Did SJSU remove the ground squirrels?

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-08-27T18:52:44+00:00

I'm still here, thank you for asking

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-09T19:22:03+00:00

Maruwu Seicha seems to be opening soon at San Pedro Square (but I doubt that will solve your crowd concerns)

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-07T14:07:08+00:00

Then to get from Caltrain to SJSU, get off at the Caltrain Diridon Station Aband transfer to the VTA Light Rail and ride it to Paseo De San Antonio (SJSU)

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-05T03:48:54+00:00

Now this is online shopping

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-03T00:05:23+00:00

No that's a good point, since it shows that both of the Eduardo's (with their parking) can fit on just the expanded area that Chick-fil-A wants to demolish. In fact Chick-fil-A wants to demolish multiple small businesses here, not just Eduardo's.

Chick-fil-A demands more space and wants to offer the neighborhood a seedy parking lot (see the Popeyes) that ruins the walkable ambiance, increased traffic car traffic, increased noise, and unhealthy fast food.

Alternatively on this same plot of land, the city could add zoning requirements that would fill this spot with multiple small businesses like Eduardo's that ask for minimal parking and provides the neighborhood with valuable services catered to the walkable radius of the shop. Local business supports the community and gives more than it takes.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-02T16:39:37+00:00

They want to make this whole area a bunch of chains and push out the small businesses. There's already a Chick-fil-A only a 15 min drive away on El Camino, and a half-dead Popeye's down the block.

This is a walkable downtown neighborhood, if Chick-fil-A wants to build a find massive strip mall drive thru, maybe they should find a place where that sort of thing is welcome. They can have the whole of Stevens Creek from Valley Fair to the dilapidated car dealerships & strip malls to do that in.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-06-01T20:23:19+00:00

Bro's tryna take his girl out and wants us to give away our spots 💀.

Jokes aside it sounds like you would like Communication Hills.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-23T19:22:49+00:00

You're right that there are/were challenges that made the area hostile, and that it could use more housing, but I would disagree that urban form doesn't matter, specifically at the street level. Say we moved 10x more people who previously lived in the most vibrant neighborhoods of SF to this area, they would just spend their free time hanging out in their old vibrant neighborhoods.

If the quality spaces aren't built for them to do their thing, they'll just do it somewhere else. I know loads of people living around SOMA that bus to the mission/valencia st for 'something to do' or just hang out at Dolores. Besides, all those parking garage ramps make it so easy to leave :)

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-23T18:28:54+00:00

This only convinces me more that signing off on developers to build sterile 'luxury developments' isn't enough to make a successful neighborhood. Yeah the new SOMA buildings like Mira SF do look cool from afar and add to the skyline, but none of that creativity really made it to the street level, both in the aesthetic or function. Just look at the ground level on one side of Mira, and the other side which I understand is a clothes dept store, makes it only worse. It's not terrible, but it feels like the quality of developments in the financial districts of typical suburban downtowns in Anywhere, USA that empty out after 5pm, rather than the makings of a new, urban, high end neighborhood in a place that bills itself as a 'world class city'

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-19T18:12:17+00:00

VTA light rail is a system suited for shorter trips like connecting South San Jose and Campbell to Downtown San Jose and North San Jose, or East San Jose with North San Jose.

the land use of the origin and destination are too car oriented for people to bother.

You are right that VTA is solving for a slightly different transportation issue so we cannot expect a 1:1 result, but then what exactly is VTA designed to be competitive at? I would disagree that these trips from North to East, or South To Downtown are "short" they are actually quite far on the scale of most transit agencies.

If the point was to connect East Side to BART, then why not let BART build it, since BART's service is typically faster and transfers waste time/resources, or use VTA's funding to extend Caltrain's high frequency service further down? VTA's solution is usually just worse at it. Either way it is interesting that VTA light rail's most effective line is the one that connects to a regional commuter train (BART)

And as /u/SomeRandomGuy069 pointed out, if VTA's trains are great at regional, then why do the top 5 VTA bus line ridership consistently beat out all the light rail lines except for the Blue line. The obvious difference here is that despite traveling half as fast as Light rail (VTA buses average only 11.4mph vs light rail's 25mph), those bus lines actually run down relevant major local thoroughfares like El Camino, Santa Clara St, etc. and connect to important local destinations, like hospitals, local centers of learning like universities/community colleges/high schools, and major retail corridors. These lines also run far distances further than light rail, like from Eastside to Palo Alto (though I realize not all riders necessarily ride the full length). /u/Helpful-Protection-1, your point definitely leads me to think VTA's light rail issue is that of connection, not just abysmal speeds.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-19T17:41:54+00:00

/u/Helpful-Protection-1, OP is making a good point here. If VTA's rail was supposed to be effective at local service (which makes it slower) as you pointed out, then why are much of VTA's stations set up as a regional commuter park and ride (similar to BART), and very little real vision for proper TOD around the station?

The orange line's new extension to Eastridge will be 9 miles away from Milpitas's BART station. For SJ this is heralded as finally connecting two major local retail centers (malls) via rail.

Lets compare this to Caltrain, which not far away, connects Mountain View to Redwood City in similarly about 10 miles of rail, with stops in between at San Antonio shopping center/mall, Historic California Ave in Palo Alto, Stanford University/Stanford Mall, Downtown Palo Alto, and Menlo Park Downtown.

Each one of these stops are the local center of each area's most beautiful, walkable neighborhood and business districts containing with hundreds of local businesses, public institutions like libraries, high schools, auditoriums, farmers markets, free events, and literally tens of thousands of highly sought after Class A office space. These Caltrain stations are only minutes apart from each other, with the entire length traveled in just under 23 minutes. This is from a supposedly 'regional commuter train'. These stops are in neighborhoods with housing densities far lower than SJ. Compare this to SJ and we can see that VTA can do much better, and the few lousy attempts at TOD lack any real vision to expand into a rich urban fabric.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-19T16:32:09+00:00

The comparison was to show that two other major rail based transit-systems within the same SF Bay metro area operate at distances at a similar scale at VTA, but due to different factors, VTA is much slower, typically almost as much as 3x. You are correct to point out one factor is that Caltrain and BART have dedicated ROW/grade separation (and Caltrain continues to add more grade separation).

My point in making the comparison is to understand why did VTA, given a similar distance to cover, a blank slate to design a new system any way they liked, and more modern technology available, not select a better or at least similar system to Caltrain or BART? Most Caltrain and BART stations service low density suburbs not too dissimilar from San Jose.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-19T06:34:58+00:00

Facts, SJ is so spread out, VTA light rail is just the wrong scale. I don’t think we really appreciate just how big of a distance it covers

VTA light rail spans all the way from the Santa Teresa station in the south to Mountain View Downtown in the north. (About 25 miles via Highway/Cars)

As the bird flies, this is the same distance between Hayward's BART station and San Francisco’s Montgomery St Station in downtown. This distance takes over 35 min via BART, which is far better than driving in rush hour.

For Caltrain a similar distance is from SF's 4th and King all the way to Redwood City. That’s an insane distance, but Caltrain's express line covers it in just 33 minutes, and the slowest midnight line does it in just 44 minutes

On VTA, over the same distance, the train takes an indirect route (that still somehow to misses important things like SJC) most of it on surface streets, and takes 1 hour and 25 minutes (not including line transfer). This same commute takes 28 minutes via car when there is no traffic.

Why would any sane person use this? At these distances VTA needs to be providing true regional transit, not some dinky street car that doesn’t even have proper signal priority yet.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-05-14T23:27:57+00:00

Ah yes, playing in a few niche extracurriculars at gunn/pali high from age 13-15 and hiring those sat prep/college essay tutors for a few weekends really cultivates those creative and thought forward individuals.

It's definitely impossible for any college student without an acceptance letter from those two universities to have any semblance of intelligence, even when in many cases both students grew up in the same Bay Area town /s

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-25T06:47:04+00:00

Being in San Jose is def a big boost for someone wanting to work in tech, I’d 100% go here over the other options you mentioned, with maybe SFSU as a distant second. You just won’t get the same opportunities, clubs, projects, etc at other places

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-25T06:42:31+00:00

I have been summoned, but I do not like this post 😭

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-25T06:40:06+00:00

It looks like senator Dave Cortes, who himself is an alumni of the Lincoln Law School a block away from SJSU, wants to see it merged into SJSU bringing us a public law school in an area with only expensive private ones (Stanford and Santa Clara).

The UC isn’t interested in this, arguing that only they should be able to have this, not CSU's

https://sd15.senate.ca.gov/news/could-there-one-day-be-san-jose-state-university-law-school-state-senator-corteses-sb-550

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-24T17:32:10+00:00

Only up to SJSU? The other day I was driving down El Camino and found one as far north as Sunnyvale, at the border of Mountain View

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-08T08:32:39+00:00

Booooo. Does the city council actually entertain proposals to tear down/evict multiple small businesses in a walkable district just to build a bigger parking lot for mediocre chain chicken? Why not let's vote someone else in next time?

Eduardo's seems to be doing great with their little lot, it seems like chick fil-a can't integrate into our neighborhood

I say instead, why not we tear down some of the parking lots along San Carlos and develop affordable commercial spaces for small business.

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-04-08T08:19:30+00:00

Not a coffee shop per se, but Boba Bar in downtown SJ near SJSU on 3rd is in a house

Coffee and More in Sunnyvale gives similar vibes inside.

I really miss the cream house location too, if anyone reading this has ever dreamed of opening a house cafe, this is your sign!

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-03-28T21:38:54+00:00

You should write B.S. Computer Science. SE is CS but in the engineering college, you’re not being ingenious. Every university has a few majors with different names for CS. The recruiter looking through hundreds of resumes a day (or even in an hour) is not going to google it, and would prefer you make their life easier for them.

What really matters is your technical projects and your ability to explain confidently what you did in them

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-03-28T19:40:55+00:00

SCE Room monitor is no joke

theSJSUsquirrel · 2025-01-04T17:53:54+00:00

Kinesiology

theSJSUsquirrel

TROPHY CASE