America's Most Walkable Neighborhoods
Find the most walkable neighborhoods in the top 40 U.S. cities.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Saturday Stats - America's 17th Most Walkable City
One a scale of 1 to 100, San Jose snagged a walk score of 55... which isn't too shabby. 55 is enough to top Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, Austin, and San Antonio. This score will undoubtedly improve as we've ran out of land to build on (except for Coyote Valley) and density is increasing throughout the city, not just Downtown and Midtown. Almost all new housing developments are multi-family or townhomes. In addition, I think San Joseans are starting to come around on the concept of being less reliant on cars and looking for homes in walkable/bikable neighborhoods. Full list below of the top 40 walkable cities in the US:
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Election Day!
Today is the big day. At 8pm the election results will start to roll in and you can see the results live at: http://www.sccgov.org/elections/results/jun082010/. While there are many key items in the ballot, the number one question on my mind is: will Santa Clara get the 49ers? No doubt it would provide a substantial economic boost to the area, and San Jose would be a key benefactor. To be continued...
How to Take a Boat from San Jose to the SF Bay (?)
As surprising as this may come to a lot of people, San Jose actually hits water. At one point Alviso in Northern San Jose was a bustling seaport, and over time the area became completely unusable for any type of recreational boating. After many years of hard work, the Alviso Slough is dredged to the point where you can actually take a kayak or small boat (as large as 30ft in high tide), launch it from Alviso's "marina," and take it all the way into the SF Bay. Hopefully, this will open up the doors to all sorts of potential improvements to the Alviso area and provide San Joseans some recreational boating options once more. For more info on the grand opening of the Alviso boat ramp, just take a look at this Merc article.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
One Less Hurdle for the San Jose A's!
The owners of the Sharks have made it pretty well known that they are not satisfied with the environmental impact report (EIR) for the proposed San Jose A's stadium downtown. Their major concern is lack of parking for days in which there would be BOTH hockey and baseball games. Well I found some good news in the San Jose Business Journal today. The owners of the Sharks have come to an agreement with the city where they will be able to build a new parking structure for Sharks fans, even if it comes down to requiring eminent domain to collect the necessary parcels. There are still many challenges in getting the A's to San Jose, but this will be one less roadblock in the way!
June 2010 Downtown Dimension Highlights
Here are my notes from the latest edition of Downtown Dimension:
- SJC Terminal B Opens this Month
- The first flights by Delta, Southwest, and Alaska will depart out of the new terminal June 29-30th.
- There will be 40 shops and restaurants in the new airport.
- Free WiFi throughout, every fourth seat in waiting areas will have a power outlet.
- Close by long-term parking.
- The $1.3b project was completed months ahead of schedule and $140m under budget.
- Next phase of the improvement projects will be new surface lots and tearing down Terminal C to make way for future expansion.
- Tons of SJDA Events in June:
- Dine Downtown
- Music in the Park
- Starlight Cinemas
- SJDA is still pushing for an underground alignment of high-speed rail downtown. There is now a possibility of doing a shallow tunnel which would cost less than the originally planned deep tunnel. The only downside is that BART would then have to be a deep tunnel downtown, adding additional costs to that project.
- Late Night Improvements
- Police is working to simplify and reduce costs associated with nightclub permitting.
- Relationships between police and night businesses has improved thanks to a new downtown coordinator position, a "community-policing" model downtown, and businesses taking more responsibility with their promotions.
- New weekly raffles to help keep music and movies free, SJDA has begun selling raffle tickets at SJDA tables.
- Groundwerx Updates
- The Rep Plaza has been adorned with roses, petunias, lobelia, and other colorful flowwers.
- 6 new benches will be installed in Rep plaza and 7 existing ones will be refurbished.
- 9 hanging flower baskets will be added to light poles along with decorative lighting.
- The Rep Theater low wall on 3rd St. and the paseo will receive wall-mounted planter boxes
- Agenda Restaurant & Lounge now has a new chef and a "Southern comfort" spin.
- The Pasta Market and Panda Express have opened in the San Jose Market Center off Coleman.
- The new Hilton restaurant is now called Affinity.
- Red Berry Coffee Bar on 231 E. Santa Clara St. will be serving Barefoot coffee, Ecco Caffe, and Ritual Coffee Roasters.
- Teagre Tea Bar at 22 N. Almaden Ave #100 will be selling organic, fair trade loose teas in San Pedro Square. They'll have over 100 teas from around the world along with condiments like honey, jam, and chocolate. Sounds like they have daily tastings too.
- The Downtown San Jose Ross store will have its grand opening on July 16th.
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