Curbing Your Enthusiasm

Some government money must have broken loose somewhere, because there's a rash of sidewalk ramp installations going on around Castro Valley.

Your Boulevardier noticed the pylons and diggers on Redwood Road north of Castro Valley Boulevard last week. Today, he found several demolitions on The Boulevard. The two photos below were taken at Stanton and Strobridge respectively.

Certainly when the projects are complete the sidewalks and curb cuts will be better for pedestrians -- particularly those in wheelchairs or parents pushing strollers. But for the time being, the work makes getting around quite difficult. The construction at Stanton is particularly disruptive to pedestrians because there is a) no warning that the work is coming; and b) no way around it except to walk in traffic. This at an intersection where motorists rarely bother to look for pedestrians in the first place.


The demolition at Strobridge is curious because the crews have removed only the middle part of an already-existing ramp. Your Boulevardier assumes this is to put down the sort of bumpy rubber surface that many such ramps have.

The strangest ramp installations in Castro Valley occur where there are no sidewalks. (Longtime readers may recall postings in which Your Boulevardier griped about the mysterious pride some Castro Valleyans have in their lack of sidewalks; to some, it's a contributor to our "rural feel." To Yours Truly, lack of sidewalks only contributes to muddy shoes in the winter and impolite, pedestrian-hostile parking year-round.) Your Boulevardier knows he has seen some of these unattached ramps, but has not cataloged them for publication here. Perhaps he will do so in the near future.

English Only

Your Boulevardier happened to be visiting his bank this morning when a pack of English car enthusiasts gathered for a top-down drive in the cool autumn air.



Most -- if not all -- of the cars were MGs. (Click on the photo for a better view.) The variety of colors and styles and vintages was most impressive. Your Boulevardier snapped his photo a bit surreptitiously; had he been more bold, he would have inquired more about the group and taken photos of some of the elaborate headgear that the motorists were employing to keep their ears warm.

The roar and rumble as the string of English Roadsters started up and pulled onto The Boulevard was great fun to hear.

Ramping Up

Progress continues on the Highway 580 / Redwood Road interchange. For a long time the work seemed largely confined to the south side of the freeway, but in the last few weeks crews have taken out trees, built a retaining wall, and carved off a portion of the Spencer Mortuary parking lot for the westbound offramp. (Click the photo for a larger view.)



The pace of the project is to be commended -- especially when compared with the interchange modifications at Strobridge Avenue. Your Boulevardier commented on the problems with this project way back in January; only recently has the vacant lot been cleaned up, but the trash along the fence under the freeway remains, and lanes -- both on Strobridge and on the eastbound onramp -- continue to be inexplicably blocked off. (Your Boulevardier does not refer to the closing of Strobridge at Gary Drive, which he approves of in spite of the fact that it makes access to his own neighborhood more difficult.)

Back to the Redwood Road interchange, a number of questions remain in Your Boulevardier's mind, regarding both the roads and the sidewalks. He will post these questions in the near future. Meanwhile, as a pedestrian, he hopes the walk/don't walk signs and buttons will be connected soon.

Near Misses

Twice on his morning walk today, Your Boulevardier was nearly struck by cars while in a crosswalk. Both episodes happened when drivers were making right turns on red lights; both rolled through the crosswalks and were looking left for cross traffic, not seeing the pedestrian -- yours truly -- approaching from the right. In both circumstances, the drivers did not seem to acknowledge the fact that they endangered a person. And in both circumstances, law enforcement was nowhere nearby.

After the second incident, which was frighteningly close and in which the car was traveling at very high speed, Your Boulevardier started to imagine elaborate revenge fantasies. If only he had had a few pieces of very ripe fruit at the ready to lob at the cars! Better: if only he had had a squirt bottle of garish nail polish to squirt on the passing car! (Best case scenario in this version would be that the driver would not notice the polish until later in the day, when the enamel had hardened to an industrial-strength sheen.) Or maybe this: one could roll a watermelon under the car as it passed, then quickly sit on the ground; the driver would feel a bump, look in his rearview, see a red splat and a person, and have a heart attack.

A deep breath is called for. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Motorists, please remember California Vehicle Code section 21453(b), which includes this language: "A driver making [a right turn on a red light] shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk".

Ol' '56

The fading blue, white, and rust-colored 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air has been parked in the lot behind Castro Valley Lumber for as long as Your Boulevardier can remember. The tires still hold air, so it seems that it's not entirely derelict, but its registration does not appear to be current. The body seems to be in very good shape overall, and the original wheel covers are intact; perhaps someone at the lumberyard is waiting for the right opportunity to restore the vehicle.



A sidenote: The car's license plate -- AER 101 -- seems to hail from the very early days of six-digit letter-number combinations in California (assuming that AAA 001 was the first plate off the stamper).

Sunday Buzz

Your Boulevardier and the Subcompact Loaner walked to Valley Java this morning. We have three observations:

1) The construction of the 238-Strobridge interchange seems to have stopped at about 90 percent of completion. Though the ramps themselves are finished, cones (or whatever one calls those upright orange pylons with the black bases that are glued to the pavement) and striping are all that, to this layman's eyes, remain to be completed. Along with regular trash removal, of course.

2) The congregants of the Neighborhood Church may be fine people, but they really don't seem to care much about pedestrians and small dogs who are trying to cross Castro Valley Boulevard. A little more observation and courtesy would be appreciated. Please, friends: at least pretend to stop at the limit line -- that's the first line of the crosswalk -- before turning right onto John Drive.

3) The activity level at Valley Java was, at least at this visit, considerably lower than it used to be. Maybe Peet's has siphoned off some of the business, or perhaps the decamping of Judge Peggy Hora to parts east has caused her klatsch to find another place to gather.

Traffic Gets One's Goat

Your Boulevardier was driving home from Oakland last evening around 9:45 p.m., but when he reached the mouth of Castro Valley -- just past the 164th Avenue offramp, and before 238 splits into downtown Hayward and west to San Lorenzo -- traffic came to a halt. Not just a slowdown, mind you; it was a shut-off-the-car-get-out-and-chat-with-other-motorists dead stop. After about 15 minutes it cleared, just as quickly as it had occurred. (We were allowed to continue east on 580, but vehicles were prevented from going on 238 in either direction.)

A traffic report on the radio a few minutes later announced the culprit: a herd of goats had gotten loose on the freeway! However, Your Boulevardier has not been able to find any other confirming media reports of this event. If readers hear anything, please post details in the comments.

CV To Lose M Transbay Bus?

Your Boulevardier occasionally takes the M bus across the San Mateo Bridge to visit Mon Petit Chou. The bus is clean and comfortable, even if the schedule is far from ideal. One works with it.

However, it appears that, because of budget cuts, the schedule will get even worse for Castro Valley residents. If Your Boulevardier reads AC Transit's current staff recommendation correctly, the bus will terminate in the East Bay at the Hayward BART station, rather than Castro Valley. The relevant section can be found on page 12:

Line M: Hayward BART to Oracle via Winton, Hesperian, Hwy 92, Chess Dr., Metro Center, Hillsdale Blvd. Hillsdale Caltrain, Oracle HQ. The Line M will no longer provide service to the Dumbarton Bridge corridor and consequently the Ardenwood Park and Ride facility.

Granted, the major cut in service has been made on the west end of the line, not on the east. Still, Your Boulevardier will miss the chance to catch the M at the Castro Valley BART station.

Apostrophe Wrench

Your Boulevardier hsa walked past it several hundred times, but only recently noticed the very nice hand-painted sign for Sal's Foreign Auto Service on Castro Valley Boulevard.


Note the clever use of a wrench for the apostrophe.

The office for Sal's is in the Quonset hut that was formerly the Bubble Palace coin laundry, if memory serves. (Frère de Boulevardier played for the Bubble Palace Little League team many decades ago.) Sal's service bays are around the corner.

On The Button

It would appear that crosswalk buttons around town are being replaced. This past weekend Your Boulevardier walked on the west side of town, north of Castro Valley Boulevard, and noticed a new-style button in place. This one was photographed at Lake Chabot Road and Somerset Avenue.


As you can see in the photo, the new buttons fit into the existing fixtures. They have a red light-emitting diode (LED) in the center, and emit a sharp beep sound when pressed.

Your Boulevardier believes that the new buttons are accompanied by crosswalk signals that count down as the time to cross the street runs out.

What's Happened to Hutch's?

Your Boulevardier has been taking his vehicle to Hutch's Quik Lube and Car Wash off and on for decades. Of late he has just used the Quik Lube and let the free carwash certificates pile up in the glove compartment, but today he decided to go the whole nine yards.

The oil change was fine, but the car wash was not.

First, the worker greeted Your Boulevardier as "boss." Why this annoys, one cannot precisely say -- but it does. Perhaps it seems vaguely reverse-classist; I'm a customer, yes, but I'm not the boss. Then began a hard-sell of an upgraded carwash. Your Boulevardier drives a pickup truck, and the vehicle does not require an upgraded anything. After the employee finally agreed to just provide the service that was included with the oil change, the vehicle was left in the vacuum bay.

Eventually the pickup came out the wash and was driven to a spot in the bright sun -- and left there. Nobody dried the car for at least ten minutes; by then, why bother? When the wiping was done (sloppily) and the Armor All was applied to the tires (again sloppily) the employee waved a towel and shouted "truck!" She then proceeded to show off her bloody knuckle to Your Boulevardier; why, it is not clear.

Upon entering the vehicle, Your Boulevardier found that the vacuum job was mediocre at best. It's freely admitted that this vehicle is not easy to vacuum, but a little more care to get crumbs and dog hair from between the seats would have been easy and paid big dividends. There was even dirt remaining under the floor mats.

One other thing to note: Hutch's used to provide a postpaid comment card, coupons for future visits, and a rewash guarantee with all washes. No longer. Perhaps they really don't want to know how they did and don't want their customers to return. It can be arranged.

It pains Your Boulevardier to post a curmudgeonly gripe like this on the blog, but it was not a good experience at Hutch's today.

Build It Up, Tear It Down

Your Boulevardier walked around the neighborhood just east of the BART station yesterday afternoon. This area is choked with trucks and workers right now because of two big projects.

First is the new Castro Valley Library. The building is crawling with workers who are attaching bright yellow gypsum board exterior siding to its metal skeleton. It looks like roofing panels are stacked on the building's top, but are not yet attached. It still remains very difficult for Your Boulevardier to envision the finished building based upon the construction to date and compared with the artist's rendering that appears on the billboard on Norbridge Avenue. Perhaps it's just a matter of where the front of the building is.

Speaking of the library, Your Boulevardier notes that Don Jose's Restaurant in Castro Village will donate ten percent of its sales during the week of April 13-19 to the library. (It's not clear from the flyer posted on Don Jose's door whether the funds will go toward library construction or to the Friends organization.)

The second project that is clogging the neighborhood just east of the BART station is the reworking of the I-580 interchange with Redwood Road. When completed, there will be a full set of on- and off-ramps here, eastbound and westbound. Yesterday, workers were breaking down the soundwall and ripping out trees along the highway's north side. This is the neighborhood along Juniper Street, behind the Jess C. Spencer Mortuary. (Where, it is noted, Madame Boulevardier was cremated.) Several homes have been demolished, but a few remain defiantly standing -- though it's not sure if they're occupied. It's assumed that Spencer's will lose a good portion of its parking lot to the project as well. Progress is visible on the other side of the freeway as well, with the former professional building having been demolished a few weeks ago. A fairly clear aerial representation of the project can be found here.

It seems the hangup in government budgets has not put either of these projects on hold, which is a good thing because they seem like they would be quite disruptive to the residents of the neighborhood.

Mythbuster Spotted in Castro Valley

Your Boulevardier spotted Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman driving a white Dodge Caliber on Redwood Road a few minutes after 8:00 a.m. this morning. Although the glimpse was fleeting, the trademark beret, steel-framed glasses, and walrus mustache were clearly evident. A passenger was in the car as well, but his or her identity could not be discerned. One can only hope it was Kari Byron.

Strobridge Interchange Questions

The new interchange from Eastbound I-580 to Strobridge Avenue appears to be nearing completion. Most barricades have been removed, and crews appear to be in cleanup mode. Still, four questions remain in Your Boulevardier's mind about the project. They are, in no particular order:

How will the odd patch of earth between the freeway and the onramp be maintained? One finds it hard to believe that a crew will get way up there regularly with a lawnmower to tend the narrow strip. Your Boulevardier is no fan of pavement, but it would make sense in this case to not make the area a haven for unwanted vegation.

Will CalTrans remove the fences that run along both sides of Strobridge Avenue under the freeway? It can't be argued that the fence on the west side keeps anyone out, since it stops abruptly on the south side of the underpass with no gate or structure to close the end. For now, all the fence does is collect trash, and it's very rarely cleaned out.

What will happen to the CalTrans corporation yard on the north side of the underpass? Like the aforementioned fence, the yard is an unmaintained haven for trash. Illegal dumping occurs regularly, and many piles of construction materials and debris remain there as well.

What is the purpose of the metal box at the top of the onramp? Will it be relocated, and if so will the temporary barricades and sand barrels around it be removed?

Maintenance of this offramp has long been neglected by CalTrans. Indeed, one of Your Boulevardier's neighbors left the Baywood District because (among other things) he felt the area gave a slumlike first impression, what with the litter and ill-kept homes along Strobridge Avenue. (And, perhaps ironically, this person drove a garbage truck.)

Night Passages

In the summer, beginning a stroll downtown at 6:30 p.m. is nothing special. But as the calendar nears the Winter Solstice, and when a cold front approaches from the north, it can take on the feel of an expedition.

Such was the case when Your Boulevardier decided to walk into town this evening. He bundled up -- a long-sleeved thermal shirt, a light-but-warm windproof jacket, gloves, and a beret -- and sallied forth.

The cold seemed to slow things down. Cars were scarce and generally polite at intersections. Christmas lights twinkled gently. Most of the few persons who were out on foot were bundled up with hats and coats -- and many were walking their dogs. (Your Boulevardier will be walking his into town again soon; she's well on the mend.) Even the fiberglass horse that stands guard outside of Rowell's Saddlery was wearing a coat -- in his case, a festive quilted satin number. (Your Boulevardier calls the cheval immobile "Don," after Don Castro. He does not believe that anyone else does.)

The parking lot in Castro Village was full, yet the few businesses that were open seemed, for the most part, to be empty. (It seems generally that the retailers in Castro Village don't stay open in the evenings, but the restaurants do.) It was noted that two establishments were busy: Don Jose's was bustling with full tables, and almost all lanes in Castro Village Bowl were in use. Green-and-red holiday messages were displayed on the screens over the alleys.

After a brief stop at the grocery for unsalted butter, Your Boulevardier returned home to bake some Madeleines using this recipe. The cookies taste good but are unsightly. More experimentation is needed.

Postscript to Wudas: a photo of the recuperating BoulevarDog -- also known now as the Spleenless Wonder -- has been snapped and will be posted soon. She is not exposing the five-inch scar on her underbelly in the photo, but perhaps that's for the best.

The Power of the Pole

Your Boulevardier, accompanied by the Trust BoulevarDog, trekked into downtown Castro Valley this afternoon. (The reason for this journey will be revealed soon.) Upon arriving at the intersection of Castro Valley Boulevard and San Miguel Street, he noticed telltale piles of white ashes in several places on the street. It did not require much more investigation to notice that a PG&E crew was hard at work on San Miguel, just north of The Boulevard and across the street from Blockbuster Video.

According to a flagman who was directing traffic (while conversing on his Bluetooth headset), a car had taken out the first telephone pole on the street last night. The crew was replacing the pole; a crane and several trucks' worth of electricians were on the job.

It's never good to be in a serious collision, but if one must be in a crash, it is perhaps less awful to do so within 50 yards of a fire station, as this person had done. Emergency response would be swift, no matter the hour. Your Boulevardier hopes that nobody was hurt in the collision, but it takes considerable force to damage a telephone pole so he is not optimistic. If readers have more details, please provide them in the comments.

Remodeling McDonald's

Your Boulevardier notes that the McDonald's on Castro Valley's Fast Food Island is closed for remodeling. This event has been in the planning stages for years, it seems. This morning a cold steel fence kept all but the birds from visiting the Golden Arches. And because the restaurant was not being patronized, and the fries and burger buns on which the pigeons and seagulls had, in the past, feasted were not forthcoming, so the avian scavengers had precious little to do. One telling note as to the abruptness of the property's fencing: copies of USA Today remain in the newsrack by the restaurant's door.

Deep in the recesses of Your Boulevardier's memory, he can recall eating at this restaurant when it was brand new. The building was covered with white tile, and sported several red concrete outdoor tables in lieu of indoor dining then. The structure was spanned by the trademark aureate arcs. The hamburgers cost, if memory serves, twenty-nine cents.

Over the years, the building expanded as its real estate morphed. The playplace was added, and a section of the dining area was segregated as a party room. (Neveau de Boulevardier celebrated at least one birthday there.) The establishment's parking lot grew dramatically, even as the freeway and its offramps encroached.

Automobiles have always been the preferred mode of access to McDonald's, it seems, and pedestrians such as Your Boulevardier took some risks in attempting to walk to the place -- what with motorists juggling too-hot coffee, filing their change, shushing the youngsters, and, oh yes, driving their cars from the drive-through.

But one can say what one will about McDonald's -- Your Boulevardier has concerns about its business practices and the health value of its products -- but the company has maintained its Castro Valley property well through all the changes. On a survey mission this morning, Your Boulevardier noted the lush green lawns, carefully trimmed shrubbery, and crimson Pistache trees along the property's perimeter. Let us hope that the new structure adds some architectural interest and other thoughtful touches, since this site is, for better or worse, one of the gateways to our town.




Postscript, unrelated: On a walk to Valley Java this morning, Your Boulevardier noted that gasoline at the Shop 'N' Save on Stanton Avenue has dipped one tenth of a cent below $2 per gallon.

And Speaking Of Things On The Move

Here's a startling bit of video of the aftermath of a car crashing into a dentist's office on Redwood Road. Video is from the Castro Valley Forum.