mook Wrote:
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> Many years ago I stayed at the SJ Fairmont for a
> couple of days of meetings. Pretty much never got
> out of the hotel except to arrive & depart, but
> have to say they did a decent job of muffling the
> aircraft noise. I think if the "river" and SJ
> State weren't there the downtown area might be
> more like San Diego with higher buildings on the
> sides forming a slot for the glide slope. But
> then, maybe not, since the job & economic center
> isn't there - it's in Santa
> Clara/Cupertino/Mountain View to the northwest. As
> it is, the place looks architecturally interesting
> in a 90s-early 2000's redevelopment-area style,
> but by reputation has a serious homeless problem
> (many live along the "river" just to the west),
> and limited nightlife. The museums are a good
> daytime destination, but don't offer much
> incentive to do other things in the area. Those
> pictures are lovely architectural shots, but did
> you notice how few PEOPLE are in them?
>
> Then there's the light rail - the pictures make it
> look like a nice touristy streetcar (and at one
> time they did run vintage cars on the downtown
> loop), like something a "new urbanist" planner
> would love, but it's really the connection between
> heavy-duty light rail lines north and south of
> downtown. I don't expect that many people ride the
> trains TO downtown other than college and local
> government types, and support staff for the hotels
> and such; more traffic probably wants to go
> THROUGH downtown to get from southern SJ housing
> to jobs in North SJ, Santa Clara, etc. So that
> cute-looking (but very slow) downtown track is
> actually a major bottleneck. Should have been
> subway or otherwise better-separated, but I
> understand there were cost issues at the time and
> nobody wanted the streets torn up for several
> years or horrible elevated structures.
>
> Sacramento light rail has a similar operating
> issue through downtown, but seems to deal with it
> better. That's probably because more of its
> commute traffic actually is going downtown (local
> and state workers) rather than through so
> street-running delays aren't as significant. And
> if Sacramento ever needs to fix it the tunnel
> could be much shorter than what SJ would need.

Some years back Victor Borge was at the Center for Performing Arts which is directly under the glide path to the airport. After one or two planes flew over, when the third one showed up he stopped his performance, looked up to the ceiling and asked "Is it one of ours?" and brought down the house. :-) And yes, the fact that the light rail has to crawl through downtown severely impacts the ridership, or lack thereof. The construction of the light rail decimated the downtown business climate and now it is mostly restaurants etc. so you'll see people riding from the civic center area etc into town for lunch. We lived in Evergreen and I worked at Santa Teresa in the Blossom Hill area. If I were to take public transportation, bus to the light rail and light rail to the Cottle station next to the hospital it would take about 1 1/2 hours. I drove it in 17 minutes. :-)
C.