The reason for the negativity is that the bike-"friendly" measures you see in san jose are all the very EASY and cheap things to do. bike racks on buses? most cities in the u.s. have this. and it's pretty cheap when you hardly have any buses anyway. most lines have frequencies of one per 1/2 hr.

so what if a handful of intersections will be exempt from car LOS rules. san jose is so huge geographically, there are literally thousands of intersections.

bike racks on sidewalks downtown are also cheap and easy. and anyway, think of all the parts of san jose oustide downtown (i.e. the vast majority) where there aren't bike racks. even purely suburban cities like cupertino and santa clara have become more bike friendly than san jose, what with bike-friendly traffic signals and more bike lanes.

so what if the light rail station you refer to is busy? it's in the exact center of downtown, and is the transfer spot for the popular (relatively speaking!) east-west bus lines on santa clara and san fernando streets. light rail runs infrequently all day and has little or no service late at night. so even though most rush hour trains are crowded, it still doesn't amount to very many riders. a trolley system worth its construction, maintenance, and operational costs is heavily used all the time. otherwise, all those millions could have been spent to provide a TON more public transportation options in the form of BRT, express buses, and increased frequency of the local bus lines.

Coming from Europe, which is supposedly so much more bike-friendly than America I've been very, very impressed by how accepting San Jose is of Cyclists. There are storage racks all over the place, buses have racks attached (something you never, ever see in the UK), trains carry bicycles without reservations (or charge - in the UK you must book in advance and pay for them to carry your bike) and even light rail has storage facilities onboard for Cyclists.

Yes, there is always scope for improvement. It seems the only Nation that really *gets* cycling is Holland, and it takes a long time to adjust / develop an infrastructure of that type - but San Jose has already made a great start on it. There's a policy change taking place, they want to encourage alternative forms of transportation - this isn't something to be mocked, it should be celebrated and supported!

As for the comment from Mark regarding nobody using the Light Rail - What? My appartment overlooks the Light Rail station at 2nd & Santa Clara and it's always, ALWAYS busy. I've taken Light Rail all over San Jose and have rarely seen it empty, during rush hour it's often standing room only. How is that underused? It may not always be the fastest way to get around but it's a good system.

My suggestion to all the nay-sayers would be to take an active part in the planning process. Weight of numbers & opinion will speed things along and keep everything going in the direction it needs to but just sitting back and bleating on about how it's all a waste and nothing will come of it or someone in private business will make a profit from it is pathetic.

To get back to topic: if "North San Jose" ever does get built up, there will be thousands and thousands of parking spaces bundled with condo units.

Also, most visitors to the tiny SJ downtown don't realize how much of it is being subsidized with billions in taxpayer dollars to the politically-connected developers.

A buddy picked me up down there the other night -- his first time there -- and he was doing all this:

"Holy cow! I can't believe this place! There's so much going on! Look at that street! So cool! We passed [this] and [this other cool building/thing] and there was this cool band playing right on the corner and...and...and..."

This was on a Sunday night.

I think it's interesting that they didn't have their own bike injunction -- maybe you have to install some bike infrastructure to get that kind of attention?

Hopefully BRT doesn't get all the time/energy/money, instead of walk/bike issues, or even fixing their light rail system, or making access to the Caltrain station dignified.

San Jose is a complete disaster, which makes it exactly like 99.9% of all other American cities, but it's changing for the better, it seems to me. Policy changes are a big deal, so bravo to SJ -- sounds like advocates have an opening -- they/we just need to get organized, and get big enough to matter.

1. LOS reform is possible, even in moderately conservative cities, as long as the local population isn't as prone to selfish entitlement as people are in, say, san francisco.

2. There may be a gradual increase in progressive-mindedness among staff of transportation departments locally.

p.s. the sanjosehatespedestrians site referenced in another comment doesn't even show the worst examples, and there are hundreds! I especially loathe the city's penchant for installing or converting traffic lights with crosswalks for only some of the sides. these are common at full 4-way intersections as well, and have been much more common in the last 10 years or so than they used to be. unbelievable!

and to "grounded in reality": what do you mean by "bright spots in redevelopment"?? that's an oxymoron. do you mean bulldozing good, unique old buildings to make way for parking lots and garages? do you mean gentrification? street widenings? mono-zoning? phony "beautification" that achieves nothing but higher rents for indie businesses, forcing them out to make way for more chains?

in the meantime, please enjoy this delightful (in the most depressing way) site:

http://sanjosehatespedestrians.priss.org/

San Jose is the "model" for producing slick pictures of TOD while continuing business-as-usual.

I am typing this right now on a street a couple blocks from VTA LRT on a street that has:
1. no sidewalks,
2. no bike lanes,
3. 45mph posted speed limit, 55mph typical traffic speeds.
4. Developments just in the past year include: a Costco, a Lowes, a strip mall, and lots and lots of parking. All built in compliance with San Jose planning and zoning code.

I've been to San Jose. I've worked in San Jose for years at a time.

I've rolled bowling balls along the sidewalks of TOD-o-riffic billions-wasted-on-light-rail ten-billion-to-DISAPPEAR-WITHOUT-A-TRACE-on-BART four-billion-in-Redevelopment-pork-vanished downtown San Jose and failed to hit a pedestrian.

I've seen the malls that are nowhere near "downtown" San Jose.

I've seen the tens of square miles of annexed sprawl that makes San Jose The Very Most Important City In The Entire Bay Area So Screw You San Francisco and Oakland.

And as anybody who has visited or lived or worked there can tell you, all this SJ window dressing is purely a way to game regional funding allocation so that the apparatchiks of the City of San Jose (er, that is, San José, Capital of Silicon Valley) can continue to pay themselves and their consultant friends and produce not an iota of visible urban improvement. Look at the RA's scandalous budgets and complete lack of results over 20 years! People ought to be in prison, but instead they're greenwashing the same old same old. Buy hey, "Special Planning Areas!" Awesome!

I've seen the intersections -- and the only things "protected" are two left turns, two through, one right turn lane, and death to pedestrians.

It's a basket case.

But good job on having a "codified green transportation hierarchy". I'll remember that next time I'm stuck there, up an urban expressway without a paddle.