Survey Says!
In January/February, the city’s Development Services department conducted a Phone Survey of Alamedans in advance of the Economic Development Strategic Plan Update that the Economic Development Commission (EDC) is working on.
There’s lots of interesting information included in it, including the fact that 83% of Alamedans don’t feel that protecting historical structures at Alameda Point is all that important.
Not surprisingly, traffic congestion is the number one concern in the city (though the survey missed a BIG opportunity to identify where the polled residents felt the congestion is). More surprising was the lare support for increases in transit, biking and walking infrastructure (though surprisingly, better connections for bikes and peds between Alameda and Oakland rated poorly).
The big problem, on the transportation side, is that a number of the questions asked were not very helpful. People were asked whether “[creating] a bus shuttle between Alameda and BART” is a priority. It turns out that it’s the #1 transportation priority in Alameda. But we have no idea whether these people are aware of the many existing “bus shuttles” that connect a majority of Alamedans to BART. The question was asked, assuming that there were none. This either says that AC Transit’s services are not well known (very likely) or that the service doesn’t meet the perceived needs of people that don’t use them (also likely).
I’ll write more fully about items in this as I digest it, but quickly: Alamedans don’t want the city to build a convention center, they do want mixed-uses on the waterfront, and slightly surprising, they DO wanted residential/retail/commercial mixed-use built where “auto row” is quickly disappearing on Park Street (North of Lincoln).
Only 3% identified the theater as the Local Issue they are concerned about, 6% self-identified Target as their big concern.
Lastly, 82% of Alamedans think redeveloping Alameda Point is a high priority. At the Northern Waterfront, only 17% think it should be dedicated to Maritime and Industrial uses. 74% want mixed use (which includes residential) in the Northern Waterfront but only 4% think it should be solely residential.
Enjoy!
Joel
June 30th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
To be honest I don’t hardly find one historical structure at the point which is partially worth keeping. I was in the Air Force and seen several bases in my time and Alameda Point has to be one of the dullest of all of them (although nice views). They all look like 1950-1960 buildings with no piazzas or style. They were build for a certain function and a lot of them are not all that functional as civilian buildings.
I would like to keep the flight control tower though and make it my house with the top being my bedroom….but I know that won’t ever happen. With little or no use of some of these buildings they are probably full of toxic mold…you can smell it in the Officer’s club….millions of $ to clean up in a lot of the buildings. If they have moss growing on the outside there is probably something else growing on the inside. You can rebuild the big whites probably for less than to rehabilitate them as they keep letting them deteriorate. The government is also letting the Coast Guard hosing deteriorate…I guess all the money is going to the war in Iraq. It is to bad because when I was in the Military, Military housing was immaculate.