The Burlingame Voice

Fall Tree hugger Post: Early rains fill our creeks

The Japanese maples in town have been spectacular, but we have to mix up our tree hugger species a bit each year.  The early rains have the seven creeks of B'game flowing nicely and the cloudy, rainy days this past week made our gingkoes stand out even more.  Here's a couple on Bayswater and the daylight portion of the creek at Heritage Park that runs through downtown.  We're lucky the rains cleared for Thanksgiving.  Hope you all have a good one.

Sloppy floppy signage

It's one thing to have cheesy plastic signs and bollards all over town; it's another thing to not maintain them.  I particularly dislike these floppy signs that sit in the middle of the street and have a little red Yield sign on them that drivers constantly confuse with an actual stop sign.  They stop for no reason even with no pedestrian around and I watch to see if they get rear-ended.  Here's one on Howard Ave. that broke several months ago and just sits tilted and missing one side.  It's a sad little sight.  At least there is a nice gingko or two on the block to distract tree huggers.

Increasing 101 Congestion: Who's to blame?

The SF Comicle dove into the effects of the express toll lanes on 101 that opened in March 2023 through B'game. 

The number of drivers using the Bay Area’s newest highway express lanes is rising — but even as those drivers are enjoying speedier rides, traffic in the regular lanes appears to be slowing, a new report says.  The number of drivers using the Bay Area’s newest highway express lanes is rising — but even as those drivers are enjoying speedier rides, traffic in the regular lanes appears to be slowing, a new report says.

Those drivers, the report found, enjoy speeds of at least 45 miles per hour and travel about 11-12 mph faster than those stuck in the regular lanes.  However, the traffic in the general-use lanes slowed — at some times and in some locations — to less than 30 mph, according to the report.

Our very own former councilwoman, Emily Beach, in her new capacity as communications person for the TA was tasked with the official response

Emily Beach, a spokesperson for the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, said it’s difficult to draw conclusions about the express lanes, which started full operation in March 2023, and their effect on overall traffic.  “It’s early,” she said. “We have just over a year of data to analyze and that includes the learning period while drivers are getting used to the lanes as well as the increase in the number of people returning to the office.”

And as anyone could have expected, the system ain't perfect especially when it seems to me that no one is enforcing the rules on darkened car windows

But express-lanes officials are aware that some drivers without a sufficient number of passengers simply flip the switch on their FasTrak Flex toll tag to indicate they qualify for a free ride in the fast lane.  Transportation officials who operate express lanes across the Bay Area have identified express lane cheaters as a serious problem. They can be caught only by California Highway Patrol officers who can see how many occupants they’re claiming and compare it with what they see in the car.

In the San Mateo County lanes, roughly 25% of those declaring they have three or more in their cars could be lying, a May “toll leakage” study found.  Those scofflaws could be costing the express lanes $8,000-$12,000 a day during the morning and evening commute hours alone.

 

Let's just run the math on that.  Using just weekdays, of which there are 261 per year, that means toll fraud is somewhere between $2M and $3M and change per year.  If we throw in some busy weekends and why not if only the CHP can do anything about it and many of them are busy bailing out EssEff and Oakland local police per Gavin's direction?  Call it $3.5 million a year.  The next time you bog down in stop and go traffic trying to get from the north to the Broadway exit--which is pretty much every time you try to get from the north to B'way--and then get pummeled by the potholes on El Camino, think about the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Then think all of the new office space planned and being built on the Bayfront.

Election 2024: Signs of inexperience

Lawn signs are the most visible part of election season.  I've planted (and picked up) hundreds of them in legal places.  The old saying "Signs don't vote" is partially true.  They have some value and give some sense of where a property owner's sentiments lay.  They can get out of hand especially when a property owner decides to have some fun by posting a lot of them including for competing candidates like here.

But illegally placed signs in the street tree median strips (city property) and, say, the Caltrans right of way just demonstrate inexperience.  One would think a Caltrans employee would know where the right of way is and not plant his signs on it.  Gotta love the Caltrans hard hat in the photo.

Peninsula Ave. interchange "scrapped" for good?

I can hear the cheers from the Lyon-Hoag neighborhood from here on my perch on the west side.  The "upgrade" to Peninsula Ave. at 101 has been bandied about for almost 20 years.  The neighborhood concerns voiced in public go back more than 10 years as shown in this post from 2015.  Now the weight of the project--cost, eminent domain, and community opposition have apparently caused it to collapse.  I'm guessing this council decision pre-dates the weekend pedestrian fatality on Peninsula.  While I feel happy for Lyon-Hoag, caution and observation remain the best course.  These things can be like zombies.  And the pressure from over-development on the Bayfront is ever growing.  The Daily Journal notes

A long-standing effort to move the Highway 101 southbound off-ramps from East Poplar Avenue north to Peninsula Avenue has been officially scrapped, though plans to address congestion and mitigate collisions in the area are still being finalized.

For years, the city (Ed: San Mateo) has looked into relocating the (Poplar Ave.) ramps to Peninsula Avenue because, east of Idaho Street, it has two lanes in each direction, no parking or driveways and has shoulders and bike lanes, all advantages over East Poplar Avenue. The total project cost estimate ranges from $169 million to $227 million, and while some funding could be secured from regional or state agencies, the majority would have to come from the city.

Moving forward would also require the city to acquire dozens of private properties along North Amphlett Boulevard via eminent domain, another financial burden for the city. Councilmember Rich Hedges said, at this point, many of the affected residents just want to know which direction the city is going so they can plan accordingly.

A lot of B'gamers are having sighs of relief.  As one local noted "No, it's not April 1st".  Let's keep it that way.

Sac Stupidity: Let's distract drivers right as they are avoiding something

I could add a Sacramento Stupidity post pretty much every week.  The authoritarian streak that runs through supposed "progressives" is strong and unrelenting.  Take Scott Weiner's latest ham-fisted approach to "traffic safety" as reported in the DJ

A bill that would make California the first state in the nation to mandate speed warning systems in all manufactured or sold car models, beginning in 2030, is awaiting the governor’s signature.

San Mateo County residents, policymakers and researchers reflected on the possible impacts of the technology. Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, it would warn drivers with an “audible and visual signal” every time they exceeded speed limits by more than 10 miles per hour. 

They dredge up some associate prof of civil engineering to assert this is a good idea instead of someone with practical knowledge and research on how drivers actually react to things around them.  Or an automotive human factors engineer.  How much this will add to the cost of car is apparently of no importance.  They even found a guy who thinks a speed limiter will just be programmed right into EV software.  Another authoritarian thinks there should be sky-high penalties for disabling the system.  This is the watered down version of the bill.  Weiner wanted to hardwire the limit +10.  And you thought it was your car.

I can think of dozens of times I have "stepped on it" to avoid a collision or obstruction on the road.  I vaguely remember my Drivers Ed instructor telling 16-year-old me that there are many times when speeding up is safer than slowing down.  Do we want bells, whistles and dashboard lights going off while in the midst of an evasive move?  No thanks.  Will Newsom continue to be guided by his presidential ambitions and veto this?

There is a stop sign in there somewhere

I have a friend who has a full-time job in EssEff driving around logging missing, damaged or obscured street signage.  He's busy.  B'game certainly doesn't need an FTE for this, but an occasional drive through town with this goal is way overdue.  Many of us complain about pedestrian safety and would like more traffic enforcement (verses more speed bumps and little plastic bollards), but Step 1 should be ensuring drivers can actually see stop signs.

If you were not familiar with this intersection, you might be forgiven for not seeing the stop sign.  Can you see it below?  If you happen to be driving a truck, I'll bet it would be completely obscured.  If I took the photo a couple of hours later, we would also be looking right into the setting sun. This problem exists all over town.  Let's get the trimming crew out there.  I'm a tree hugger and I approve this message.

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!

Smile: Tesla has you on camera

I may have finally found a reason to buy a Tesla....or not.  The Comicle is highlighting how the police use video from nearby Teslas to help solve crimes since in "sentry mode" a parked, locked Tesla will take video all by itself.  Sometimes the owner is around when the police arrive and volunteers the video as evidence.  Other times when no owner appears, the police get a warrant and tow the car to get the USB drive out of it.

In recent years, Tesla camera footage has played a variety of roles in police investigations, most commonly offering evidence after crashes but also documenting crimes perpetrated on a car’s owners or identifying a burglar who enters a car. The use of court orders related to crimes that occur near a Tesla appears to be a newer wrinkle.

“When you have these cars on the roads that are constantly capturing information, even when they’re parked, the police can look to them as a resource,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in government surveillance. “That obviously puts third parties — people who are not involved at all — in the crosshairs of investigations.”

Similar issues have come up with self-driving cars now on the road in San Francisco and other cities, which are also equipped with sophisticated video capability, Hussain noted. But in those cases, police subpoena the tech company — typically Waymo — because it owns the cars and the data. Tesla drivers, by contrast, get served individually because they control their own camera footage.

The article implies several murders investigations may have been advanced with TeslaView^TM.  When the long-awaited, cheaper Tesla comes out maybe BPD should buy one so they don't have to park a cruiser in front of the Apple store all the time.  Perhaps Safeway could plant one in the parking lot to look for people poaching a space to have lunch on the Ave.  Or Caltrain could put one in front of the Burlingame station to see who is living in the ADU.  BHS could use it to catch graffitists.  Better yet, they can all chip in to buy one and share!

Bumpingame - Part 2 - Non-standard speed bumps hurt

I've recently become aware of a Change.org petition about the speed bumps/humps on Carmelita Ave.  We addressed some of the issues on the first Bumpingame post here.  Three months later the irritation has not lessened.  What we didn't know at the time was the design of the bumps is non-standard because they are too steep.  The petition is more specific stating:

Regrettably, these speed bumps do not follow state and federal standards.  They create vehicle problems, passenger discomfort and negative impacts on ambulance and critical emergency response.  The standard speed hump that abides by state and federal stds is at least 12' long, going up 6' on the first half, and then ramping back down over 6'.  This is similar to the design that is on Hillside Dr in the hills.  Those follow standards.  They are shaped like a parabola.  The ones on Carmelita are shaped like a sharp trapezoid, ramping up sharply over 2' (instead of 6') and then back down 2' on the back end.  That is why you really feel it going over it.

If you want to get into the design flaws in more detail, here are a couple of resources:

• State Dept of Transportation Traffic Calming Guide, p 62
• https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/safety-programs/documents/traffic-calming/final-traffic-calming-guide_v2-a11y.pdf
• CA MUTCD – California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
• https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/safety-programs/documents/ca-mutcd/rev8/camutcd2014-chap3-rev8-a11y.pdf

Please read (and sign) the full petition aimed at the City Council and asking for fixing the problem.  It's found here.