Category: Streets of Burlingame

  • Gas Prices: A counterintuitive finding

    The travel intensive bookends to the summer — Memorial Day and Labor Day — find the press focussing on gas prices; and rightly so. We see the big numbers on every gas station sign and the pump reminds us constantly. My folks searched for the cheapest gas back in the ’60s and especially the ’70s during the OPEC oil crisis. And it feels like we are paying a lot these days, but I recently saw a data-driven view that bursts that bubble. From Gemini:

    The inflation-adjusted national average price of gasoline since the 1973 OPEC oil crisis fluctuates between $3.00 and $4.00 per gallon, indicating that when evaluated against the long-term purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, real fuel costs have remained remarkably stable. Despite sharp increases in the absolute numerical price at the pump over the last 50+ years, historical data tracking adjusted for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that regular gasoline rarely strays from a long-run historical average of approximately $3.61 per gallon.

    Direct Comparison: Selected Historical vs. Modern Gas Prices

    Era / YearNominal Pump Price (Per Gallon)Inflation-Adjusted Price (In Modern USD)Economic Context
    Early 1973 (Pre-Crisis)$0.39$2.85Stable domestic production
    1974 (Post-Embargo)$0.53$3.60Initial OPEC shock wave
    1981 (Historic High)$1.38$5.18Iranian Revolution energy gap
    1998 (Historic Low)$1.06$1.98Asian Financial Crisis crude glut
    2008 (Commodity Peak)$3.27$4.77China economic boom & speculation
    2020 (Pandemic Low)$2.07$2.61Global COVID-19 lockowns
    Current (Sept 2026)$4.21$4.21Middle East conflict fluctuations

    Nationally, we are at the upper end of the long-run normal range, but tack on the California gas tax premium (just raised again by 2.2 cents on July 1st) and the costs of our oh-so-special blend plus refineries closing and the pain increases. But it’s still not enough to make me buy tires with inferior traction, lesser water/snow shedding and longer stopping times. Sorry, Gavin. Not gonna do it to.

  • Floppy Signs: Visual clutter

    While pedestrians need to keep their heads on a swivel, B’game drivers must real-time process all sorts of confusing clutter around town as installed by the city. The intersection of Chapin and Primrose is the classic example with incorrect and poorly maintained signage that I don’t believe adds anything to pedestrian safety. In fact, the distracting clutter and a code-disallowed floppy sign may make the intersection more dangerous. They also aren’t doing anything for some vehicles paint jobs. I bet tractor trailer drivers don’t even realize they have ploughed over these signs–or don’t care.

    It turns out the front one with the STOP symbol is explicitly not allowed and crossed out in the code! Maybe Sacramento could pass a law against selling them in California?

    There’s nothing like almost rear ending someone who stops because they see a stop sign even when no one is in the crosswalk. I see that happen at Howard and Costa Rica a couple times a month when a pedestrian isn’t intending to cross right away and some driver decides to stop anyway because of the floppy sign.

  • Walking B’game: Your head on a swivel

    Pedestrian safety certainly isn’t improving in B’game or elsewhere on the Peninsula. I walk a lot to and from the Avenew and on B’way. You will see unsafe maneuvers all the time. But let’s put some numbers to my gut feel about it. A couple weeks ago, BPD ran a four-hour enhanced morning enforcement near Christie’s and the train station. I heard from multiple sources that it was like “shooting fish in a barrel”. Per BPD

    Approximately 16 citations were issued during our four-hour operation focused on pedestrian right-of-way violations.

    Doing the math, that is a citation every 15 minutes. And that is with enforcement being visible as the ticket gets written thus warning the next guy! Keep your head on a swivel. I think we need a couple more officers and a little less overhead elsewhere.

  • Eucs: Blinded by the light

    Luckily, I was on foot when I took this picture at around 7pm, but my head was on a swivel as it usually is around Safeway. My understanding is that some of the big Eucs that are still standing are housing nesting birds. When they leave, so will the Eucs. Southbound drivers are going to miss them in the morning, and northbound in the evening, when they are gone. I do wish the contractors would get on with the stump grinding instead of letting the corpses just sit there. In fact, I wish they would just get on with every aspect of the project. After the initial surge of activity things have slowed down dramatically.

  • History Lesson: The origins of Flag Day

    Here at the Voice, we have long noted the presence or absence of the Stars and Stripes around town. Whether it be when the Boy Scouts plant dozens on B’way or someone forgets to raise a flag on an important day. But where did the date of June 14th come from? That is today’s history lesson courtesy of ChatGPT:

    On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to establish the Continental Army. This occurred nearly a year before the Declaration of Independence. The decision came in response to the battles of Battles of Lexington and Concord, where colonial militia forces had already begun fighting British troops. The next day, June 15, 1775, Congress selected George Washington as commander-in-chief.

    The 1775 date is why the big 250th anniversary military parade happened last year. It commemorated the founding of the Continental Army. But that’s not the whole story:

    On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the first official Flag Resolution:

    “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

    Notably, the resolution did not specify the arrangement of the stars. The familiar “Betsy Ross circle” design became popular later, but there is little contemporary evidence proving that Betsy Ross designed the first national flag.

    So that 250th anniversary will happen next June 14th. The day was formalized over the years:

    • In the late 1800s, schools and patriotic organizations began celebrating June 14 as Flag Day.
    • Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation in 1916 establishing June 14 as Flag Day nationally.
    • In 1949, Harry S. Truman signed legislation officially designating June 14 as National Flag Day.

    This year’s Flag Day will be at least as high profile as last year and as Paul Harvey used to say “”and now you know the rest of the story”.

    Until recently, the Old Post Office flagpole had been barren, but things are looking up lately.

  • How we will remember April 2026

    The month started with a prank and ends with sorrowful tear.

  • California Dr: From bad to worse

    Now that the El Camino Real project, The Little Big Dig, is in full swing things have gone from bad to worse on the reroute path–California Dr. It was unpopular two years ago as we noted here. But now with the additional volume it’s downright frustrating. The bike lane seldom has even one biker on it. Turning left out of Floribunda or Douglas has become perilous due to the steadier flow of traffic. The cars parked alongside the bike lane all seem to know how to protect their mirrors and doors by parking as close to the bollards as possible. And the mostly empty middle turn lane beckons to drivers like the sirens of Greek mythology calling sailors to the rocks.

    I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t help but wish things would just Go Back To The Way They Were on California. In the meantime, if you must park on the Caltrain side, do as the locals do. Squeeze in.

  • SamTrans: Asleep at the wheel

    This is not another April Fool’s prank post. On April Fool’s Day, SamTrans figured out they should do something to avoid delays on El Camino during the Little Big Dig. Per the DJ

    In response, during an April 1 SamTrans board meeting, staff recommended a detour along California Drive for the project’s duration, as well as splitting the ECR line at Millbrae into a northern segment running to the Daly City BART station and a southern segment running down to Palo Alto, according to the presentation.

    One has to wonder exactly where the SamTrans board and operations managers have been for the last year or two? There has been a steadily increasing drumbeat of alerts, reroute maps, Caltrans emails and news reports, but these people don’t figure out they need to do something different until three and a half months after the ground-breaking ceremony?

    Maybe they should get out and actually take the bus once in a while or ask a driver or two. Drivers would have told them about scenes like this that I took three weeks ago.

  • Large grant to bring mature Eucs to ECR

    Many B’gamers are just waking up to the removal of so many of our tall eucalyptus trees on El Camino. It’s shocking. More than 90% of them are getting cut down, but the project calls for many more trees to be replanted. Unfortunately, the replacements will be much younger and smaller. Or so we thought! The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (commonly known as CalFire) also took notice of the much-reduced canopy and has found some grant money to allow Caltrans to upgrade the replacements to be more mature eucs.

    According to CalFire spokesman Justin Thyme, a $3.5 million dollar grant will allow for some 30-to-40-foot tall “juvenile” eucs to be transferred from source properties like Golden Gate Park and the Crystal Springs reservoir watershed to El Camino. In the announcement Thyme noted “In addition to fire protection, CalFire is committed to enhancing landmark groves like the Burlingame eucalyptus grove wherever feasible. This grant will accelerate the return of historic look and feel of the much-loved section of the state highway.” Caltrans noted that the larger replacements would not significantly delay completion of the project now targeted as late 2028 or early 2029.

    This will come as good news to B’gamers mourning the loss of the majestic eucs. Hillsborough might also be a “donor” city as they chop eucs on Chateau Dr. that could be replanted on ECR. Here is one local’s memorial to our fallen friends spotted on a Bernal Ave front yard.

  • More Bumps in the Road: 49th overall

    The Reason Foundation dug into national road conditions and most of us aren’t surprised to see how poorly California rates. When I first travelled the highways and byways of California in 1981, they were beautifully smooth. Now, not so much.

    Alaska, California, Washington, New York, and Louisiana have the worst-performing and least cost-effective highway systems, the study finds. Alaska ranked last overall for the second consecutive report, posting the worst rural fatality rate in the nation. California ranked 49th, with the worst urban arterial pavement condition.

    California found a bright spot in the condition of its bridges, with its highest ranking of 25th in the nation in “structurally deficient bridges.” But the state ranked in the bottom-half or third in every other category including urban congestion, rural fatality rate, rural pavement conditions, and capital and bridge disbursements ratio.

    Californians pay for the most expensive gas in the country, mostly due to gas taxes. (Study author Baruch) Feigenbaum says California “should have a better road and highway system” given the billions in funds the state generates for transportation. California also ranked 49th in last year’s highway report.

    You have to wonder if this is another instance of California fraud somewhere in the river of money collected from gas taxes (61 or 71 cents per gallon depending on who you ask plus other costs that put us $1.70 above the national average), vehicle license fees, etc. And now there is a movement afoot in Sacramento to charge additional fees per mile driven. Tell me more about how much they care about “affordability”.

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