for public transit fans
Jan. 18th, 2003 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbSan Jose's mayor is trying to expand the airport without enhancing transit to it. An agreement had been made that would connect San Jose's light rail system to the airport as it expands, but then 9/11 happened, airport security got bigger, and the mayor wants to hurry up the airport work and leave the light rail work behind.
The article offers the metaphorically intriging statement: "The airport is an island; it's landlocked."
Sources say that the mayor would work on a connection to the BART station--further on the outskirts of the city, and more useful to its suburbs--before the light rail connection, more useful to the city. I don't know a lot about San Jose politics, but this story arc I do know: Former mayor Tom McEnery, a Democrat and a film buff, was focused on San Jose as a city. A lot of his work as mayor was on the creation of a healthy downtown. He was voted out in favor of Ron Gonzales, a Republican and a regionalist, focused on San Jose as a part of a wider area. That's the context in which his support for suburban access to the airport can be read.
For more on that drama, see yet another Metro article.
The article offers the metaphorically intriging statement: "The airport is an island; it's landlocked."
Sources say that the mayor would work on a connection to the BART station--further on the outskirts of the city, and more useful to its suburbs--before the light rail connection, more useful to the city. I don't know a lot about San Jose politics, but this story arc I do know: Former mayor Tom McEnery, a Democrat and a film buff, was focused on San Jose as a city. A lot of his work as mayor was on the creation of a healthy downtown. He was voted out in favor of Ron Gonzales, a Republican and a regionalist, focused on San Jose as a part of a wider area. That's the context in which his support for suburban access to the airport can be read.
For more on that drama, see yet another Metro article.
