Relief for Traffic Congestion in Silicon Valley
How You Can Help
There is Strength in Numbers
- Become a member of SVRAIL and share your ideas in the discussion forum (see below).
- Read the Oped article for an overview of the ideas presented here.
- Read the white paper Planning for the Future in Silicon Valley for details on the ideas presented here.
- Talk to your friends and colleagues about SVRAIL and ask them to join the forum.
SVRAILforum
an on-line discussion forum covering issues affecting the quality of life in Silicon Valley including:
  - Traffic Congestion
  - Housing
  - Environment
  - Schools
  - Culture
  - Arts
  - Civic Activity
  - Development
  - Industrial Campus
  - RAIL Model
Download the white paper
in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) suitable for printing.
With the resolution that Santa Clara County Measure A passed in 2000 will not provide sufficient funds to build the entire BART extension, should we a) scale back the plans, or b) find alternative solutions to provide traffic relief? As the Silicon Valley economy recovers during the next decade, the need for traffic relief is not going to scale back.

Silicon Valley has traffic congestion because commuters have no convenient option other than driving to and from work. As long as people work in places that are only accessible by car, Silicon Valley will continue to be plagued by horrendous traffic congestion.

Bringing traffic relief to Silicon Valley means making commuting by rail as easy as commuting by automobile without making driving any less convenient than it is now. This requires more than just a BART line with trains. It also requires a new kind of development around transit stations.

Ideally, after getting off a train or out of a car, commuters should be within a short walk of their desks. Because pedestrians impede automobile traffic and automobile traffic creates a safety hazard for pedestrians, automobile and pedestrian traffic must be completely separated. Finally, the open spacious campus-like environment that has led to Silicon Valley's unique innovative culture must be preserved. In trying not to become Los Angeles, Silicon Valley should not become Manhattan.

Imagine an Industrial Campus with a transit station in the center of an eight acre beautifully landscaped park surrounded by four, six, and eight story office buildings with parking structures under the buildings or surrounding them on the side opposite the park. Such a campus would put over 30,000 jobs within a 5-minute walk of the transit station, provide convenient parking, and make it impossible for pedestrians to ever disrupt automobile traffic. The landscaped park and tree lined pedestrian malls between the buildings would provide a serene campus-like environment completely isolated from traffic of any sort encouraging the innovative Silicon Valley culture.

Financing this development can be accomplished entirely within the private sector through a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). The REIT would purchase or lease existing industrial land, replace the existing buildings with Industrial Campuses linked together with rail lines, and lease the new office space to generate revenue. Operating as a for profit private business, the REIT would generate enough revenue to pay for:

  • Loans used to fund the development
  • Building operation and maintenance
  • Operation and maintenance of the rail lines and stations Transit riders will ride free of charge and automobile commuters will park free of charge!

    The first Industrial Campus should be built directly across US101 from the San Jose Airport with a rail line running from the Diridon Caltrain station to the Industrial Campus with a stop at the new San Jose Airport terminal. This campus would be easily accessible to anyone living along the existing Caltrain and Ace lines from Gilroy to San Francisco to Tracy with a simple transfer at Diridon station.

    Over time, additional Industrial Campuses would be built across northern San Jose, through Milpitas, with the rail line eventually linking to the existing BART and ACE lines in Fremont. In less than ten years Silicon Valley could have significant traffic relief with 150,000 jobs located next to transit stations accessible from anywhere in the Bay Area, and financed entirely with private funds.

    Conventional thinking about traffic relief yields government based solutions that are woefully underfunded, prone to political power struggles, and doomed to failure. Silicon Valley did not earn its reputation as the world leader in business and technology innovation through conventional thinking.