Why not all of it? If the abundancy agenda is such a premise for the future, why can’t we solve problems in multiple ways?
For me, the problem with traffic congestion is real, ongoing and horrible, with the need immediate and clear. Let’s focus on getting that done while there is a willingness to do it, but without taking homes. If there is an interest in alternative transportation measures, let’s also figure that out. It doesn’t have to be binary and only fitting to your interests.
The worst outcome of this would be for the congestion relief project to be delayed while we study alternatives like buses, shuttles and ferries and then the money for those goes toward projects elsewhere in the meantime. And waiting for a regional measure is not a winning strategy. Regional measure money will go to trains, BART and other established transit to make sure they don’t go under. That’s a good focus, by the way. Imagine the Bay Area without mass transit? Eeks.
Planning to make something so bad (traffic) the alternative seems better (mass transit) is a loser path. It’s no wonder California gets a bad rap. Scarcity is bad. Let’s make both better!
So let’s keep our eye on the ball. Let’s focus on an option to relieve congestion for people who work here on the Peninsula but can’t afford it (grocery workers, landscapers, cooks, journalists) with bridge toll money they spend every single day, while ensuring Highway 101, the backbone of Silicon Valley, sees some relief along with the neighborhoods who suffer from cut-through traffic.
Then let’s see what else we can cook up to see if we can entice some of those key workers to try a mass transit alternative that works for them. Electrification of Caltrain was a good example. It was a big spend, but more frequent service means more options and more riders. Anyone who thinks cars aren’t still a part of our transportation future is fooling themselves. So let’s make it better for drivers, riders and all of us while setting the stage for faster, better and more efficient transit that works for all of us. Regardless of any short-term economic conditions or projections, this area will be growing and we will need all sorts of better ways to move people around. In San Mateo alone, there are eight Senate Bill 330 developments being proposed in the last few months. SB 330 speeds approval processes so we could be looking at breaking ground in just a couple of years. While much of these developments are housing, they aren’t all housing and we are about to need to move more people around pretty fast. So let’s get moving on the plans we have in the works before we get lost dreaming up a car-free future that will never happen in any of our lifetimes.
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I do also want to make it clear that the express lane vessel is not perfect, and does cater toward those with means. But it’s the project in hand, and will make the change work. So let’s proceed.
***
I would also like to address the overuse of the term AI when referring to form letters. I’ve never been a fan of form letters, but they are used to show general support for a particular issue.
I get letters to the editor that seem to be part of a letter-writing campaign at times, and I’ll check in with the authors to see the origin. But I never once thought robots were writing to me.
So to the elected officials who receive form letters, recognize that your constituents are busy, writing may be hard for them, or the general sentiment provided in the form letter is good enough. In an ideal world, we would all have time to write perfectly crafted letters with personal anecdotes and flair but, believe me, we do not live in an ideal world. And elected officials would be wise to reach back out with specific questions, as that might even inform their opinions.
***
On the topic of elected officials, they should also develop the fortitude to speak to the press on important city issues. No one is asking how you will vote, but we do want to know what is important to elected officials, what they are hearing from constituents and what questions they may have. Going silent means they are operating at the direction of staff and not the other way around.
Jon - I understand that you are exploring options to relieve the incredible congestion on the 101/92 interchange. We cannot ignore the fact that his congestion is not a local issue. Coming back from the East Bay yesterday on the 580 and switching to the 238, I noticed the usual back up of traffic going east bound. This traffic congestion is uninterrupted from Livermore over the 580 to the 238, thence to the 880 and on to the 92. I feel for those folks having to sit in this horrific traffic disaster. My point is that rerouting the traffic going east from the 101 onto the 92 will not do a thing for the traffic once on the bridge and far beyond. There is no simple answer but spending money on a local band aid is pure folly.
Using "Congestion Relief" is now regarded an false and outdated argument when promoting roads under California Law and CEQA.
SB747 (2020) has changed the law and made sure the false argument of "traffic congestion relief" or Level of Service (LOS) can not be used anymore by politicians or staff.
It was always a false argument, because if cars and pollution and GHG emissions are a problem, adding more cars can't be the solution. We don't fight obesity with more food, we don't fight diabetes type 2 or type 3 (Alzheimer's) with more sugar, we don't fight noise pollution with adding more noise, we don't fight water pollution by adding more toxins. We try to find ways to replace the bad with something good.
When they widened the bridge they should have thought about bus and bike lanes, but C/CAG, CalTrans, MTC, the Board of Supervisors doesn't seem to have the best and brightest transportation (or legal) minds working for them or occupying board seats.
Only Bus and Bike Lanes can reduce VT and VMT - no car-centric project ever has.
Jon - Thank you for this well-reasoned and balanced editorial. I appreciate your acknowledgment that we don't have to choose between congestion relief and future transit improvements — we can and should pursue both. Traffic congestion is a real, urgent problem today, especially for the workers who keep our communities running but are being priced farther away. It’s important that we make practical progress now to ease their burden while also investing in transit solutions that will serve us well into the future.
I share your emphasis on avoiding home and property takings while still moving forward with meaningful improvements shows a deep respect for the community. And you are absolutely right that waiting indefinitely for a “perfect” solution risks losing funding and momentum altogether — something we simply can’t afford given how quickly the region is growing.
Thank you for reminding everyone that good planning is not about ideological purity or choosing winners and losers, but about making smart, thoughtful, and timely decisions to improve life for everyone. I fully support your call to move forward with congestion relief now, while also setting the foundation for better transit options tomorrow. Well said!
Improving car-centric transportation and public transportation at the same time is simply unaffordable.
And real transportation experts know for many years now about these two laws or paradoxes:
- Braess' Paradox: The observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it. It's a 100 year old paradox which is also known in other fields like electricity, biology, even basketball.
- Downs–Thomson Paradox: "This paradox contradicts the common expectation that improvements in the road network will reduce traffic congestion. The general conclusion, if the paradox applies, is that expanding a road system as a remedy to congestion is ineffective and often even counterproductive."
Btw. both paradoxes go back to Arthur Cecil Pigou - a man born in 1877. So this isn't new science. This is well known, well established and well tested in many, many cities around the world including Seoul, Manhattan, Los Angeles (remember Carmaggedon?).
Traffic researchers have extensively looked into San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway. It was so ugly and bad, God himself took it down and traffic improved: "The removal of the freeway was part of a larger plan to improve traffic flow, including one-way streets, synchronized lights, and speed limit reductions. The area saw significant economic development, increased housing, and job growth, as well as a 15% increase in BART ridership, according to the CNU.org."
Because of all that research done, using "Congestion Relief" is an illegal argument to make in California for over a decade already (SB743 2013). Using it would violate CEQA and the EIR. If Caltrans or C/CAG staff and politicians are using it, you know there is corruption in play.
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(4) comments
Jon - I understand that you are exploring options to relieve the incredible congestion on the 101/92 interchange. We cannot ignore the fact that his congestion is not a local issue. Coming back from the East Bay yesterday on the 580 and switching to the 238, I noticed the usual back up of traffic going east bound. This traffic congestion is uninterrupted from Livermore over the 580 to the 238, thence to the 880 and on to the 92. I feel for those folks having to sit in this horrific traffic disaster. My point is that rerouting the traffic going east from the 101 onto the 92 will not do a thing for the traffic once on the bridge and far beyond. There is no simple answer but spending money on a local band aid is pure folly.
Using "Congestion Relief" is now regarded an false and outdated argument when promoting roads under California Law and CEQA.
SB747 (2020) has changed the law and made sure the false argument of "traffic congestion relief" or Level of Service (LOS) can not be used anymore by politicians or staff.
It was always a false argument, because if cars and pollution and GHG emissions are a problem, adding more cars can't be the solution. We don't fight obesity with more food, we don't fight diabetes type 2 or type 3 (Alzheimer's) with more sugar, we don't fight noise pollution with adding more noise, we don't fight water pollution by adding more toxins. We try to find ways to replace the bad with something good.
When they widened the bridge they should have thought about bus and bike lanes, but C/CAG, CalTrans, MTC, the Board of Supervisors doesn't seem to have the best and brightest transportation (or legal) minds working for them or occupying board seats.
Only Bus and Bike Lanes can reduce VT and VMT - no car-centric project ever has.
Jon - Thank you for this well-reasoned and balanced editorial. I appreciate your acknowledgment that we don't have to choose between congestion relief and future transit improvements — we can and should pursue both. Traffic congestion is a real, urgent problem today, especially for the workers who keep our communities running but are being priced farther away. It’s important that we make practical progress now to ease their burden while also investing in transit solutions that will serve us well into the future.
I share your emphasis on avoiding home and property takings while still moving forward with meaningful improvements shows a deep respect for the community. And you are absolutely right that waiting indefinitely for a “perfect” solution risks losing funding and momentum altogether — something we simply can’t afford given how quickly the region is growing.
Thank you for reminding everyone that good planning is not about ideological purity or choosing winners and losers, but about making smart, thoughtful, and timely decisions to improve life for everyone. I fully support your call to move forward with congestion relief now, while also setting the foundation for better transit options tomorrow. Well said!
Improving car-centric transportation and public transportation at the same time is simply unaffordable.
And real transportation experts know for many years now about these two laws or paradoxes:
- Braess' Paradox: The observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it. It's a 100 year old paradox which is also known in other fields like electricity, biology, even basketball.
- Downs–Thomson Paradox: "This paradox contradicts the common expectation that improvements in the road network will reduce traffic congestion. The general conclusion, if the paradox applies, is that expanding a road system as a remedy to congestion is ineffective and often even counterproductive."
Btw. both paradoxes go back to Arthur Cecil Pigou - a man born in 1877. So this isn't new science. This is well known, well established and well tested in many, many cities around the world including Seoul, Manhattan, Los Angeles (remember Carmaggedon?).
Traffic researchers have extensively looked into San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway. It was so ugly and bad, God himself took it down and traffic improved: "The removal of the freeway was part of a larger plan to improve traffic flow, including one-way streets, synchronized lights, and speed limit reductions. The area saw significant economic development, increased housing, and job growth, as well as a 15% increase in BART ridership, according to the CNU.org."
Because of all that research done, using "Congestion Relief" is an illegal argument to make in California for over a decade already (SB743 2013). Using it would violate CEQA and the EIR. If Caltrans or C/CAG staff and politicians are using it, you know there is corruption in play.
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