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San Jose Mercury News Pastoral peace is to hiking as smooth roadway is to driving. You wouldn't want to hike on the interstate, nor commute along a narrow dirt path.
Stanford University wants to shunt hikers alongside expressways and declare that it's fulfilling its obligation to build two trails across university property. The trails were promised last year in a deal allowing
Stanford to embark on its biggest building boom since its initial construction. On Tuesday, Santa Clara County supervisors ought to insist that the university create hiking trails, not roadside walkways.
Stanford's two paths are supposed to be part of the county's trails master plan, a network of interconnecting trails running from the bay to the mountain ridges. But the county's draft of routes through Stanford
takes trails through sensitive, creekside habitat for endangered species. The argument now is over where to reroute them. Stanford insists that the trails must run along its periphery. It has pushed the San
Francisquito Creek trail so far north that it's off university property and outside the county in many places. That's not acceptable. Stanford has designated one route that crosses busy intersections and freeway on-
and off-ramps, which are very unsafe for pedestrians. Both routes run along major thoroughfares -- Sand Hill Road, Alpine Road, Page Mill Expressway and Arastradero Road -- carrying commuters to the university and
its business park. How safe and enjoyable would those trails be? The Matadero Creek trail would start at Page Mill Expressway and Junipero Serra Boulevard, where tens of thousands of cars pass daily, and dead-end at
a stop sign along Arastradero Road. Just a few hundred yards to the north is the popular ``Dish'' hiking area, the hilltop around Stanford's radiotelescope. The area is now fenced, paved, guarded and highly regulated
by the university. How much more logical for Stanford's trail to follow the existing Dish trail over the hill, cross safely under Interstate 280 via a tunnel now used only by cows and renegade hikers, and end at Palo
Alto's Arastradero Preserve, which has trails connecting to Skyline. Stanford calls that route intrusive. But the university has promised not to develop its foothills for 25 years, and claims it has no
foreseeable plans for development there. A Dish trail would enable hikers to enjoy the hills, rather than endure the exhaust. At little cost, it would generate good will, help rebuild public trust, and foster
an appreciation for Stanford as part of the Bay Area community. |
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