These trail connections will be great. The Dale neighborhood is cut off from the rest of MV by 85 and El Camino but now people will have better walking/biking access.

Hats off to Jac Siegel and Laura Macias for thinking independently, and questioning the city staff's "hurry, buy it now" recommendation. Does city staff ever advise against a project as being wasteful? Have they ever met a spending plan they didn't like? The city doesn't need to increase taxes any, just spend less foolishly.

It will be nice to be able to get to the park land across 101 without having to go way over to teh Stevens Creek Trail.

I use the trails to walk and bike and appreciate having them. However, crime is way up and we had a peeping Tom in the neighborhood (thankfully they caught him) but now I can't get a MV police officer to come to assess and give me a crime prevention reco in writing so I can get my cheapskate landlord to do things like install motion detector lights on my property because the Police budget has been cut and the officer who used to do this has been reassigned. Things that make you go...hhhhhhmmmm.

Add this to the tens of millions of dollars Mountain View has spent on land and property in recent months and it makes me feel like I've been duped by all the sky is falling budget woes of late. $14 million dollars for new trail crossings, seriously Mountain View?

14 million would go a long way replacing the bad street lights throughout the city, or other things this city could use. Council needs to learn that needs are more important than wants.

The article doesn't tell the whole story about the $14 million. Quite a bit of that is coming from various grants. I remember seeing 2 just a few weeks back for these two trails at about $150k each. I have seen several others announced along the way, too, and think they add up to over half the total cost. Could the Voice do some research and report that? Seems the cost is a key concern for everyone.

Yay for trail extensions! I will use the Permanente Creek Trail overpass to get to work every day, I can't wait for it to be built. Kudos to the city staff and council for working to connect neighborhoods and make parks and amenities more accessible without a personal vehicle. It's great to see our community prioritize non-car methods of transportation.

@ Thom if you call the public works dept and report the lights out they will get them taken care. 14 million or not.

And three city workers will show up a month later and take half a day to fix it, and then it will go out again a week later. At least that's what happened on my street. That's how they justify their job. In the meantime, the Google Wifi transmitter on the same pole has worked for at least 3 years now. Must have something to do with attention to detail and a strong work ethic. Or maybe just that the Google types are afraid they'd lose their job if they don't do their work correctly.

Ok, so now that there are north south dedicated paths being built out, how about focusing on east-west connectors that traverse the city to more safely allow folks to get over to the trails. The city should consider providing grade separation between bikes/cars along east-west routes like Latham/Church from San Antonio Shopping Center to the Eastern border with Sunnyvale.

Of course, you know db that when you say "the city should.." you are actually saying that taxpayers should. Where's the money going to come from. I like the idea, but what are you willing to trim to get it?

Bikeways (in future). The revision to the General Plan (Transportation Element) does not seem very strong on that issue. NOW is the time for more public comment (some occurred at the Senior Center presentation/feedback meeting).

The price tag on this is ridiculous. Good for Laura Macias, at least one council member is showing signs of common sense.

$14 million for ... trails? Not road improvements, not sidewalk improvements, or ANYTHING else that we actually need. Trails? Something that most Mountain View residents will never use? In fact, I bet most people who'll use it are not Mountain View residents.

But the shock doesn't end there. They don't want to wait for federal funds, because it could delay the project for a year. Just a year? A year in government time is nothing. Yet they'd rather go through with the project on OUR dime, rather than wait for federal funds.

Who voted for these fools?

I for one would use the Permanente creek tunnel and overpass. I work north of the 101, but I don't bike there because the Rengstorff and Shoreline overpasses are just too dangerous for bikers because they must merge into onramp and offramp lanes that lack stoplights. I'm sure there are others that feel that way too.

I believe that a lot of this funding is coming from restricted funds and such, so I'll leave that out of the discussion.

The biggest problem with bike transportation in MV is getting from north to south (PA to SV essentially). El Camino, Calif Ave, etc are NOT bike friendly at all, but between Shoreline, Stevens Creek, etc, its not bad at all bisecting town. I think that bicycle-oriented funds would be better spent here.

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?