Los Altos Hills resident and Santa Clara County Bicycle Advisory Committee spokesman, Les Earnest, believes new lane changes on Page Mill Road create a safety hazard. "Cal-Trans clearly does not consider bicyclists' safety as a significant issue," Earnest said.
Cal-Trans workers have resurfaced Page Mill Road and are in the process of restriping. Permanent lanes will be ready by the end of November.
After that, cars exiting onto Page Mill Road from northbound Interstate 280 and turning left across traffic to head for the Hills will have their own widened left-hand lane for through traffic into the Hills. Two additional lanes of traffic on Page Mill Road will carry exiting traffic onto southbound Interstate 280.
The restriping will require bicyclists to cross the exiting traffic lanes. The problem, as Earnest sees it, is that the Cal-Trans plan, "forces bicyclists to sprint across two lanes of fast moving traffic to continue up the road. It's nearly impossible to do this in heavy traffic." Earnest said that a rough estimate of 1,000 bicyclists a week ride the popular recreation route known as "The Loop" up Page Mill Road to Woodside.
Mayor Elayne Dauber believes that as many as 2,000 Hills drivers will be affected by the lane striping changes being repainted on Page Mill Road. Dauber, who regularly makes the difficult left turn exiting Interstate 280 and crossing onto Page Mill is happy with the new lane plan. "But the bicyclists are very unhappy," Dauber said. Cal-Trans spokesman Jeff Weiss said that the main reason for the lane change was to prevent motorists from cutting into the freeway queue from the far left lane. Weiss said that since bicyclists were cutting across a single lane of traffic, the addition of a lane won't make much difference. But, Weiss added, "We're not going to dismiss (the bicyclists') argument, we're going to monitor the situation. "