Despite public reassurances from Livermore Police Chief Sweeney, neighbors and patrons of the redeveloped downtown area saw their biggest fears confirmed. The mere mention of a BART station in the downtown area has started to attract the lowest and most criminal elements of society: at around 11:15 PM on Saturday, April 24th of 2010 Police Officer Ryan Kiefer with friendly support of a bouncer from the Sapphire Restaurant and Lounge assaulted an innocent & peaceful citizen who was proudly working on his new iPad after watching “The Producers” at the Bankhead Theater with the fabricated accusation of planning a “sniper attack”. The brutal beating of this innocent area man (who had never even touched a gun his entire life) remains under closed investigation …
Archive for BART
BART brutality arrives in Livermore … years before BART
April 24, 2010 · Filed under abuse, BART, police
BART to Livermore EIR hearing 1/3
November 20, 2009 · Filed under BART, downtown, livermore, sustainability, transportation, urban planning, walkable
At the first of three environmental impact report (EIR) public hearing organized by BART a lot of people seemed afraid that a downtown station would change Livermore to the worse and increase crime. One teenage girl – clearly indoctrinated by mom – broke out in tears as she envisioned BART bringing muggers and rapists to Livermore.
Yet, a pure highway alignment along I-580 is something that i – and all urban planners and city officials i talked to – strongly dislike because it would mean to repeat the mistakes of (auto-centric) planning in the past. A BART station in downtown Livermore presents a unique opportunity to create a wonderful walkable community around downtown setting a textbook example for sustainable transit oriented planning in America. I already love what the City has done during the redevelopment efforts of the past few years that have converted downtown from a four-lane freeway to a welcoming and cute destination. But it is still a downtown on life-support. There is no sustainable traffic throughout the day to support the kind of business you expect to find in a healthy downtown: produce stalls, a delicatessen, a small grocery store, a bakery, a cheese store, or a butcher. Try to buy a carton of eggs or a loaf of bread in downtown. Impossible. Fortunately i got my three minutes of rallying support for a downtown Livermore station and my comments were picked up by reporters of the contra costa times, the independent news, and the pleasanton weekly.
BART to Livermore workshop 1/3
November 13, 2009 · Filed under BART, downtown, livermore, sustainability, transportation, urban planning, walkable
The city of Livermore is holding three workshops to gather public input on the possible alignments and station combination for the BART extension. The first one was well attended and it seemed as if the audience’s opinion more or less converged on having two stations: One in downtown Livermore to serve the residents, to vitalize local businesses, and to spark sustainable transit-oriented development but with strict parking regulations to keep car commuter traffic out of downtown. The other one as far east as possible with ample amounts of parking to serve commuters from Mountain House, Tracy and beyond and ease congestion on I-580.
creating an urban farm in downtown livermore 