Dear Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association Members,
As many of your know there was a tragic accident on the Los Alamitos Creek Trail that resulted in the passing of a beloved member of our community, Beverly Head. Since that accident many of you have come forward with suggestions about how the City of San Jose can improve safety on our trails. Guided by your community input, analysis of best practices, and deployment of planned improvements, staff has developed a set of recommendations to present to the Parks and Recreation Commission and the City Council including:
- Limiting the length of a dog leash on trails to 6 feet
- Requiring owners to be responsible for both their dog and their leash
- Installing centerline striping and signage instructing users to “keep to the right” and other cautions
- Installing new, graphics-based signs
- Posting new trail rule signs to include the leash clarification
Later this year, staff will begin deployment of Milestone Markers. These devices will be placed every ¼ mile and provide a landmark for trail users to track distance travelled and emergency services to improve emergency response for accidents on trails. Each marker will be associated to site-specific data so that emergency services can quickly find a preferred entry and exit point, understand physical limitations for vehicular access and other parameters.
A volunteer program will also be launched entitled Trail Watch. We seek to encourage regular trail visitors to provide condition and incident reports to our Park Concerns Hotline. By receiving data from the community, we can better target staff to address maintenance and/or enforcement issues.
San Jose has the largest urban network of trails in the Nation and has ambitious plans to nearly double our network in the next 12 years. The trail network is used by commuting cyclists, recreational cyclists, park rangers, skaters, joggers, pedestrians, pedestrians with dogs, cyclists with dogs, young children, people with disabilities and senior citizens. These recommendations will be presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission to gather feedback and then to the City Council. I will announce the date of the Parks and Recreation Commission Hearing in my newsletter so that you can attend and participate if you are interested.
All the Best,
Nancy Pyle, Councilmember
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/district10/