 million a mile. For less than the cost of the two-stop Eastridge light rail extension, we could connect SJC, Downtown San Jose, Santana Row, Santa Clara, and Cupertino with a fast and direct point-to-point transit system.

This could be the beginning of a whole new era in transportation that blends public and personal transportation together. San Jose should be leading the charge, innovation is our middle name!

Source: SVBJ

San Fernando Bike Lanes

Downtown San Jose has become of of the most bike-friendly urban centers in the United States and is getting better year after year. Check out the video below showcasing nearly two miles of continuously protected lanes down San Fernando Street.

Source: Sharkcity from the San Jose Development Forum

Lyft Scooters have arrived in San Jose

Scooters have become a popular "last mile" or micromobility transportation option for helping get people from public transit to their final destination or just for cruising around Downtown San Jose. Last week, Lyft tossed their hat in the ring to compete with Lime and Byrd. Here are the main points you should know about the program:

• San Jose is the first Bay Area city where Lyft is offering scooters
• Scooters cost $1 to unlock and 15 cents for each minute you ride
• With launch comes the unveiling of our Community Pass, allowing low-income San Jose residents  to ride for just $5/month.
• Lyft’s scooters are part of the existing Lyft app that San Jose residents already know and love, and can be rented with just a few taps in the app. Riders are also able to reserve scooters ahead of time.
• Lyft will also be providing trilingual on-scooter educational decals (English, Spanish, Vietnamese) along with Vietnamese translation of the San Jose microsite.

Below are quotes from Lyft, the Silicon Valley Bike Coalition, and Councilmember Lan Diep.

Lyft: “We’re thrilled to bring Lyft Scooters to San Jose and provide a quick, affordable and sustainable way to move around - all within a single app,” said Jake Darby, Market Manager for Lyft Bikes & Scooters. “Lyft is committed to a future where cities are built around people instead of private cars — and Lyft scooters can play a key role in furthering this movement locally here in San Jose.”

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition: "Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition recognizes the enormous potential electric scooters have to improve mobility and accelerate our push for healthier communities,” said Shiloh Ballard, Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. "We look forward to working alongside Lyft to support our overarching goals of making multi-modal options safe, accessible, convenient and fun."

Councilmember Lan Diep: “With today’s launch of Lyft scooters, San Jose residents will have an additional sustainable and affordable option for commuting across our city. I want to thank Lyft for working with the City of San Jose to better serve members of our Vietnamese community with trilingual in-app education and decals, and for offering its Community Pass to reach low-income residents across all neighborhoods."

The Lyft Scooter service area is below and for more information you can click here. 

San Jose Wayfinding Project

The SJ Economy Blog has some interesting information on a Wayfinding Project for San Jose. The goal is to provide block-by-block guidance to Downtown visitors.

One of the big challenges Downtown faces is that there are many districts that are poorly connected with dead space in between them--empty store fronts, parking lots, etc. Thankfully, the Knight Foundation funded a project to help overcome this key issue and city staff is working on implementing some of the proposals.

The first phase of the program will focus on delivering navigation totems throughout Downtown at key intersections. It will cover a ten-minute walking radius and the first totems will be placed along San Carlos between the convention center and SJSU. It will help visitors and students branch out into other parts of Downtown.

The totems for now will unfortunately be static, which is inconvenient as Downtown is changing very rapidly. I was hoping for interactive screens that would be better suited for the "Capital of Silicon Valley" and perhaps direct people to events happening that day or allow for integrating creative art or even location-based games. At least there will likely be a mobile way-finding element at some point.

For more info, check out the link below or check out the Knight Foundation report.

Source: SJ Economy Blog

Union Pacific vs. Neighbors

Starting last month, the Union Pacific railroad began running trains at 11pm and 3am through Downtown, Japantown, Hensley and Ryland neighborhoods. Apparently during some nights the trains run at 11pm, 2am, 3am, and 4am--making it very difficult for residents to sleep and potentially impacting property values. The only solution proposed so far is creating a quiet zone by installing millions of dollars worth of equipment at 19 crossings. Unfortunately, that won't be happening anytime soon.

If you are in an impacted area, you can access the petition over here asking the Union Pacific to return to regular operating hours:  https://www.change.org/p/zoe-lofgren-stop-the-union-pacific-late-night-trains-through-historic-san-jose-neighborhoods