1.
Stanford University
–
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Its 8, 180-acre campus is one of the largest in the United States, Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere. The university was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Stanford was a former Governor of California and U. S. Senator, he made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students 125 years ago on October 1,1891, Stanford University struggled financially after Leland Stanfords death in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the country. There are three schools that have both undergraduate and graduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. Stanford faculty and alumni have founded a number of companies that produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires,17 astronauts and it is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress. Sixty Nobel laureates and seven Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanfords previous Palo Alto farm, despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I, the Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which was established in 1962, in 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped. Besides the central campus described below, the university also operates at more remote locations, some elsewhere on the main campus. Stanfords main campus includes a place within unincorporated Santa Clara County. The campus also includes land in unincorporated San Mateo County, as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park, Woodside. The academic central campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard, the United States Postal Service has assigned it two ZIP codes,94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P. O. box mail
2.
Palo Alto, California
–
Palo Alto is a charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley and it is named after a coast redwood tree called El Palo Alto. Palo Alto was established by Leland Stanford Sr. when he founded Stanford University, following the death of his son and it has also served as an incubator to several other high-technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Logitech, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal. As of the 2010 census, the total resident population is 64,403. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, the recorded history of Palo Alto dates back to 1769, when Gaspar de Portolá noted an Ohlone settlement. This remains an area of known Indian mounds, a plaque at Middlefield Road and Embarcadero Road commemorates the area. The city got its name from a tall coast redwood tree, named El Palo Alto, a plaque there recounts the story of the Portolà expedition, a 63-man, 200-horse expedition from San Diego to Monterey from November 7–11,1769. The group overshot Monterey in the fog and when they reached modern-day Pacifica, they ascended Sweeney Ridge, thinking the bay was too wide to cross, the group retraced their journey to Monterey, never becoming aware of the Golden Gate entrance to the Bay. Located south of the San Francisquito Creek, west of todays I-280, in 1835, Rafael Soto and family settled near the San Francisquito Creek near Newell and Middlefield, selling goods to travelers. Rafael Soto died in 1839, but his wife, Maria Antonia Mesa, was granted Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito in 1841, in 1839, their daughter María Luisa Soto married John Coppinger, who was the grantee of Rancho Cañada de Raymundo. Rancho Cañada de Raymundo was West of San Francisquito Creek, and began at Alambique Creek, the border of Rancho Corte de Madera. Bear Gulch Creek flowed on his land in Portola Valley, the rancho also abutted Buelnas grant near Skyline Boulevard and Matadero Creek. Upon Coppingers death, Maria inherited it and later married a visiting boat captain, Greer owned a home on the site that is now Town & Country Village on Embarcadero and El Camino Real. Greer Avenue and Court are named for him, to the west of Rafael Soto, near El Camino and following the Creek, was Rancho San Francisquito granted in 1839 to Antonio Buelna and wife Maria Concepcion. To the south of the Sotos, the brothers Secundino and Teodoro Robles in 1849 bought Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito from José Peña, where the Joness house was, then east down Arastradero Rd. to the north property line of Alta Mesa Memorial Park and Terman Park. The property then went along the bay to the Embarcadero, a boundary in the day, then up to the Stanford University gates, up Galvez. The grant was bounded on the south by Mariano Castros Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas grant across San Antonio Road, thats the Robles Rancho, about 80% of Palo Alto and Stanford University. It was whittled down by 1863 through courts to 6,981 acres, stories say their grand hacienda was built on the former meager adobe of José Peña near Ferne off San Antonio Road, midway between Middlefield and Alma Street
3.
Woodside, California
–
Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It has a system of government. The population of the town was 5,287 at the 2010 census, Woodside is home to many horses and is among the wealthiest communities in the United States. The median household income in the town is $212,917, the Woodside area was originally home to natives belonging to the Ohlone tribe. In 1769, led by Gaspar de Portolá, Spanish explorers searching for San Francisco Bay camped at a site near Woodside, Woodside is located on the Rancho Cañada de Raymundo Mexican Land grant. Woodside is said to be the oldest English-speaking settlement in the part of the San Francisco Peninsula. The first English-speaking settlers arrived in the early 19th century to log the rich stands of redwoods, charles Brown constructed the first sawmill in Woodside on his Mountain Home Ranch around 1838. His adobe house, built in 1839, still stands today, by mid-century, the Woodside area had a dozen mills producing building materials for a booming San Francisco. In 1849, during the California Gold Rush, 20-year-old Mathias Alfred Parkhurst purchased 127 acres of timberland and named it “Woodside, of course, by the late 19th century, Woodside was home to country estates. The Sequoia Redwood trees in Woodside are currently 3 generation growth, the first generation of the Redwood trees were used to build San Francisco original homes. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the returned to Woodside to cut the second growth of redwood so they could be used for the rebuilding of San Francisco. In 1909, the Family, a club, set up camp facilities and rustic buildings in Woodside at the Family Farm. Gatherings at the Family Farm include an annual Farm Play, written, in 1912, the Family pooled funds to build Our Lady of the Wayside Church in Portola Valley, designed by 19-year-old Timothy L. Pflueger, his first commission. The historic building was repaired at a cost of US$600,000 after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Woodside was incorporated in 1956 to prevent urbanization, and it still retains a rural residential character, though it is a short commute to Silicon Valley. Today, Woodside is among the wealthiest small towns in the United States, outside of the business district are the Stillheart Institute educational event center, Skywood Trading Post and the Mountain Terrace event center. Horses are part of the local culture, numerous residents keep horses, and the town government maintains a network of horse trails. Some residents homes are even considered farms, the town is also popular among local cyclists and draws them in large numbers on weekends. The most popular road cycling routes include Old La Honda Road, Kings Mountain Road, Cañada Road, Southgate Drive, Skyline Boulevard, the Tour of California bicycle race includes several roads along and adjacent to CA-84 and Skyline Boulevard
4.
Interstate 280 (California)
–
Interstate 280 is a 57-mile long north–south Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It connects San Jose and San Francisco, running along just to the west of the cities of San Francisco Peninsula for most of its route. I-280 from its terminus at U. S.101. One of the signs still indicates that the Junipero Serra Freeway is known as the Worlds Most Beautiful Freeway due to its scenic route through the San Francisco Peninsula. From State Route 1 to the James Lick Freeway in San Francisco it is called the John F Foran Freeway, but is more commonly referred to by its original name. And from the James Lick Freeway to its end at King Street and Fifth Street. This route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System, I-280 is one of two 3-digit Interstate designations to appear on opposite coasts of the United States. I-110 in California and Florida is the other designation. The southern end of Interstate 280 begins at U. S.101 in San Jose, the segment of the Junipero Serra Freeway between Cupertino and Daly City has been called the Worlds Most Beautiful Freeway since its dedication in the 1960s. Through much of this segment, the freeway is actually running just inside the rim of the rift valley of the San Andreas Fault. For nearly all of its length, Interstate 280 runs roughly parallel, both freeways are north–south routes connecting San Jose with San Francisco, however, unlike I-280, the route that U. S.101 takes between the two cities goes entirely through urbanized areas. The majority of the population of the San Francisco Peninsula lives somewhere between Interstate 280 and U. S.101, I-280 never intersects with Interstate 80, its parent interstate. The northern terminus of I-280 is within about a mile of I-80s western terminus, although San Francisco has had several opportunities to connect I-280 to I-80, it has chosen to use the money for other purposes. Connecting the two freeways is considered to be politically and financially infeasible at this time, due to the citys strong anti-freeway stance. Instead, 280s northernmost extension primarily functions as a spur into Downtown San Francisco, Most of I-280, in San Jose to Daly City, is designated as the Junipero Serra Freeway in honor of Spanish missionary Junípero Serra, who founded many of Californias missions in the 18th century. The section of I-280 between the James Lick Freeway and its end at 6th and King Streets is called the Southern-Embarcadero Freeway. Major intersections include U. S.101 and State Route 1 in San Francisco, Interstate 380 in San Bruno, State Route 92 in San Mateo, and I-880 and I-680 and U. S. in San Jose. The Junipero Serra Freeway is the name of Interstate 280 from SR1 in San Francisco to SR17, as named by Assembly Concurrent Resolution 140, Chapter 208 in 1967
5.
El Camino Real (California)
–
The meaning of the term Camino Real has in fact changed over time. In earlier Spanish colonial times, any road under the jurisdiction of the Spanish crown. Examples of such roads ran between principal settlements throughout Spain and its colonies such as New Spain, most caminos reales had names apart from the appended camino real. Once Mexico won its independence from Spain, no road in Mexico, the name was rarely used after that and was only revived in the American period in connection with the boosterism associated with the Mission Revival movement of the early 20th century. The original route began in Baja California Sur, Mexico, at the site of Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó. Today, many streets throughout California that either follow or run parallel to this route still bear the El Camino Real name. Some of the route has also been continually upgraded until it is now part of the modern California freeway system. The original route is traced by a series of commemorative bell markers. Between 1683 and 1834, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries established a series of outposts from todays Baja California. In Alta California, El Camino Real followed two routes, established by the first two Spanish exploratory expeditions of the region. The first was the Portolá Expedition of 1769, the expedition party included Franciscan missionaries, led by Junípero Serra. Starting from Loreto, Serra established the first of the 21 missions at San Diego, Serra stayed at San Diego and Juan Crespí continued the rest of the way with Gaspar de Portolá. Proceeding north, Portolá followed the coastline, except where forced inland by coastal cliffs, eventually, the expedition was prevented from going farther north by the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate. Crespí identified several future mission sites which were not developed until later, on the return trip to San Diego, Gaspar de Portolá found a shorter detour around one stretch of coastal cliffs via Conejo Valley. Portolá journeyed again from San Diego to Monterey in 1770, where Junipero Serra founded the second mission (later moved a distance south to Carmel. Carmel became Serras Alta California mission headquarters, the second Juan Bautista de Anza expedition, entering Alta California from the southeast picked up Portolás trail at Mission San Gabriel. De Anzas scouts found easier traveling in several valleys, rather than staying on the rugged coast. On his journey north, de Anza traveled the San Fernando Valley and this became the preferred route, and more closely corresponds to the officially recognized El Camino Real
6.
Silicon Valley
–
Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U. S. state of California. The valley in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. It was in the Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of an information technology workers. The term is now used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The first published use of Silicon Valley is credited to Don Hoefler, hostler used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled Silicon Valley in the USA, began in the papers January 11,1971, the term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market. The silicon part of the name refers to the concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and the fruits which gave the area its initial nickname — the Valley of Hearts Delight, Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valleys early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success, the ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors. Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckles History of San Jose that California first heard the click of a key on September 11,1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants Exchange members named George Sweeney and it was known as the Inner Station, the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs, Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchantss Exchange by electric telegraph Wire. According to Arbuckle Sweeney and Baughs line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco-based service, allen and C. Burnham led the way to build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento. Delays to construction occurred until September 1853, but, …San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15, the line was completed when Gambles northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24. The Bay Area had long been a site of United States Navy research. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in San Jose
7.
California
–
California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
8.
Wall Street
–
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the markets of the United States as a whole. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, there are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named de Walstraat got its name. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal, among the first settlers that embarked on the ship Nieu Nederlandt in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word wal can be translated as rampart, however, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal Straat. But soon after that, the Dutch governor, Kieft, sent his men out there one night, few of them escaped, but they spread the story of what had been done, and this did much to antagonize all the remaining tribes against all the white settlers. Shortly after, Nieuw Amsterdam erected a palisade for defense against its now enraged red neighbors. The space between the walls is now called Wall Street, and its spirit is still that of a bulwark against the people. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony, in 1685, surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. In these early days, local merchants and traders would gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, Wall Street was also the marketplace where owners could hire out their slaves by the day or week. The rampart was removed in 1699, the slave market operated from 1711 to 1762 at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets. It was a structure with a roof and open sides, although walls may have been added over the years. The city directly benefited from the sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was bought, in the late 18th century there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade securities. The benefit was being in proximity to each other, in 1792, traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement which was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange. The idea of the agreement was to make the more structured and without the manipulative auctions. Persons signing the agreement agreed to each other a standard commission rate, persons not signing could still participate. In 1789 Wall Street was the scene of the United States first presidential inauguration when George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on April 30,1789 and this was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights. Alexander Hamilton, who was the first Treasury secretary and architect of the early United States financial system, is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, in the first few decades, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly business predominated
9.
Lobbying in the United States
–
It is a highly controversial phenomenon, often seen in a negative light by journalists and the American public. Since lobbying rules require extensive disclosure, there is an amount of information in the public sphere about which entities lobby, how, at whom. The current pattern suggests much lobbying is done primarily by corporations, Lobbying takes place at every level of government, including federal, state, county, municipal, and even local governments. In Washington, D. C. lobbying usually targets members of Congress, analyst James A. Thurber estimated that the actual number of working lobbyists was close to 100,000 and that the industry brings in $9 billion annually. Lobbying has been the subject of inquiry in various fields, including law, public policy. Political scientist Thomas R. Dye once said that politics is about battling over scarce resources, who gets them, where. Modern-day lobbyists in one sense are like the courtiers of the Ancien Régime, if voting is a general way for a public to control a government, lobbying is a more specific, targeted effort, focused on a narrower set of issues. The term lobby has etymological roots in the structure of the British Parliament. The term lobbying in everyday parlance can describe a variety of activities. In this sense, anybody who tries to influence any political position can be thought of as lobbying, a person who writes a letter to a congressperson, or even questions a candidate at a political meeting, could be construed as being a lobbyist. This is the sense of the term lobbying. One account suggested that much of the activity of nonprofits was not lobbying per se, a lobbyist, according to the legal sense of the word, is a professional, often a lawyer. One definition of a lobbyist is someone employed to persuade legislators to pass legislation that will help the lobbyists employer, many lobbyists work in lobbying firms or law firms, some of which retain clients outside lobbying. Others work for groups, trade associations, companies, and state. Lobbyists can be one type of government official, such as a governor of a state, a large fraction of overall lobbying is focused on only a few sets of issues, according to one report. Many executive branch agencies have the power to write specific rules and are a target of lobbying. S. aid to Egypt. Since the Supreme Court has the power of review and can render a congressional law unconstitutional. For example, in the Roe v. Wade decision, it ruled on the legality of abortion, a variety of forces use lobbying tactics to pressure the court to overturn this decision
10.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
–
The main accelerator is 3.2 kilometers long—the longest linear accelerator in the world—and has been operational since 1966. In 1984 the laboratory was named an ASME National Historic Engineering Landmark, SLAC developed and, in December 1991, began hosting the first World Wide Web server outside of Europe. In the early-to-mid 1990s, the Stanford Linear Collider investigated the properties of the Z boson using the Stanford Large Detector, in October 2008, the Department of Energy announced that the Centers name would be changed to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The reasons given include a representation of the new direction of the lab. Stanford University had legally opposed the Department of Energys attempt to trademark Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in March 2009 it was announced that the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory was to receive $68.3 Million in Recovery Act Funding to be disbursed by Department of Energys Office of Science. The main accelerator is an RF linear accelerator that can accelerate electrons and positrons up to 50 GeV, at 3.2 km long, the accelerator is the longest linear accelerator in the world, and is claimed to be the worlds most straight object. The main accelerator is buried 9 m below ground and passes underneath Interstate Highway 280, the above-ground klystron gallery atop the beamline is the longest building in the United States. The Stanford Linear Collider was a linear accelerator that collided electrons and positrons at SLAC, the center of mass energy was about 90 GeV, equal to the mass of the Z boson, which the accelerator was designed to study. Grad student Barrett D. Milliken discovered the first Z event on 12 April 1989 while poring over the previous days computer data from the Mark II detector, the bulk of the data was collected by the SLAC Large Detector, which came online in 1991. Presently no beam enters the south and north arcs in the machine, the SLAC Large Detector was the main detector for the Stanford Linear Collider. It was designed primarily to detect Z bosons produced by the accelerators electron-positron collisions, the SLD operated from 1992 to 1998. PEP began operation in 1980, with energies up to 29 GeV. At its apex, PEP had five large particle detectors in operation, about 300 researchers made used of PEP. PEP stopped operating in 1990, and PEP-II began construction in 1994, PEP-II was host to the BaBar experiment, one of the so-called B-Factory experiments studying charge-parity symmetry. The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource is a synchrotron light user facility located on the SLAC campus, originally built for particle physics, it was used in experiments where the J/ψ meson was discovered. In the early 1990s, an independent electron injector was built for this ring, allowing it to operate independently of the main linear accelerator. SLAC plays a role in the mission and operation of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The principal scientific objectives of this mission are, To understand the mechanisms of particle acceleration in AGNs, pulsars, to resolve the gamma-ray sky, unidentified sources and diffuse emission
11.
Dumbarton Bridge (California)
–
The Dumbarton Bridge is the southernmost of the highway bridges across San Francisco Bay in California. Carrying over 81,000 vehicles daily, it is the shortest bridge across San Francisco Bay at 1.63 miles and its eastern end is in Fremont, near Newark in the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and its western end is in Menlo Park. Bridging State Route 84 across the bay, it has three each way and a separated bike/pedestrian lane along its south side. Like the San Mateo Bridge to the north, power lines parallel the bridge, tolls are only collected from westbound traffic at the toll plaza on the east side of the bay. Since July 2010, the rate for passenger cars is $5. For vehicles with more than two axles, the rate is $5 per axle. Drivers may either pay by cash or use the FasTrak electronic toll collection device, there are seven toll lanes at the plaza. During peak traffic hours, the leftmost lane is designated an HOV lane, the next two leftmost lanes are FasTrak-only lanes, and all other lanes accept both cash and FasTrak. During non-peak hours the HOV lane becomes a FasTrak-only lane, when the current bridge was planned in the 1970s, Caltrans conducted extensive environmental research on the aquatic and terrestrial environment. Principal concerns of the public were air pollution and noise pollution impacts, particularly in residential areas of Menlo Park. Studies were conducted to produce maps of projected sound levels and carbon monoxide concentrations throughout the western approaches. The area around the bridge is an important ecological area, hosting many species of birds, fish, the endangered species California clapper rail is known to be present in the western bridge terminus area. Near the bridge on the Peninsula are Menlo Parks Bayfront Park, East Palo Altos Ravenswood Open Space Preserve, an accessible portion of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge lies immediately north of the western bridge terminus, where the Ravenswood trail runs. On both sides of the east end of the bridge are large ponds and levee trails belonging to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The headquarters and visitor center for the refuge is on a hill south of the bridge approach, north of the east end of the bridge is Coyote Hills Regional Park, with its network of trails running over tall hills. North of that is the Alameda Creek Regional Trail from the Bay to Niles Canyon, built originally to provide a shortcut for traffic originating in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the bridge served industrial and residential areas on both sides. The earlier bridge opened on January 17,1927 and was the first vehicular bridge to cross San Francisco Bay, a portion of this old drawbridge remains as a fishing pier on the east side of the Bay. The original bridge was built with capital and then purchased by the state for $2.5 million in 1951
12.
Parking lot
–
A parking lot, also known as a car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to an area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most countries where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a feature of every city, shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often feature parking lots of immense area. Parking lots tend to be sources of pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces. Most existing lots have limited or no facilities to control runoff, many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots, which means that their paved surfaces contribute to heat islands. Many municipalities require a number of parking spaces, depending on the floor area in a store or the number of bedrooms in an apartment complex. In the United States, each states Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business, various forms of technology are used to charge motorists for the use of a parking lot. Modern parking lots use a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces, retrieve their vehicles, parking lots tend to be sources of water pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces. Virtually all of the rain that falls becomes urban runoff, to avoid flooding and unsafe driving conditions, the lots are built to effectively channel and collect runoff. Parking lots, along roads, are often the principal source of water pollution in urban areas. Motor vehicles are a constant source of pollutants, the most significant being gasoline, motor oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, many parking lots are also significant sources of trash which ends up in waterways. Treatment of pollution, Traditionally, the runoff has been shunted directly into storm sewers, streams, however, most larger municipalities now require construction of stormwater management facilities for new lots. Typical facilities include retention basins, infiltration basins and percolation trenches, some newer designs include bioretention systems, which use plants more extensively to absorb and filter pollutants. However, most existing lots have limited or no facilities to control runoff, alternative paving materials, An alternative solution today is to use permeable paving surfaces, such as brick, pervious concrete, stone, special paving blocks, or tire-tread woven mats. These materials allow rain to soak into the ground through the spaces inherent in the parking lot surface. The ground then may become contaminated in the surface of the parking lot park, but this tends to stay in a area of ground. This can however create problems if contaminants seep into groundwater, especially there is groundwater abstraction downstream for potable water supply. Many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots and this usually principally means the planting of trees to provide shade
I-280
SR 82 (El Camino Real) in Palo Alto.jpg)
