The Burlingame Voice

Euc Watch: Another One Bites the Dust, Another One....

Another one bit the dust today.  I was awakened by the grinding of the giant shredding machine.  No "High Winds or Downed Trees" on this beautiful Spring Day in B'game.  We are indeed "privileged" by our hard work to live here.  One has to wonder if Caltrans' plan is to kill the Euc grove via "death by a thousand cuts"?  I doubt it since that would imply Caltrans has a plan.  But nonetheless, one of the "Big Boys" was levelled this morning.  If you are crossing ECR from the West Side to go to St. Catherine's (first stop) or walking downtown, the Big Boy who was your sentinel at the corner is gone.

I got an SMC Alert about something in San Bruno, but the closing of both lanes, both directions of El Camino in B'game apparently didn't qualify for an alert.  Nothing to see here.  The deployment of forces--giant crane, grinder, multiple dump trucks, trailers, etc felt just a tiny bit like they were building a section of high-cost rail in the Central Valley and didn't want anyone to notice.  ECR was fully closed for about 5-6 hours.  One down, 390 to go.  Here's the scene and the healthy stump--at least it looks healthy to me.

B'game Traffic Enforcement - No clear trend

I'm sticking by my assertion from last November made in the post titled "Does the whole County need remedial driving class?" because things do not appear to have improved.  As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said on Hill Street Blues at the start of every shift "Let's be careful out there".  He was talking to the officers; I refer to the officers and drivers and pedestrians and cyclists.

Back in January we did the annual round-up of crime in town here.  Now BPD has made available the annual traffic enforcement numbers, so here they are:

                                                         2017      2018      2019      2020       2021      2022 

Reported Vehicle Accidents                  317        324        300        200       199        252

Traffic Stops                                      5,003      4,620      5.981    3,413    4,548      3,567 

Moving Citations Issued                      2,615      2,448      3,234    1,421     2,264     1,856

Following one of the principles of the Voice (i.e.  "A numerator without a denominator is useless"), I confirmed with the Chief that officer hours-on-the-street are essentially the same over the seven years.  The only real conclusion I can make from the stats is the Covid lockdown years led to a 30-50% decrease in accidents, stops and citations.  The rebound last year was fairly slow as well.

It would be easy to attribute the numbers to more working-from-home, crazy gas prices, kids postponing getting their licenses, or whatever else you can think of, but they show stability--at least in B'game.  The denominator we don't have is miles-driven in town.  Update:  A reader requested some further breakdown of the types of citations in the total, so BPD has been able to peel the onion a bit.  Here are some key categories:

• Distracted driving (cellphones): 31%
• Speed:  19%
• Stop signs:  13%
• Failure to obey a sign other than a stop sign (i.e. no left turn sign, no right on red sign, etc.):  9%
• Failure to yield to a pedestrian:  2%
• Vehicles driving in bike lanes:  2%
• Failure to yield while turning:  1%

              

Paying Thrice for the Same Road

With the arrival of the express toll lanes on 101 through B'game, gas powered vehicle drivers now get to pay three times for the same road- regular taxes that are supposed to pay for infrastructure, gas taxes of $0.539 per gallon that are supposed to pay for roads and toll charges.  Who knows where that money is going.  The Merc reports

San Francisco Bay Area motorists on Friday saw a new span of toll-based express lanes open on Highway 101, the latest move to ease congestion on one of the region’s most frustrating commutes.

The opening — from Whipple Avenue in Redwood City to Interstate 380 in South San Francisco — means one of California’s busiest corridors now has 22 miles of express lanes that are free to use for carpoolers carrying at least three people and give other drivers the option to pay for faster freeway speeds.

And of course, there is this "hack"

Q: Why aren’t the lanes reducing congestion for most drivers?

A: One of the central benefits of express lanes is that they incentivize carpoolers, thereby taking vehicles off the roads and freeing up traffic for everybody. Cars with at least three people ride for free, and vehicles carrying two people get a 50% discount. But as express lanes roll out around the region, it’s unclear if the system has encouraged more carpooling, while it is clear that it has encouraged drivers to cheat the system.

An early study from the MTC found that on I-880 in August 2020, the vast majority of drivers claiming to have three people in the car were lying. About 28% of drivers set their Fastrak responder to indicate three occupants, while only 2% of cars were carrying three people, the study found.  “It’s really expensive to do enforcement,” said Goodwin. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to still close the gaps.”

And also of course there is the obligatory "equity" bow

Q: These lanes sound expensive. Are there any options for low-income people?

A: Yes, for San Mateo County adults who are making $78,300 or less a year, there is a one-time $100 stipend for express lanes or public transit rides.

You can bet this program costs huge bundles of cash to design, operate, monitor and dispense a C-note.  MTC admits it barely works and is hard to enforce, but they need to expand it.

91% of 390 Trees is a Lot of Trees

Last night's big confab with Caltrans and city officials regarding the El Camino Real renewal project was eye-opening for a lot of people.  Probably not regular Voice readers since we have discussed it in 2021 here and here.  The most eye-opening statement made last night was during the Q&A when Caltrans was asked how many of the giant Eucs were scheduled to be cut down.  The answer was "about 9% will remain".  There are about 390 of the historic ones in the 3-mile stretch.

The other way to phrase that is 91% of 390 Eucs will be taken out.  That's 355 giant trees.  Buried in the details of compacted soil, broken sidewalks, retaining walls, sight triangles, sulfur fungus, poor trimming around the power lines, etc is the lead:  355 eucalyptus trees are history--well, we thought they were historic since the grove is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but really they're just history.  There will be 35 survivors who will stand in testament to their fallen brethren and to the ECR that once was.

There were a number of long-time B'gamers there and one that I had not seen in at least 6 or 7 years came over after the Q&A and asked the Big Questions.  He asked "how many people know about this?  And what are they gonna do when they find out?"  I've been asking myself the same question.  Another knowledgeable long-time local has asked 30 people if they are aware of the tree situation over the last few days.  General awareness is close to nil. 

This project has been in the works for years.  Maybe Caltrans and the city hasn't had a good idea of how many trees would have to go, but they do now.  In the interest of transparency, shouldn't the city send out the short, to-the-point notice that this is coming?  You bet.  Then wait for the outrage to arrive.

I'll double back with more on the proceedings soon.  There were numerous displays and a tabletop exercise looking at the Hillside and Bayswater intersections with measurements, planning tools and tree options.  In the meantime, here is Mayor Brownrigg introducing the B'gamers who are on the ECR task force with some Caltrans people seated behind.

Crosseyed in the Crosswalk

I enjoy receiving interesting comments and especially photos from intrepid local observers.  This gem came in during the week and has me wondering what the BHS students will do?  It's a classic in the "Streets of Burlingame" category!  Keep 'em coming.

Update:   Is this better?

 

Crime numbers in review: 2022

BPD rolls up the prior year in local crime each January and we dutifully report it to you.  All in all, it appears that 2022 was pretty much the same as the last couple of years with the exception of catalytic converter thefts which are on a steep trajectory upwards.  We touched on the topic in March here.  In the comments on that post, you can read about CATGUARD.  I'll check on whether B'game is thinking about it like San Mateo and update this.

My guess is porch pirate thefts are seriously underreported to BPD.  Just looking at the Ring camera footage from nearby neighborhoods, two per month seems low.  Remember that all of these numbers are monthly - so we had 36 residential burglaries reported in 2022, 288 stolen vehicles, and so on down the list.

Monthly Average                        2016    2017    2018    2019      2020    2021    2022

Residential Burglaries                   5        2            3        3          2            2        3

Vehicle Burglaries                      23      25        21       39         20         25       24

     Thefts from Unlocked Vehicles                              -          14            8        5

Commercial Burglaries                  9      4            5        4            6            5        5

     Construction site theft                                             -           1            1        1

     Package thefts                                                        -            4            2        2

Other Thefts                               60      51        56        61          -             -        -

Catalytic Converter Theft                                                          6            9        11

Robberies                                    1        1          1         2           2             2        1       

Stolen Vehicles                            9         6        4            6         9             7        8

Vandalism                                  13    13          11       12          13           13        13

 

Not reported in these statistics is the traffic enforcement trends.  Purely anecdotally, as noted here, we need more traffic enforcement.  Watching people speed up 40 yards from a yellow light and blast through the red is a daily occurrence.  I would love to see BPD be funded to add at least two more officers dedicated to this.  

NYE Deluge: Floating down the Avenew

The Pineapple Express arrived right on time to make a mess of New Year's Eve.  I only ventured onto El Camino once yesterday and it was before the stuff really hit the fan.  My mother-in-law drove on it later and a splash from an adjacent car knocked her windshield wiper right off the car!  But we know ECR is a drainage disaster.  What about the Ave?  It seems the deluge combined with a king tide that was expected, per the Chron

The tides will be at their most extreme on Friday when the high tide of 7.12 feet will arrive at 10:24 a.m. and the low tide will dip to -1.74 feet at 5:26 p.m. — a sea change of nearly 9 feet in about seven hours. Saturday’s high tide rolls in at 11:14 a.m. at 7.09 feet with a low tide of -1.77 feet at 6:15 p.m. A high tide of 6.88 feet will appear at 12:06 p.m. on Sunday.

The king tide combined with the National Weather Service measurements shows the magnitude and also that this isn't a 100-year flood--more like a 30-year flood.

Our San Francisco Downtown site hit 5.46” in the 24 hours of December 31st. This makes it the second wettest day in the 170+ years of records at that site, just 0.08” less than 1st place (11/5/1994) with 5.54”.

It also highlights a design challenge with the seawall that is being proposed for sea-level rise.  Keeping Bay waters out is one thing.  Letting rainfall out is quite another.  Friday's king tide was a shade bigger, but not until the deluge came on Saturday did we have this problem:

I hope this video plays for everyone.

Download Flood vid 123122

Update Jan 5th.  Here is the downed Euc on the Caltrain tracks that PSA noted in the comments.  Thanks to the intrepid photog who captured it for me.

Does the whole County need remedial driving class?

This post has been on my radar for about two months since I spoke to a man-about-town who lives a half block off of the California Dr. speedway.  He told me about a guy in a new Corvette who blasted down California, but an officer just happened to be nearby for another reason.  One got caught, but he says most don't.  Then last week I was at the ECR-Howard Ave. Safeway intersection when two incidents happened within 10 seconds of each other.  First, someone seems to have forgotten that drivers coming straight at you from across the intersection have right-of-way over you turning left.  Horn blows.  And then someone driving west on Howard decides to do the medium speed "California stop" turning north on ECR.  Except there are three people well into the crosswalk.  The pedestrian closest was fortunately agile and quick and he needed to be to avoid spending a week in the hospital.  This is a regular occurrence there.  Lyon-Hoag has been complaining about this for years.

The stories go on.  A merchant on B'way told me a pedestrian did get clipped there a week ago even with the seizure-inducing crosswalk lights going off.  That's before jaywalking becomes legal statewide in the pursuit of "racial justice".  And of course, there is the absolutely tragic, heart-breaking story from Redwood CIty of a 23-year-old racing a 17-year-old in a BMW M-series at 80-90 mph on ECR at 8pm.  Two parents killed and twin 7-year-girls orphaned.  You can see drivers doing 50+ on ECR in B'game all the time even with the lousy road surface.  Maybe we really don't want it fixed?

Does the whole County need remedial driving class?  Maybe, but for sure we need more traffic enforcement--a lot more.  Recall during the 2020 Townhall on "use of force" when my second question was asked:  "If the city allocated 10% more funding to BPD today, how would it utilize the funds?"  This was during the nationwide idiocy called "defund the police".  Chief Matteucci took about 1.5 seconds to respond, "I would add more traffic enforcement".  Exactly!  But our city council doesn't quite get it yet.  During the non-debate prior to the last non-election, three candidates were asked about public safety.  As Russ wrote in the post

In short, (Ricardo Ortiz) stated that the council has not been asked to increase the number of patrol personnel, so by inference, there is no need to increase the number of individuals on the BPD. Wait? What?

I think it's time we asked for a couple more cops on the street.  I would say "let's get ahead of this curve" but we are already behind the curve so let's just catch-up.  None of the statistics show the near misses, but if you are regularly walking, riding or driving in town you see them.  In the meantime, keep your head on a swivel.

200 e-Bikes, 200 Grand

It was nearly five years ago that we did the Lime bike (aka "Litterbike") experiment in B'game.  Recall the concerns and complaints here.  This latest experiment is with Spin which appears to have a rule against kids under 18 using their bikes.  During Lime's short-lived experiment, kids seemed to me to be the main riders.  The DJ notes some of the details:

A new electric bike sharing program is set to roll out in Burlingame, with Millbrae also looking to get in on the action.  The program would have 200 electric bikes for transit commuters and in-city use and will be a joint collaboration with Millbrae, which will discuss the idea Oct. 11. Users will get discounts if they park the bikes in “preferred zones” that include existing bike racks, corrals and stencil-marked areas in locations around the cities.

The cities were each awarded a $200,000 San Mateo County Transportation Authority grant to implement a bicycle-sharing program. The total sum for the award equals $440,000, including a $20,000 match by each city. Burlingame and Millbrae will apply the funds toward the purchase of new bicycle racks and signs for preferred parking zones. The cities will also subsidize rides for new users and subsidize a portion of Spin’s cost to purchase e-bikes for the program, according to the report.

It feels a little expensive to me (68% more than the deal Penn State has), but there will be "subsidies" so this will be tagged to the new "Free Stuff (Not)" category as well

Spin is proposing $1 to unlock and 42 cents per minute to ride. Spin also offers discount rates for monthly passes, student pricing and low-income users, according to the staff report.  Spin spokesperson Phuong Bui said that the staff operates 24/7 and aims to respond to bikes parking improperly within two hours.

If that sounds to you like we may have more Spin vans driving around picking up bikes and placing them back where they belong and relocating them, you are not alone.  But there is a fine schedule, and you get banned after four parking infractions.  I've done a couple of two-hour rides on an e-bike and it's fun, but it's also a potentially dangerous activity for those around the rider since they are fast.  I hope BPD is ready for more traffic enforcement.  In fact, let's start now with the motorized scooters that are zipping all over town after school lets out.

Odd night in B'game

Maybe it's Jupiter and Mars running across the night sky together--or not -- but there was some odd stuff happening in B'game tonight.  First, I was picking up food on the Avenew at about 8:15 PM when a flash mob of kids on bikes rolled down the Avenew.  150 or 200 kids on bicycles popping wheelies and playing music headed towards El Camino in a pack.  Fun until it's not.  The restaurant owner I was patronizing had never seen that before.

Then we were sitting outside eating said take-out and for no apparent weather-related reason, SFO went into the rare "Reverse Operation" mode.  Commercial airliners, one after another, approached low, northbound right over El Camino, banged a hard-right at the Millbrae border and were landing on 1L and 1R.  I've seen it before when the winds get strange, but it was a pretty nice, calm evening in B'game.  Sept. 28th--make a note.