August 18, 1999

Maybe it's time to go to Plan B

Change is the only constant in the universe, a wise man once said. For some reason I can't figure out, they don't make bikes the way they used to. The old Schwinns were the best bikes around, but just try and find one, even a used one, at a decent price these days. I saw one the other day in a bike shop. The paint was dinged and faded. They wanted $1500 for it. I paid only $1600 for the first brand new car (a VW Bug) I ever owned.

Then there was the Realsilk brand of men's sox. My mother gave me six pair for Christmas one time. She bought them from a door-to-door salesman, a variation on the old encyclopedia salesman. Those sox took years to wear out, and when I went looking for replacements, I learned the factory had closed its doors. The product was so good it killed the company. Which brings us to the Park Mall Safeway. All Safeway stores eventually close. The Linda Mar store and the Pacific Manor store will close sooner or later, though it may take them another forty years. There were only 1680 Safeway stores the last time I checked. Over the years there must have been ten or twenty thousand of them. Take a drive some day and you'll see a lot of Safeway's ghosts. There's one on Pedro Point. There's another in Daly City, on the west side of 280 not far from Seton. Safeway keeps making the new ones larger and fancier, adding departments, making them more efficient. Those bakeries, produce departments, fish counters, delis, and branch banks aren't accidents. Each one is planned out, refined, discussed. Every detail is thought out. The idea is to have fewer stores, each one drawing from a larger and larger area. A & P, an eastern chain, used to be the biggest supermarket chain around. It had lots and lots of stores, most of them small. It was out-thought, out-spent, out-planned and out gunned. It's no longer the competitive giant it once was.

While Safeway, and Samtrans, and the San Mateo county library system were planning changes to meet their own needs and pressures, the human beings who live in Linda Mar and Park Pacifica and the senior complexes near Park Mall were planning their lives as if they could count on these corporate entities to remain steady and reliable.

Imagine a little old lady in January, 1999. She can't drive, but she's found a decent, affordable apartment at Pacific Oaks. Safeway is across the street, the library a block away, St. Peter's or Terra Nova Church Center is in walking distance, and Samtrans will take her to Linda Mar Shopping Center, or she can wait at the Park N Ride for a bus to BART, where she can ride to Fremont, Concord, Walnut Creek or Pleasanton. Or she can ride to Powell Street, take the cable car over the hill and enjoy a shopping tour of Pier 39.

Now it's August. Safeway's gone. Samtrans won't get her anywhere on weekends, nor will it take her to any evening meetings or parties. She has to be at Park N Ride by 7 pm or she walks the two miles home. The library's in grave danger of closing. Only the churches are ok, at least for now. It's been a bad eight months.

You're welcome to share your opinion of Safeway and Samtrans with Paul Azevedo via Paul@thereactor.net. It's unlikely either your opinion or his will change any corporate minds, however.