Category: Streets of Burlingame

  • 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.

    Stop sign

  • 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 TeslaViewTM.  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:

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

  • ECR: How is this maneuver legal?

    Change is afoot for our beloved El Camino Real as the Axe man cometh for the Eucs.  The city e-newsletter notes that pothole repair on a systemic level (as opposed to when someone calls) as "Caltrans is currently completing pothole repair work on El Camino Real, between Howard Avenue and Sanchez Avenue. Work will take place daily, between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. One lane will remain open in both directions, but drivers should expect delays."

    One thing that will have to change as 91% of the Eucs get cut down, huge swaths of pavement get dug up at one time, trenches get dug for power/phone lines and drainage piping is the commercial parking habits of various truck drivers.  It's not just Amazon, UPS, FedEx, et al.  Check this guy out resupplying Walgreens!  There's a city lot right there, but hey, let's just shut down half of northbound ECR for half an hour or more.  How is that legal?

    ECR illegal loading

  • 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.

    Broadway carrier collision

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

    Broadway triangle

  • Time to reign in E-bikes?

    Here is notice of a city study session that is way, way overdue:

    On Monday, July 1 at 6pm in Council Chambers, there will be a City Council Study Session regarding micromobility devices (e-bikes, e-scooters, and similar devices). The City Council will discuss applicable State laws and review applicable City ordinances. Please attend to learn more and help inform the City Council's discussion about potential future regulations.

    There are kids all over town zipping along at motorcycle speeds with no driving experience or knowledge of traffic laws.  When one of them gets hit you know whose "fault" it will be.

    I also wonder if the litter e-bike issue will be addressed.  They are laying around for days all over town, too.

  • ECR: The Axe man cometh

    I should not be surprised, but I still am regarding how few people realize nine out of every ten Eucalyptus trees on El Camino are on Caltrans' chopping block.  People see the survey team out and about up and down the state highway and wonder "What's that all about?"  When you tell them they go "NO, really?"  To which I say "Really".  It interesting to see where some of the stakes are landing–much further into the sidewalks and private property than you would think.  That may not mean what some think it means, but we shall see when property owner notices start going out.  Here's the theodolite–and yes, I did have to look that word up.

    ECR surveying project

  • Bumpingame: Taking the car out of Carmelita Ave.

    One way to get people griping less about California Ave. is to roll out another project unpopular with drivers.  While the aversion to the California conversion is on-going (just mention it at the grocery store!), the multitude of new speed bumps on Carmelita east and west of ECR is jarring drivers' senses–and common sense.  A review of the accident history via the Crimegraphics tracker on the city website doesn't yield nearly enough incidents to cause speed bumps to multiply like rabbits there.  Is the city trying to take the "car" out of Carmelita Ave.?  Shall we rename it Melita Ave.–a main thoroughfare from H'borough to Bumpingame?

    The Sunday SF Comicle had a front-page piece titled Drivers feel under siege with S.F. limits.  It described some senior drivers' anxiety over the navigational mazes being implemented as "improvements".  It's more than just banning cars on Market St. or so-called "Slow streets".  And it's not just in EssEff.  I like to pick up the pink Financial Times (of London) sometimes and was amazed to see a Letter to the Editor from a guy in Oakland under the headline Why the nanny state is partly to blame for US road carnage!  He writes:

    Meanwhile, endless reconfiguration of America's streets and pavements by traffic engineers who dream of "Amsterdam in Santa Monica" has cluttered once open roadways with mountains of superfluous signage and millions of plastic bollards; new parking arrangement, often in the middle of the street, bicycle paths switched to different lanes every other corner; and elevated bulbs wherever possible–all designed to slow traffic under the guise of creating bike and bus-friendly streets.

    The addition of all this visual noise impedes every driver's view, making it ever harder to see that bicycle or pedestrian while elevating the stress.  Alas, too many American drivers have reacted to these safety-related distractions and stressors by developing the habits of road rage.

    So don't just blame the culture of freedom that Americans enjoy for the roads mayhem.  At least some fault is due to the nanny state at work, killing us softly with safety enhancements.

    George P Csicsery

    Zala Films, Oakland, CA, US

    My guess is Mr. Csicsery has been to Bumpingame recently.  My wishlist is to take out at least half of the new speed bumps on Melita Ave. and put a moratorium on any more as well as on the cheesy plastic bollards and floppy mid-crosswalk signs that are already looking beat after just a few weeks.  Then bank the money to pay for another police officer to catch scofflaw drivers.  While we're at it, let's check what all of these "improvements" are doing to police, fire and ambulance response times…..

    Driver confusion letter

    Hat tip to a local wag for the name Bumpingame.

    Bumpingame2

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