The Burlingame Voice

New Year: Same El Camino...or worse

The calendar has turned over to 2025, but things are not improving on El Camino.  I just happened to make the round-trip from the southern edge of B'game to the northern edge and it's a mess.  Due to the New Year's mid-week holiday, the delivery trucks (Amazon, UPS, FedEx, Sysco, etc) are clogging up the traffic flow by taking the right lane away.  Nothing new there.

What is new is how many new potholes have appeared.  Some blame the rains.  Some blame the prior poor patch jobs.  SamTrans buses pounding the pavement?  How about all of the above.  My less-than-scientific wild guess is there are about 400 potholes on our section of the King's Road.  The King should be ashamed of himself.  Maybe Caltrans is thinking why fix anything when we are planning to tear it all up anyway, but the section just south of B'game in San Mateo isn't any better.  Here's a reminder that somewhere on ca.gov you can ask for money to repair damage to your car from the road.  I've never tried it, but I hear it is possible.  In the meantime, we all suffer with the Peasant's Road.  Here is the new emblem of ECR that replaces the Mission bells.

 

Total Cost of Homeownership: Not just the cost of the house

For all the talk about our "housing crisis", there is little media or politician discussion about what makes housing expensive here or many, many other places.  The build-our-way-out of it people, like the YIMBYs, just focus on the four walls.  As the letter writer below noted, it's tiresome.  It's also myopic.  The WSJ chimes in today with a piece titled "Insurance and Taxes Now Cost More Than Mortgages for Many Homeowners: Ballooning expenses rewrite the math of homeownership".  The piece zeroes in on home insurance, flood/fire insurance, property taxes and home repair costs and shows

These ballooning expenses are rewriting the math of homeownership. In September, 32% of the average single-family mortgage payment went to property taxes and home insurance, the highest rate ever for data going back to 2014, according to Intercontinental Exchange.  For a small but increasing share of households, the burden is far more significant. In five major metro areas—Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y.; Omaha, Neb.; New Orleans and Miami—at least a quarter of borrowers spend more than half their monthly mortgage payment on taxes and insurance, according to ICE. 

These metro areas have high property taxes or pricey home insurance relative to typical home costs, or both.  Nationwide, taxes and insurance make up more than half of the monthly mortgage payment for 9% of single-family mortgages. That is up from less than 4% at the end of 2014. 

Left out of the equation because of how the study gathered data are the other costs--electricity, natural gas, garbage, sewer/water and bond measures for schools and anything else the politicians can dream up (looking at you Caltrain and sea level rise).  A major variable will always be interest rates, but all of these other factors just pile on and increases get waved through regularly.

One could even argue the YIMBY mentality will make it all worse.  More grid, more water, more sewage treatment, more classrooms, more, more, more.  Decarbonize your house in the next 10 years?  That won't be easy or cheap as we noted here.  Looking at all of the costs in total reveals the real story--not the faddish one.

B'game Train Station: Museum coming soon

Our extra special correspondent to the Daily Journal, local author Joanne Garrison, has penned a history of our historic train station at Burlingame Ave. as part of the run-up to reopening the Historical Society Museum in the station.  The DJ piece notes

Members of the Burlingame Country Club lobbied for the train station, selected its location, and chose its architects. The members also insisted that the station stop be named “Burlingame” after their club.  The Southern Pacific Railroad was involved, of course, but it contributed less than half the cost of the station — the country club members picking up the bulk of the tab. As architects, the BCC selected George H. Howard, a club member and a scion of the family who owned the property on which the station would sit, and Joachim B. Mathisen, a Norwegian immigrant who had been a draftsman in the office of A. Page Brown at the time Brown designed the California Pavilion for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Commissioned to reflect the uniqueness of California, Brown designed the temporary Chicago structure to resemble a California mission.

More than half a century after it was built, the Burlingame Train Station was awarded both California landmark status and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places because of its architecture. It is the first permanent structure that employs all the elements of what came to be called the Mission Revival-style.

There was a nice event with several hundred people at the station to celebrate the electrification of Caltrain with e-trains offering free hops down to San Mateo where a larger event was held.  There will be more to follow as we get closer to the reopening of the museum.  We should enjoy the train while we can since its financial status is shaky at best.  As one wag said at the event, Waymo is going to give Caltrain more fiscal heartburn as people get used to driverless, door-to-door service for a good price.

Do we need some AI at Broadway?

I get it.  It's a complicated intersection.  We've got a lot of traffic coming off 101.  We've got a lot of traffic headed to 101.  We've got three big intersections at Rollins, Carolan and California before cars squeeze into an historic retail district.  We've got Caltrains going in both directions and they stop occasionally on the weekends.  We've got the worst designed roadway in the mid-Peninsula at our new and "improved" California Dr. with a too-tight left turn from B'way to southbound California.  There's pedestrians and a few bikers.  There SamTrans busses and big trucks--really big trucks that carry the cars whose sales fund the city quite well.  Some of the drivers from somewhere else and are staying at our other revenue stream--a half dozen Bayfront hotels.  They get to figure out the maze in real time.

Almost everyone wants a grade separation that is a hundred million bucks or so short and losing ground as inflation grinds on.  All the local politicians want it--and some even get kudos from the press for "advocating" for more money.  I can "advocate" for SpaceX to get to Mars sooner, but that ain't gonna make it happen.

In the meantime, perhaps we could chip away at the easiest annoyance.  Coming into the Broadway district from the 101 off-ramps, it's not uncommon to sit through two or even three cycles of the light to turn left onto Carolan.  You think you are a savvy local and will head down towards the high school as a Caltrain rumbles through.  But no.  The light cycles from yellow to red.  Back to yellow, back to red.  No traffic coming towards you (the gates are down).  No northbound traffic turning left onto B'way (no room at the gates).  So you wait.  Informed sources tell me that it's because two old light controllers are joined at the hip when they should be separate.  No one wants to invest to fix it while we wait for the Big Dig.....

What's it going to take?  OpenAI and an awesome code jockey?  A plea to ChatGPT?  A grizzled old Caltrain electrician coming out of retirement to save the day?  How do we Grok this problem?  At the very minimum, let's not replicate the problem at Oak Grove, please!

The Broadway intersection is a train wreck

Last September we got early evidence of how bad the new Broadway-California Dr. intersection alignment is as noted here.  Its unpopularity was immediate and is growing.  The "people just need to get used to it" approach isn't working in the face of more evidence that it's even more dangerous than before.  The latest incident on Monday created a giant mess--65 feet of mess-- as a car carrier full of cars got clipped by a Caltrain as it tried to navigate the too-tight turn left onto southbound California Dr.  The major intersection was closed for more than an hour.  The incident report may determine if a SamTrans bus was in the way or the driver just realized he couldn't make the turn or he just ran out of time.

Before anyone says 65' car carriers shouldn't be travelling on Broadway or California, remember we were the City of Cars (e.g. Auto Row) even before we were the City of Trees.  Car sales taxes are an important part of the B'game financial stability.  We need to make it easier, not harder, for auto businesses to operate.

The California Dr. project has only made things worse for all.  The odd layout with parking in what feels like the middle of the street is just plain weird.  People who do park there feel it innately and you can tell by how close they park to the bike lane bollards and how many fold in their mirrors.

A letter to the DJ editor the following day made a few suggestions some good, but several are not likely to make a real difference.  Among them are:

1. Conspicuous signage to alert drivers of the unique geometrics of the crossing;  There is no amount of signage that will communicate in milliseconds what the problem is for a driver to understand and react to while driving 25 mph.
2. Longer clearing period; This could help.  The City should work with Caltrain to make the track clearance phase immediate and snappier.
3.  Longer warning bell period:  The warning period is adequate.  If you make it longer, then it will create more congestion as trains will lock up the intersection for a longer period of time.  This is not a solution.  And just wait for HSR to come through--oh, nevermind.
4. Restriction of trucks:  This is not realistic.  How do you sign this?  Where do you put reroute signage for truck operators to follow?  And in the end, how do you enforce this – you can’t.  We can’t have BPD out there being hall monitors, especially when we need more enforcement elsewhere in town.
5. Restrict left turns from Carolan Avenue:  This is worth a look!  It might only be a band-aid, but worth studying.

The Daily Journal article on the collision (some locals are refusing to call it an "accident" since these are becoming so common as to be a "feature") puts a lot of hope on the grade separation, but we know that is still deca-millions from being funded.  In the meantime, can we just put California Dr. back the way it was?  Give the SamTrans and truck drivers a break as well as our first responders.  At  least the fire station is close--if the trucks can get up California Dr. when there is nowhere for people to pull over.

Notice how far over the left turn lane is from where it used to be.

EssEff: Carl Nolte asking train questions

Columnist Carl Nolte is one of the last remaining vestiges of the SF Chronicle before it transformed into the SF Comicle.  His Sunday column (front section, page 2) is always worth the read and he mixes nostalgia for the lost Bagdad by the Bay with keen observations and, in this week's piece, actual letter grades for the City on a number of aspects.  One snippet caught my attention because it is symptomatic of other screw-ups.  Nolte notes: 

I rode the 30-Stockton bus into Chinatown on the first day of summer, a shopping day. It was packed, standing room only. I rode the subway back. It was nearly empty, plenty of seats. Why did the taxpayers pay $2 billion for a subway when the customers clearly prefer the bus? Good question for the urban planners. It will be on the next test.

Don't expect those urban planners to pass.  The greenwashers keep trying to get people to abandon how they want to travel in favor of how a "planner" wants them to travel.  Look no further than our high-cost rail boondoggle.  Forget $2 billion, think $200 billion and still not "complete" per the promised route.  We'll have electric commercial flights to LA before we have an HSR trip that will take three times as long.  Will Caltrain avoid the fiscal cliff?  I hope so, but it's looking perilous--and expensive for the Bay Area taxpayers.

B'game Train Station ADU?

I guess deputy directors at Caltrain struggle to find affordable living quarters on the Peninsula even though the payroll at Caltrain is very bloated IMHO.  But who knew it would get this weird?  Former deputy director for operations Joe Navarro and a contractor friend named Seth Worden have been charged with skimming public funds to create living spaces in the B'game and Millbrae train stations!  In small increments, Navarro is alleged to have paid Worden $42,000 for the secret apartment in the B'game station and another $8K for the Millbrae hideaway.

As shown below, the B'game station has always had living space on the south side as that was the original station master's quarters (to the right of the arches).  Later on, it was the B'game Chamber of Commerce office and had a kitchenette and toilet already.  That was where an arsonist tried to burn the place down in 2016.  It must be tricked out pretty nicely for $42K.  According to the Merc

Worden was caught first, in 2020, after employees discovered the converted space, authorities said. But the transit agency was reportedly unaware of Navarro’s place in Burlingame until getting an anonymous tip in 2022.  Navarro was fired after being confronted with the tip, and reportedly admitted to “occasionally using the station as his residence,” prosecutors said, though they allege that he was using the small apartment as his primary residence.

I can't wait to find out why it took years to bring the felony embezzlement charges.

Transit Poll Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

I doubt we will see a more honest news headline this year than the Merc's take on the latest poll about transit issues in the Bay Area:

     Bay Area voters in support of better transit, if rich people and companies pay

That's the OPM Syndrome that affects a lot of people (the majority?) in California.  57% of 600 people polled support taxing someone else to pay for "affordable and coordinated transit".  I'm surprised it's not eight out of ten.  The poll is gauging support for yet another Sen. Scott Wiener reach into other people's pockets (SB 925).  He wants to better connect the Bay Area's 27 transit agencies.  The problem here should be obvious, but not to "Throw more money at it" Wiener.  Here's the worst part:

Wiener's bill contains no details on how money would be raised, what improvements it would pay for, how a streamlined transit system would be managed, or how spending would be overseen.

Get ready to fill in the "No" box on your ballot.  Meanwhile the giant sucking sound from the Central Valley is unabated.  And give that headline writer a raise.

BART: Bay Area Rapidly Toppling

We don't spend much time talking about BART since it stops in Millbrae (except for some train car storage in B'game) and isn't likely to ever expand south down the Peninsula.  But watching the South Bay expansion plans topple over due to climbing costs is instructive.  As the Merc notes:

The extension would create six miles of new track — including a subterranean tunnel underneath San Jose — looping BART service from the north part of the city to downtown and then up to Santa Clara at its Caltrain terminal.

South Bay residents shocked by last fall’s price jump for the San Jose BART extension — from $9.1 billion to $12.2 billion — may need to brace themselves again.

In a turn of events that could have major consequences for an extension already struggling with exploding prices and timeline delays, an independent assessment set to be released this month from federal officials may peg the project’s cost even higher than the agency’s $12.2 billion estimate, the Valley Transportation Authority’s chief megaproject officer told The Mercury News in an exclusive interview this week.

In October, VTA announced its most recent cost jump and an expected completion date of 2036 — a decade later than originally expected. The announcement sparked the VTA Board to create an oversight committee investigating issues facing the project.

You know things are bad when a governing body creates an "oversight committee" to shield themselves from criticism for not doing the job they were elected or selected to do themselves.  And then there is this common refrain:

The report states, “Due to frequent turnover and vacancies in key (BART San Jose extension) positions, (the Project Management Oversight Contractor) is concerned about the lack of succession planning and inadequate transition periods in dealing with attrition and turnover.”

All of this uncertainty and cost explosion is over just six miles of track!  Just imagine what the real numbers for High-Cost Rail are if anyone from Newsom on down were actually paying attention.  It can boondoggle the mind.

SamTrans: Somebody has to ask....

I love the Daily Journal but let's face it--hard-hitting journalism is not its forte.  The Daily Post drills points home in Palo Alto even when they are a little questionable, but that is what Big J "Journalism" is all about.  The latest example is this DJ puff piece about SamTrans looking to buy new office space because their building is 40+ years old.  Oh Dear.

SamTrans has identified four properties of interest in the potential acquisition of a new district headquarters building, all located within walking distance of a Caltrain station. 

During a meeting Wednesday, Dec. 6, staff presented four properties of interest to the board, including The Gateway at Millbrae — located at the intersection of the Millbrae Caltrain and BART station — Circle Star in San Carlos and two downtown Redwood City properties. All are strategically located near a Caltrain station and range in size from about 71,000 to 180,000 square feet. 

The push for modernized SamTrans headquarters, currently located in San Carlos and occupying 140,000 gross square feet, began in 2019, arising out of concerns the 44-year-old building was not only too small for the growing number of employees, but it adhered to outdated 1970s building code and seismic standards.

So I have to ask:

1.  Why is there a "growing number of employees" who work in an office?  Not bus drivers or mechanics, just cube dwellers?  The system is on life support and should be cutting cube dwellers before the rest of us, who seldom take the bus, have to pay for the overhead. It's a local bus system, not NASA trying to get to Mars before Musk.

2.  Are these cube dwellers even coming into the office?  The same-day Daily Post edition had the Big J piece about how getting into the top floor of the Palo Alto City Hall is sort of like entering CIA headquarters.  Nobody in PA government wanted the Post to see so many empty cubes.  What is the SamTrans Zoom bill these days?

3.  Why not lease?  The reporter repeats the spin as "coupled with a commercial real estate market now seeing sky-high vacancy rates, the circumstances to purchase property near transit are increasingly attractive."  Uh, no.  With commercial space seeing sky-high vacancy rates how about going for a tasty 10 or 15 or 20 year lease.  In 15 years we might not even need a physical bus authority office space.  Somebody has to ask.