Hyperloops and the future of suburbs.

 Suburbs will always be suburbs.  Maybe not a bad thing.  With Hyperloops and 150 mph autonomous cars running in pelotons on dedicated freeway lanes one can live in the burbs and work in cities.  The Pittsburgh-Columbus-Chicago Hyperloop demonstration proposal provides a 40 minute commute from Columbus to either Chicago or Pittsburgh.  At 150 MPH Grass Valley-Nevada City is less than an hour from SF.



 Those few that like urban living will have plenty of it at reasonable prices once any burb is less than an hour away from city jobs by hyperloop or 150-200 mph freeway lanes. Ford, General Motors, and their foreign competitors will insure that the US will -always glorify suburban living with the car and the mortgaged house as the primary status symbols. Huge high-rise garages for autonomous cars will grow like weeds at transit centers.  Get out of your car at the transit interface nearest your job, tell the car when you will be back and tell it to go park itself.


 In the burbs the autonomous car will drop you at the garage over the freeway at the regional urban center, probably still low rise and driverless taxis will shuttle you to your entertainment center and community place.

Autonomous Cars and the Future of Cities

 With autonomous or even semi autonomous cars in 120mph+ pelotons on existing freeways and Musk 120mph skates in tunnels in LA, whole metro areas are sprawlsville.  The American life style will not be changed to urban living.  Ford, General Motors, and all the rest will still be around in 2100 promoting sprawl. 

 The car is the most important surviving public status symbol, and Americans at least are not going to give that up.  They will drive less especially locally but providing rides between urban nodes will still be an important status indicator.  Cities, especially new cities, will evolve out of the suburbs with high density urban nodes around regional amenities with complete urban services, restaurants, service establishments and high density housing at all price points for those who choose to live and possibly work in an urban node.   But the majority of the population will still be economically and ethnically segregated in single family homes and low density apartments in the suburbs. The current pattern for office commercial segregated in suburban campuses will continue for the forseeable future. Even working class cars will be high speed semi-autonomous and urban nodes will still require high density autonomous parking for residents and visitors.     


 Freeways will evolve to narrower lanes restricted to autonomous vehicles, with high speed lanes running in pelotons for efficiency and throughput.  Current freeways of three lanes or more with a breakdown lane in the center can in the near future convert to two or more high speed lanes, one transition lane and leave one wide lane with a breakdown lane for non- autonomous cars at existing speed limits and entrance and exit. Transition lanes would have restricted access and egress and would be separated from the conventional lane by a Jersey Barrier those shaped concrete vehicle diverters used in construction zones.  All that would be required to facilitate this transition would be to improve the roadbed in the high speed and transition lanes.  Autonomous cars exist today capable of 120-150 mph and transit vehicles soon will be once the need for them exists.    

 Autonomous cars can park in high density parking lots on floors limited to small SUVs by floor spacing, served by elevators.  Garages for autonomous vehicles only may be constructed over a major intersection with an existing freeway which is already served by transit and close to developed commercial centers.  The garage may be built over the freeway.  The passenger access floor will have bus clearance for larger vehicles also at high density enabled by autonomous control.  Pedestrian and bicycle access is over the existing sidewalk space on the cross street and transit access over a lane of the cross street.  Cars will enter from freeway access ramps to car lanes inside the garage next to the pedestrian/bikeway. Once passengers exit the car for local transportation and tell the car computer their expected departure time the car will join a cue to an elevator, tandem or more, at the far end of the garage to access parking floors. Exiting cars would use the same elevator with circulation on all floors in the same direction.  Driverless autonomous cabs would be available at the freeway nodes for those needing them. 

Infrequent transit nodes using grade separated bike, pedestrian, local transit and transit access car traffic as entry to the transit garage. This would create a local traffic and transit interface with high speed autonomous transit which would use existing on ramps to access the high speed lanes.  These transit nodes would evolve rapidly to high density urban centers.  Cities and suburbs should plan for and encourage these high density urban transit villages. 


 The Upper middle class will commute from their tract mansions to suburban commercial campuses, or to the city for work on the high speed freeways, using the existing freeway access and local streets for last few mile access as necessary.  

  Service workers and others with minimum wage employment will commute from now remote suburbs, car or vanpooling as needed where high speed transit is unavailable.  

  Depending on what happens with UBI and "Medicare for All" the workers displaced by robotics and the existing poor will die or move to now dead rural communities.  Assuming UBI and Medicare, the revived rural communities will become vibrant villages of local commerce and art most of which will generate excess funds for local amenities.  

SCAG Traffic Issues

 Many of the traffic issues in the SCAG area are caused by our suburban neighbors driving to Urban Amenities like Santana Row, Valley Fair, Westfield, the Safeway Shopping Center and the Lyon center. SCAG occupants would walk or cycle if the proposed Urban Corridor on Albany and Kiely is implemented. 
  
 Another issue is suburban neighbors using the Saratoga I-280 ramps to avoid the problems at Lawrence and Winchester.  Some use basically residential streets like Kiely, Moorpark and Albany as short cuts to the Saratoga ramps causing much of the congestion on Kiely and on the very short merge from Kiely to 280S. Another problem is car dealer test drives by mechanics and sales people on these residential streets.
 
 Work commuting from the suburbs is also a major problem  for the whole area.

 Restricting SCAG streets except Saratoga and Stevens Creek Boulevard to local traffic, would encourage cycling and walking, for the SCAG population, local residents, the local workers on Stevens Creek, and nearby businesses.  

School Enrolment

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/24/cupertino-local-school-districts-tackling-declining-enrollment/

“We are looking at a decline in enrollment,” said Wendy Gudalewicz, Cupertino Union superintendent. “What’s happening in this district is we have very large classes; sixth, seventh and eighth [grade] are much larger than kinder [classes] now and future kinder. We’re looking at a bubble of students going out.”

Caused by....rising housing costs that are pricing young couples out of the area.

 It is rising housing costs that are pricing young couples out of the area that is driving "Save our Schools" the 10K+ activist group under many names in Cupertino, West San Jose, and some in Santa Clara whose email list I have been banned from, but I get them anyway by from www dot 'latest SJW meet-up' on lawn signs in my WSJ/Cupertino/Santa Clara stomping grounds. They always start with PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY VALUES.  Whether it is SCAG, Valco, redistricting, MacDonalds at Orchard Farms or even Cell towers on schools.

 We know that even market rate rentals in the CUSD will affect property values since those values are driven by "School Moms" from China and India paying cash for CUSD homes.  School dads providing the cash don't lose, the appreciation for the few years the kids are in school has been about 10% per year since I moved into District 1 in 2001. BMR housing would be even worse which is why they try to use on site BMR housing requirements to kill development. 


http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/08/cupertino-schools-district-to-tackle-declining-enrollment-with-communitys-help/

 This is a serious issue for High Schools as well Lynbrook, the premier school in District 1, is scrambling for students to maintain their excellent acadamic programs.  Some AP classes were cancelled last year due to declining enrollment.  

Merc. 2017/08/06/ Opinion San Jose NeedsTransit on the Creek

The city of San Jose is planning major new development along Stevens Creek Boulevard as part of its Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan, which will come before the City Council on Aug. 8. As elected leaders of the other two cities along the boulevard, we believe the corridor needs significant transit improvements that are lacking in San Jose’s current plan.

Transit follows residential density.  Always has and always will.  Cupertino and Santa Clara have no residential density on Stevens Creek Blvd and have no plans to build any and are blocking the Urban Villages in San Jose.  This call for transit is hollow at best.

We respect San Jose’s interest in economic development and welcome projects that bring new vitality to Stevens Creek. However, we think it would be irresponsible to approve the Stevens Creek Urban Village project without an effective traffic mitigation plan along the Stevens Creek/280 corridor.

 A viable traffic mitigation plan is included in a supplement to the Implementation Section of the Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan which involves signal timing on Stevens Creek to provide a smooth dense traffic flow Eastbound on Stevens Creek from Stern to Saratoga and beyond to I-880.  

 Without the disruption of through right turn traffic from Kiely and Albany trying to get into the left South I-280 turn lanes in less than a quarter mile Saratoga Ave has ample capacity to handle through southbound traffic from Stevens Creek and San Thomas Expressway.  

 Traffic mitigation for the Urban Village will close Urban Village streets including Kiely and Albany to through traffic freeing up the local streets for local vehicles and bikes in shared lanes and pedestrians on improved sidewalks.  Current through traffic from Cupertino on Albany would be handled by the improved signals on Stevens Creek to Saratoga. Current through traffic from Santa Clara now using Kiely will be redirected to Saratoga via Stevens Creek and San Thomas all of which have ample capacity to handle the redirected traffic.   

SCAG Suburban Neighborhood Issues

 The SCAG facade guidelines insure that even the maximum height commercial buildings along Stevens Creek and Saratoga present a varied and architecturally interesting face to the adjacent neighborhoods.  While different from the suburban tract homes the designs are to be attractive to traffic and passersby on the streets as well as providing visual contrast to the low rise look-alike homes and apartment complexes surrounding them.  

 Many suburbanites who are flocking to urban amenities like Santana Row seem to admire the varied urban well designed architecture.  For others who may prefer their familiar suburban context in large part that will be preserved in the surrounding suburbs that are committed to remaining low rise suburbs. They have many square miles of suburbs to frequent if they object to urban amenities. It is important that parochial neighborhood suburban preferences not be given a veto over intelligent urban design.