HSR Authority CEO “drinking the Kool-Aid” with latest comment
Yet another appalling budgetary upsurge (currently, the SJ–SF section alone will cost $5.3 million), and Brian Kelly still calls California’s failed high-speed rail project affordable? The Opp Now team spoke with Kelly Decker and Cindy Bloom of the SAFE Coalition about this fallacious claim and why HSR is a “Train to Nowhere” except taxpayers’ pockets. The San Fernando Valley-based SAFE (Save the Angeles Forest for Everyone) Coalition originally fought the HSR project on environmental grounds and now also its overall devastation to California.
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The streets are for everyone: How SJ is becoming one of America's most bike-friendly cities
In the last 10 years, San Jose has made substantial changes to its streetscape to make it more bike-friendly. In an Opp Now exclusive, we talked to John Brazil, Transportation Options Program Manager, and Colin Heyne, Public Information Manager in the City's Dept. of Transportation. They described the unique opportunities and challenges of creating a bike-friendly environment while respecting vehicular traffic.
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Irredeemable money-loser: TRANSDEF president condemns high-speed rail disaster
In what universe is a $5.3 billion price tag (more than three times the original estimate for SJ–SF and likely to further escalate) a bargain? In an exclusive Opportunity Now interview, David Schonbrunn—president of the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund (TRANSDEF)—provides perspective on CEO Brian Kelly’s recent claim that the SJ–SF HSR project is a fiscal “bargain.” TRANSDEF has spearheaded litigation against this project since 2008 and continues to advocate for effective Bay Area transportation solutions.
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How "preserving" affordable housing misfires
Concerned citizen Dean Hotop agrees with Scott Beyer's analysis of SJ's housing permit woes (see nearby) and examines the unintended consequences of the Ellis Act which tries to "preserve" affordable housing.
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Mistakes, misleading info abound in MV Voice's puff coverage of Lieber/Verbica race for Board of Equalization
The Mountain View Voice may be Sally Lieber's hometown newspaper (she's currently a Mtn View City Councilmember and is running for Board of Equalization), but home-cookin' can go a little too far, as we discovered from their election night coverage.
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San Jose’s Housing Permits Fall Short -- Again
Scott Beyer, editor of the influential Market Urbanism Report, continues his close, metrics-based investigation of the local housing market, and comes up with another disappointing conclusion: Silicon Valley continues to underbuild residential construction, worsening its affordability crisis. An Opportunity Now exclusive.
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Scott Beyer's Three-part series on how to implement a free-market housing strategy in San Jose
Scott Beyer, Founder of the influential Market Urbanism Report and author of the widely respected book: Market Urbanism: A vision for free-market cities, is a leading proponent of classical liberal reforms to address the national housing crisis. In Part I of an exclusive 3-part series for Opportunity Now, Beyer begins his analysis of San Jose's current policies, and what needs to change.
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How San Jose held up Google for hundreds of millions of dollars
Once-vocal progressive critics to Google's downtown project have gone strangely quiet. Maybe it has something to do with the $200m community slush fund Google offered up to get local approval for the project. Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute wonders if the Google deal sets a precedent that makes it impossible for small and medium businesses to develop in San Jose in the future. An Opportunity Now exclusive.
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Fixing VTA Goes Beyond Governance Reform
Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute, in this exclusive analysis for Opportunity Now, provides a clear-eyed perspective about the problems facing the worst-performing transit agency in America, and how recent kerfuffles around VTA's governance deflect attention from the real causes of the transit agency's woeful status.
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How VTA went off track, how to get it back in gear
VTA's budget woes and dubious expenditures are all the news, but these are just the latest faceplants for one of the worst-performing transit agencies in the U.S. Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute explores the issue in this exclusive analysis for Opportunity Now.
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Everything you need to know about Santa Clara County's housing crisis: the causes, the mistakes, the way out
In his exclusive report for Opportunity Now, Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute explores how New Urbanist thinking and misguided anti-market policies created one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world--and how to fix it.
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SJPD arrests 176 during Floyd protests; Santa Clara DA prosecutes just 6
DA dismisses almost all protester charges, consistent with the social justice goals of other progressive DAs, including Portland and around the country. Mark Lisheron's exclusive investigation for Opportunity Now.
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