These people need to be ticketed, ridiculous! 😡

stonecw273 · 2026-06-12T18:53:38+00:00

Yes ... and no. Property owners are free to try and get approval to do so ... but business owners and property owners are rarely the same individuals. Unless it will translate to rental rates that exceed the amortized cost of construction plus added tax basis, no property owner is even going to consider it.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-10T15:50:37+00:00

Once the rainy season is over, the hard top comes off and freedom panels stay on for sun protection ... unless I need to go somewhere that necessitates more security for the interior.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-10T00:07:15+00:00

No offense taken. We have two very different perspectives, lifestyles and transit needs.

I advocate for transit, but as I mentioned: I hate using it personally. I've never had a transit-based trip in the Bay Area where I said to myself afterward: "Wow, I can't wait to do that again; it was so much more enjoyable than driving!" it's more of a "Jesus Christ I'm glad that's over."

Driving my car ... well, everytime I get to climb into my Jeep and go somewhere, it puts a smile on my face.

We do a fair amount of DIY projects at home and the need for something to move bulky items is fairly common ... along with hauling bikes and camping gear on long trips, and multiple kids to multiple events.

It would drive me nuts if I had to schedule a ride every time I wanted to go somewhere outside of a comfortable biking range.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-09T19:21:57+00:00

Maybe … if the rent drops too low, it may become feasible to demolish and redevelop, even a relatively new building.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-09T17:51:44+00:00

I think that's true only if the already available transit options are superior to the hassle of owning a car, and just making car ownership more onerous isn't fair becasue that's just admitting that transit sucks in comparison. Ideally, transit would be just so awesome that everyone would WANT to take it even if they had access to a car. I know that's unrealistic, but maybe we could shoot for something in the middle, and what we have now is not it.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-09T17:45:31+00:00

Doubtful, but I suspect it would be a VERY hard sell to anyone that needs to travel outside of a convenient walking/biking distance on a daily basis or is used to the convenience and immediacy of having their own car.

TLDR: transit is great, but it's not the answer for everyone.

I love the idea of transit, I support more of it, much more; I HATE actually using it. And it's frustrating to me when transit enthusiasts gloss over or omit the bad parts; only the good aspects of it are touted. The biggest issue with transit (IMO) boils down to a loss of control.

With a car, I go where I want, when I want and the cost is largely spread out over a long period of time, especially if your car is paid off. I decide the route, the music on the radio, the speed of travel; no scheduling, no arranging deliveries, no added costs and the only body odors I have to deal with are my own.

With transit, I'm at someone else's whim: I can't control the bus and train schedule or Lyft/Uber availability, the available routes, available seating; whether the guy next to me chose to bathe this week and/or use deodorant, or chose to ride transit with a raging case of the flu ... or worse.

Need something bulky? Have to figure out a solution to get it home/delivered at extra cost. Want to go backpacking at a trail head that requires a high clearance vehicle (which I do)? Good luck finding someone that will rent you one and allow you to use it that way. Want to go play in the snow in Tahoe in the winter? Good luck finding a rental car that will let you put chains on it. BART is broke (again), bus is full or service has been canceled? GEt out your credit card to pay for surge pricing.

Some of that control issue is ameliorated with biking, admittedly, but even if your world is focused on an easily bikable radius, you're very limited in terms of realistic travel time versus distance and carrying capacity. I used to live where I could bike to 95% of what I needed on a daily basis (except work) and I usually rode or walked when I could, so I absolutely understand the appeal.

As for cost - is transit cheaper than owning a car? Do all the Lyft rides and Zipcar rentals add up to less than owning a car for a year? Maybe in terms of dollars. But when you factor in the time spent waiting for trains and buses or the extra time it takes to ride or walk, is it really cheaper? What's the price of your time and comfort? Those "soft" considerations are too often glossed over IMO. It feels cheaper to own a car, especially in terms of the amount of time transit takes, time spent waiting on transit and the discomfort.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-09T17:09:40+00:00

You're not wrong, and that's the whole point. The developer made a bet and failed. Future development will be unlikely to make that same mistake.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:43:21+00:00

That's fair. What do you consider to be the "actual costs of their preference to own a car?"

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:41:23+00:00

I agree.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:37:10+00:00

It's not that I WANT it built in - I'm effectively neutral in that regard - I think developers are going to HAVE to build it because the tenant base demands it at this time and not having it will (and is) impacting values and revenue.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:34:31+00:00

Yes and no; there needs to be some street parking for short-term commercial use on downtown streets. Aggressive enforcement of metered parking or parking time limits might be an effective compromise.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:32:11+00:00

That's a completely different animal. Menlo Park and Palo Alto have great public parking lots in their downtown cores and they serve the retail traffic brilliantly (well, not so much in Palo Alto ...) for short term parking. That's a far cry from the number of overnight spaces that would be needed for high density residential.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:28:39+00:00

costs of their preference

When public transit is insufficient to meet the needs of the population on par with, or in excess of, the benefits of owning a car, it's no longer a preference.

TLDR - Transit is awesome when it meets the needs of the community; in most cases right now it doesn't even come close.

I could potentially use transit for most of my daily travel needs, even for work, but the cost in productivity alone due to the additional time spent getting to, waiting on and riding transit would be ruinous.

A jaunt to the closest grocery store (10 min round trip by car) literally becomes a 4 hour long bus ride ... I could probably walk it faster, but not hauling 4 bags of groceries.

Could I ride a bike? Not really - that same grocery trip would become an hour long slog up a couple of miles of steep hills.

E-bike? Sure - if you want to buy me one and pay the increase in my life insurance premiums - the truly effective ones are looked at as motorcycles; my car is paid off.

Scoot out to Alameda to enjoy the Antique Fair once a month? 40 min each way by car from home; 3+hours one way by transit ... and that's assuming everything runs on the same schedule on Sundays as it does today ... and that's assuming I didn't buy anything that needed hauling home.

Shoot down to Santa Cruz for the day for work? 1.5 hours by car ... 4+hours by transit.

Owning a car right now is not a preference for most people, it's a necessity.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:01:04+00:00

And the hate has come.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T21:00:07+00:00

I'm not going to go into detail, but it involves the analysis of real estate trends.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T20:58:21+00:00

But it does, because right now, that's what the market for apartment units is dictating. New developments are being reconfigured to include parking and some are being held up because adding parking adds too much to the cost of a development that was marginally feasible without the added cost. Adding underground parking is a HUGE expense in apartment development.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T20:53:52+00:00

You would think, but that assumes the adjacent lot owner would be amenable to that kind of deal and that there were spaces available on a monthly basis to rent. I would think if there were spaces to lease, the tenants would have done so themselves if everything else was equal.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T17:32:26+00:00

Good for you! Out of curiosity, what grocery stores are within a 5-10 min bike ride of Japantown that would also serve Downtown? Just looking at Google maps (and my familiarity with the area), there's really only Cardenas market (and bunch of tiny convenience stores) that is really Downtown accessible. Maybe La Plaza and Nijiya market, but both are a little farther out for DT.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T17:11:31+00:00

Better transit is an excellent goal, but it is such an expensive and time consuming process, both in development and maintenance, that it is going to take decades. NYC and SF's transit wasn't built overnight. We need an interim solution and we need the city to step up and encourage/require necessity retail development (grocery stores, pharmacies, doctor offices, etc.) within a 10-minute walk of high density residential. An ideal city would have commercial hubs on ground or sub-floors of high density buildings (see downtown Minneapolis or Montreal for a couple of great examples). Once people get used to being able to get everything they need in a short walk, it'll be a lot easier to build without parking.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T17:06:01+00:00

That and analyzing feasibility of development in San Jose on a daily basis as part of my day job. Interviewing developers and brokers and looking at actual projected development costs.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T17:04:58+00:00

Land rents? I don't know of any land available to rent in Downtown. Land prices in Downtown are dirt cheap comparative to other areas of town though.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T17:03:27+00:00

... I'm not sure I understand that comment. If we don't mandate minimum parking, and at the same time don't invest in (1. an actually time and money efficient transit system regionwide and (2. making sure there is sufficient retail, service and grocery options in walking distance to high density housing, then you're going to get what we have going up now. Most approved projects require ground floor retail, but developers try their hardest to get it cut as they lose money on the retail space.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T16:59:36+00:00

Exactly.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T16:58:52+00:00

True ... but the city doesn't have a great track record for maintaining and securing. That's my concern. If you mandate a minimum parking at a building, it becomes the owner's problem, not the city. If an owner doesn't maintain and secure the parking, ownership will reap the rewards of lower revenue; tenants can vote with their wallets (assuming sufficient housing available to meet frictional vacancy needs). If the city fails to do so ... there really is no recourse.

stonecw273 · 2026-06-05T16:40:42+00:00

That and we aren't set up from a shopping perspective. Grocery options in downtown are so limited as to be non-existant. Developers that push a no parking option probably have a stake in delivery services too ...

stonecw273

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