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Wearing bicycle helmets and their walking shoes, several hundred residents waited patiently Saturday morning for city officials to cut the ribbon before heading over a new extension of the Stevens Creek Trail.
“I’d call it the 200-less cars bridge,” said Mountain View resident Chris Carpenter of the extension’s most prominent feature, a bridge over Highway 85 to Heatherstone Way.
The 1,500-foot extension from Sleeper Avenue brings the 5 mile trail to a large swath of Mountain View and nearby Sunnyvale east of Highway 85.
Carpenter noted that Mountain View High School students who live east of the highway will no longer have to contend with El Camino Real to get to school and will instead find an almost non-stop bike friendly route to school, thanks to the bridge.
As the crowd walked over the bridge several people noted the attention to design was much more apparent than other bridges on the trail, and most other pedestrian bridges over highways. The long sloping ramps are probably the most accessible of any bridge on the trail for those in wheelchairs.
As part of the $4.2 million extension, the city is also planting 1,600 shrubs and over 100 trees native to the creek’s watershed.
After 22 years of building and over $30 million spent, city officials reminded everyone how much the 5-mile trail is a “crown jewel” of the city, used for “commuting, exercising and socializing,” as City Manager Dan Rich put it.
This trail is a fantastic city resource. Hundreds of people bike to work or school on the trail every weekday and hundreds of families use it for recreation every weekend. Hwy 85 was a monumental barrier for pedestrians and bicyclists; forcing them to bike down El Camino Real to commute between Mountain View and Sunnyvale. The new bridge on the trail is a fantastic improvement, greatly improving safety and encouraging many more people to bike to work. Without this trail, hundreds more cars would be on our streets every day of the year.
We need more trails like this. The cost is trivial compared to the benefits. An equivalent amount of freeway would cost 100 times as much. Kind of ironic that a primary benefit of this trail is to give bicyclists and pedestrians safe routes around our monster freeways.
Can’t wait to check it out this week!
That’s $2,800 per foot. I’m still glad it’s *finally* open.
The sign was changed from Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor, to a fresh, new sign with Jerry Brown, governor, just prior to opening.
Next up, I hope, the Hetch Hetch right of way trail in Mountain View now only partially completed
They did a much better job designing the access to this bridge over 85. The chicanes are far enough apart that I can ride my bike through and the ramps are not wood and a reasonable grade. I hope my town, Sunnyvale, gets off the bench and works out the next part of the route.
After 3 days of riding this ramp it should be noted that auto traffic on Heatherstone has yet to adjust to the new influx of bikes and pedestrians. Each time I’ve come off the ramp, I’ve observed cars FLYING around the corner, obviously over the speed limit, then having to slam on their brakes when they see the trail users. Hopefully once drivers get used to the new situation here, they’ll slow down to at least the speed limit
Until that happens, though, please use extreme caution, esp when exiting onto Heatherstone. We’ve had enough people killed by cars around here recently.
I agree that the blind corner is a terrible place for a trailhead. The city is going to have to install a stop light pretty soon.
The Stevens Creek Trail Feasibility Study is a great example of public manipulation.
The process is biased and corrupted and they really don’t care what the residents of streets that will be affected have to say. The community input process is designed to help ratify a handful of specific routes and not actually gather input … just look at the lame “survey” forms that are provided at the end. And no option is provided to speak in front of the entire group … wonder why that is? Part of their plan is to tell you just enough (and withhold important information) so that certain routes seem like the best. For example, read the documentation and listen in the public sessions. Do you ever see or hear them reference to “school safety?” That is because if you stopped and thought about how the on-street trail could put school children as risk via adding bike traffic on roads that are already congested. Or in general having 1,000 strangers a day riding through open campuses.
The next public meeting for the Stevens Creek Trail Connection will be February 25, 7 p.m. at the Cupertino Senior Center, 21251 Stevens Creek Blvd.
Come to this meeting and enjoy the spin !!!