VTA Stadium Transportation Meeting TOMORROW

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) Levi’s Stadium Transit Program Committee will hold its first meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 10 a.m. The committee was established by the VTA Board of Directors to oversee and coordinate the planning efforts between VTA and the City of Santa Clara and the San Francisco 49ers for service to the stadium to ensure the best customer experience for stadium-goers. THIS MEETING IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

On the agenda for the first meeting is a project overview, an update on planning efforts to date and project timelines. Committee members will also discuss the service plan, fares, parking and bicycle policies.

This committee meeting will take place at VTA headquarters, 3331 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95134 in Conference Room B-104. VTA HQ is easily accessible via light rail at the River Oaks Station and from the Guadalupe River Trail at the River Oaks trailhead. Bikelink electronic lockers are available for public use in the VTA parking lot. Follow the signs to find Conference Room B-104, which is kind of towards the back of the VTA campus.

While this committee can discuss bicycle policies, the actual policies and their implementation are under the purview of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority.

I have a conflict and cannot attend. If you plan to attend I’d love to know what happens.

9 Comments

  1. There also seems to be a Stadium Authority meeting TONIGHT at 7pm at which anyone can speak for 2 min on issues relevant to the stadium. Its every other Tuesday. Correct me if I’m wrong.

    http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=1504

    1500 Warburton Avenue, Santa Clara 95050
    (which has a bike lane)

    You can see from the below short video, the one public comment from the Jan meeting seems to be concerned that emphasis on transit might impact automobile flow. The mayor appears to listen and comments regarding transit and light timing??, but no mention of any bike access improvements.

    http://sireweb.santaclaraca.gov/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=1444&doctype=AGENDA

    My impression is that their plan is for bikes to take the creek trail. Except won’t most events get out after dark, and you are not allowed to use the creek trail after dark. Finishing the bike lane on the short section of Lafayette from Tasman to Great America Way would provide after-event bike returns to Lick Mill, SCU, Diridon, and SJ downtown. As well as solving the problem of getting to/from north of Diridon for evening (after sunset) commutes.

  2. Thank you, Scoot. I wish I could make this one.

    Oh the irony of claiming transit will have an impact on automobile traffic flow. Time to write a letter about that one to the Stadium Authority.

    Good point about after-dark trail access. I wonder if Santa Clara County trails says anything about this. It is funny that our local trails have lights for night use although that use is technically not legal.

  3. Have they been adding lights?…I don’t remember seeing any except for the underpasses, or maybe I’m blind. I think good overhead lighting would be needed. One night I did GC trail from Tasman to downtown, then caught LG trail to Vasona, as an ‘experiment’. This was a while back. With no moon and surrounded by vegetation, its amazing how dark it is. You need fairly bright lights, like those for mnt biking, which would create a problem with being blinded by oncoming bikes. With overhead lighting, bike lights could be used on the lowest setting, thus preventing blinding.

    For GC it looks like they managed to spend $210,000 just for underpass and parking lot lights. More lights might have to compete for limited trail funds against more popular continued trail expansions like three creeks.

    If the Stadium and Diridon projects want to make a plan to light the creek paths, that’s great!, but it should at least be in a Master Plan. Otherwise, other nighttime route options are needed.

  4. It might be interesting to revisit the EIR for this project and see how bike trvel was to be handled.

  5. For grins I just looked at the EIR http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=1546

    There is little on cycling. They do mention bikes lanes in the surrounding area. They do mention that there is a way off the an Tomas Creek Trail at one corner of the stadium. Time for games 1-4 PM , 5-8 PM and weekday Games 5-8/9 PM The evening games would be dark shortly after start and dark afterwards.

    Also mentioned was the fact that pedestrians might be parking 15-20 minutes walking distance away would probably use the Creek Trail. This might make the trail effectively unusable for some period before and after the game. (fan density)

    I don’t know if bikes got 100 words in 300 page EIR.

  6. I could not find the “San Tomas Aquino/Saratoga Creek Trail Master Plan” on-line. Other creek trail plans refer to light impacts on vistas and views. This is likely standard EIR copy/paste, since any such views (stargazing?) in the area would be dominated by the existing streetlights, and the creek areas are not exactly on top of a hill. I cant find any mention of Salmon. It seems if Salmon impacts were an issue, they would have mentioned it with respect to the underpass lighting which remain on at night.

    The “Riparian corridor policy study” (on-line but scanned so hard to search) mentions general light impact on wildlife but nothing more specific that I can find. The underpass lighting is referred to as ‘security lighting’, I assume for daylight hours. Its interesting that they did not put the underpass lights on a timer or light sensor then, so they would go off at night. Maybe cost related, but challenges how much they really cared about the light impacts.

    The creek trail master plans say that its because the trail is closed anyway due to the San Jose park rules, which close all parks one hour after sunset. This was put in originally for gang suppression in neighborhood parks, so they made it a misdemeanor!, not just a citation. Apparently this is actually enforced in at least neighborhood SJ parks.

    It does not look like the Stadium transit plan is really thought through at all. They are heavily relying on people not driving, encouraging use of San Tomas creak trail for remote parking, but at the same time criminalizing pedestrians and cyclists for taking it after events that get out at night (most), and ignoring the safety issues of thousands of people using unlighted paths.

    What were they thinking?

  7. They are thinking with their normal windshield view….
    I saw nothing for bike racks either. So we will have 4 racks by the dumpsters and smoking area that are in the dark…..

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