The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and the city of Santa Clara BPAC contacted the Santa Clara Valley Water District as soon as they heard about the scheduled trail maintenance that would close the San Tomas Aquino Trail on Bike to Work Day next week. Valley Water agreed to postpone their work to another date.
I know several other people called and emailed the Water District about this issue. Thank you for doing so.
I’ve found Water District people to be helpful and try to do the right thing, but they’re a small(-ish) operation and sometimes things like Bike to Work Day aren’t on their radar. Big kudos for their willingness to rectify the situation once they’re made aware of the problem. I was honestly not optimistic since this likely involves contracted work and rented equipment, and rescheduling what appears to be a large project can be expensive.
For background on what they fixed, click here.
See y’all at the Agnew energizer station on Thursday morning! We will be doing bike counts again this year there – your stopping by will help show the City of Santa Clara that the STAC Trail is a vital resource and that a permanent solution for keeping it open (safely) during stadium events should be made a priority.
Yes Richard, a lot of us contacted SCVWD! Credit to them for changing plans.
We will have an Energizer Station at San Tomas Expressway and El Camino Real. The Off Ramp is once again hosting/partnering with us. New partner this year is UNITE Santa Clara – a local group focusing on developing “neighborhood associations” across Santa Clara.
We hope to have people sign a petition to ensure the San Tomas Creek Trail is OPEN 24/7, 365 days/year, regardless of events at Levi’s Stadium. There is an online petition coming soon too.
Volunteers are welcome to help us out at the Energizer Station!
Music bikes most welcome also.
Thanks!
Scott
https://www.facebook.com/events/865142763523688/
I wish it were the city of Santa Clara doing some work, and not the water district. I think that the Agnew / San Tomas trail intersection was designed by somebody who loathes bicyclists and other forms of pedestrian traffic. Just watch as 2 people with strollers try to pass each other in the curb cut through the center divider. It’s optimized for people going from the (no entry) fire station parking lot to the amusement park parking lot.
In the best of all possible worlds,there’s be a way to trigger the light from the top of the slope that runs down to Agnew, like a pressure plate in the trail or a button.