Palo Alto’s pristine, verdant and formerly exclusive expanse, the Foothills Nature Preserve, will see some safety upgrades next year as the city is preparing to add road signs, remove parking spots and install pedestrian paths near the park’s most popular destinations.
The new improvement plan, which the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission discussed on Oct. 28, is a scaled back version of what the city was considering two years ago, when the City Council last discussed and approved the proposed changes to the sprawling preserve on the west side of the city. At that time, the plan also included a new trail between Boronda Lake and an overflow parking area, a bus parking lot at the top of Vista Hill and 6-foot-wide pedestrian paths next to existing roads. The city was also considering a new asphalt parking area near Boronda Lake and
The new plan, which the commission generally supported, eschews some of these features and modifies others. The pedestrian paths would now be between 3 and 4 feet in width and limited to the busy areas between the park entrance, Boronda Lake and Vista Hill. They would be composed of quarry fines, a mixture of sand, slit and clay-lime material that the city already uses at Arastradero Preserve, according to a report from the Community Services Department.
If approved by the council next spring, the city would launch construction next fall and conclude it by the end of the year.
The scope reduction is driven by two recent trends: dipping visitation numbers and growing budget challenges. Once a domain reserved exclusively for Palo Alto residents and their visitors, the park saw a giant uptick in visitation in 2020, shortly after the city agreed to open Foothills Park to all. Now renamed Foothills Nature Preserve, the park saw the number of visitors go up from the historic level of 175,000 per year to an average of 221,000 visitors between 2020 and 2024. The growing number of visitors prompted city leaders to consider ways to improve traffic safety, streamline parking and protect Foothills flora and fauna of Foothills from “nomads” who wander off trails and into sensitive habitat.
Since then, things have leveled off somewhat. The new report notes that attendance now is pretty close to pre-pandemic levels. Mike Warner, supervising ranger in the Community Services Department, said visitor behavior seems to have also improved. This has prompted the city to rethink the safety features it was planning after the initial visitation surge. The new plan represents a lighter touch.
“We’re not seeing a huge demand for what we saw after the park first opened, with folks wanting to go cross-country and wanting to cut between areas of the park,” Warner said. “It seems folks have figured out the flow, generally, of the preserve and are being respectful of that.”
The city’s budget outlook has also dimmed over the past year, with the council recently approving about $6 million in cuts. This included a direction that staff reconsider the scope of the Foothills Nature Preserve improvement plan, according to city staff. The cost of the proposed improvements is now estimated at about $300,000, down from the prior estimate of $450,000.
The new plan, like the old one, includes a slew of traffic-calming features, including crosswalks, Stop signs and speedbumps. At Vista Hill, staff plan to install “tiger teeth” on the one-way road to keep drivers from heading the wrong way.
The commissioners largely supported the reduced scope, particularly when it comes to eliminating asphalt areas and proposed trails in environmentally sensitive areas. Commissioner Shani Kleinhaus called the proposed plan a good balance and questioned the initial proposal to create a new trail between Boronda Lake and the overflow parking area.
“Why should we do a trail in a sensitive habitat in the first place?” Kleinhaus asked.
Not everyone, however, was thrilled about staff’s proposal to eliminate parking along the road stretching past Boronda Lake. The area currently accommodates about 20 spaces, according to staff. Greenfield suggested that having parking right next to the lake is “important to the community” and recommended finding another area near the lake where cars can park. The commission generally agreed that the parking area near the scenic lake should be gravelly “hardscape” rather than the asphalt lot that was in the prior plans.
“The overflow parking lot is a bit of a hike up the hill,” Greenfield said. “I envision this as being fairly unpopular in the community and I’m very much in favor of looking at a hardscape parking lot in the area across from Boronda Lake.”
Commissioners also proposed other enhancements, with Chair Nellis Freeman urging staff to ensure that the popular visitation areas have ADA-compliant parking spaces and Kleinhaus proposing features that would improve safety for the park’s denizens. This could include a “newt crossing” across well-traffic roads, she said.
“I don’t know if we need to direct the newts to it, but if you have area (where) you know a lot of little critters get run over, maybe a part of this project can include providing some sort of crossing,” she said.
Amphibians that live in the park occasionally get hit by cars, Warner said. Staff has also observed several “near misses” involving cars and deer.
“But as this is a nature preserve, our priority is both the safety of the people and safety of the wildlife,” Warner said. “That’s why we thought about making these traffic calming and speed reduction improvements.”
