Walking & Biking News & Ideas
|
|
We hope you are staying healthy!
As we slide into summer and the end of the school year, we are looking forward to great walks, hikes and bike rides, especiallly as traffic volumes go down significantly in the summer. Now is a great time to stop at your local bike shop for a tune up (see local recommended bike shops here), buy a new pair of walking shoes, or look into new places to hike.
This month, we've got some great information to make your walking and biking here in Silicon Valley more enjoyable: how to prevent bike thefts, reclaiming our parking lots for more healthy green space, what WBC has been up to (our Earth Day recap, visiting Viva Calle San Jose, and helping with a Bike Blessing at a local church), and much more!
|
|
Regnart Trail Wins Silicon Valley Award
Declared an Outstanding Public Works Project
|
|
The City of Cupertino’s Regnart Creek Trail project has been selected as a winner for the American Public Works Association (APWA) Silicon Valley’s 2022 Award Program in the $2M-$5M category for Transportation.
The award recognizes outstanding public works projects and professionals.
|
|
The Wilson Park bridge, as see from the soon-to-open Regnart Creek Trail. The trail will provide off-street walking and biking access to three parks. |
|
Completion of the 0.8-mile-long trail, which provides an off-street pedestrian and bicycle connection between Creekside Park, Wilson Park, the local neighborhoods, City Hall and the Cupertino library, has been a priority for the City and neighboring school communities for many years. Read more
|
|
Walk-Bike Cupertino celebrates at the
Cupertino Earth Day Festival
|
|
The Annual Earth & Arbor Day Festival resumed in Cupertino after two years with fun for community members of all ages. Walk-Bike Cupertino (WBC) celebrated it with thousands of people at the Cupertino City Center on April 23, 2022. The grand celebration kicked off with a fun-filled family bike ride where WBC fitted helmets for all riders. The celebration then continued on the Cupertino Library Field throughout the day, where WBC had a booth and gave out free helmets, lots of biking information, and enjoyed celebrating with local community members. |
|
WBC Helmet Fittings for the Family Bike Ride
This year, several youth and young adult volunteers joined two WBC Advisory Board members Jennifer Shearin and Jian He to support the helmet fitting station and adjust the helmets of bike ride participants. The Cupertino Safe Routes team also arranged multiple activity stations for bike checks, story time, bike decoration, and educational games in the Civic Center Plaza. About 189 bicyclists registered for this year’s family bike ride, a greater participation even than at Earth Day events before the COVID-19 pandemic.
|
|
Special thanks go to Cherie Walkowiak and Birgit Werner for their hard work making the annual Family Bike Ride a fun happening! |
|
Local Walk-Bike Events this month
❖ Wednesday, May 18 | 7pm: Cupertino Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Meeting ( more info). Online meeting.
❖ Saturday, May 22 | 9:30am: Road & Trail Ride (more info) Led by WBC member Joel Wolf, this is a fun 42 mile ride, with half on the road and half on trails. Meet at Quinlan Center.
❖ Saturday, May 29 | 10am-1pm: Silicon Valley Bike Exchange Big Bike Sale (more info) at 3961 E Bayshore Rd, Palo Alto. A huge parking lot sale for bikes of all kinds! No parts, but helmets, locks, and lights are available.
❖ Saturday, June 5 | 9am-11am: WBC Cruiser Ride ( more info). Meet at Quinlan Center. Enjoy an easy 1-2 hour ride on local streets, with a snack mid-ride at Philz Main Street. No RSVP needed.
❖ Saturday, Jun 5 | start is 6am-8am: Annual Western Wheelers Sequoia Bike event ( more info). Bike 57-101 miles on three great routes, all starting/ending at Foothill College. Lots of free incentives.
❖ Wednesday, June 8 | 4pm-5pm: Safe Routes to School Working Group meeting ( more info). All community members are welcome--you do not have to be a school parent! |
|
Unpave our parking lots to make a paradise!
The case for less parking for a healthier community
by Seema Lindskog
|
|
We see it everywhere – half empty parking lots, parking spaces along streets that sit empty much of the time. It’s so normal that we don’t even notice it. Yet, each of these parking spaces extracts a real financial, physical, and mental cost from each of us and our community. Many cities across the US have recognized this and started making changes. Cupertino is not one of them. We are still very much a car and asphalt centric city. If we care about our well-being, our mental and physical health and that of our children, we need to change our thinking to be more people centric and put human beings, not cars, at the center of our city planning... Read more
|
|
Parking lots harm our health |
When exposed to solar rays, asphalt emits harmful air pollutants. As the temperature rises into the 80s and 90s, road asphalt could release up to 300% more harmful emissions, according to research published in the journal Science Advances¹. While the science on |
|
|
the harmfulness of the absolute level of pollutants is not settled, this projected increase in emissions as temperatures rise is concerning.
Asphalt also creates the Heat Island Effect², which means that hard surfaces... Read more
|
|
What we can do
Turn a parking lot into a park
In Dallas, Santa Monica, Chicago, Savannah, San Francisco, and many other cities across the US, parking lots and parking spaces are being turned into parks and plazas.
Convert single parking spaces to pocket parks
Many cities like Portland and San Francisco are converting parking spaces to parklets or pocket parks. They provide a pleasant green space to socialize and relax and are easy to put in at a low cost anywhere there is a parking space.
Reduce parking space minimums in new developments
This is a great way to allow for increased green space instead of more concrete.
Plant more wide-canopy trees on city streets
Shade trees reduce the heat island effect, and make streets more pleasant to live along and use.
|
|
How to keep your bike safe from thieves
by Jennifer Shearin
|
|
Bikes can be an attractive target for thieves. Not only are bikes very portable, but they are also generally not easily identified so selling them later isn’t that difficult. With some simple gear and planning, it’s possible to reduce your risk of getting your bike stolen, and even recover it if it gets taken.
Three things to know to prevent thefts
- How to best lock your bike
- Where it’s best to park your bike, and
- Ideas for how to recover your bike if the worst happens and it gets stolen.
|
|
The right type of lock will prevent your bike from being easily stolen even if locked up.
|
|
Parking matters. Lock your bike up as close to the front door of a business as possible, even if the bike rack is not located there. Read the locks information to learn about flexible locks.
|
|
Adding a tag to your bike, especially if hidden, can help recover your bike later if it is stolen. Some e-bikes even have built-in recovery systems!
|
|
Walk-Bike Cupertino helps at "Bless the Bikes" event at local church
by JR Fruen
|
St. Jude’s Episcopal Church on McClellan and Stelling in Cupertino held its first Blessing of the Bicycles on April 24, 2022. The parish welcomed the community to this inaugural event with Walk-Bike Cupertino facilitating safety checks on bikes and helmets and holding prize raffles for the children.
The morning event began with Walk-Bike Cupertino volunteers Helene Davis, Seema Lindskog, Erik Lindskog, and Jennifer Shearin helping parishioners fit helmets, pump tires, and perform basic repairs.
|
|
Walk-Bike Cupertino members and parishioners helping that day |
|
A visit to SJ's Viva Calle was an inspiration
by Larry Dean
The idea that a city would temporarily close miles of San Jose streets to bring communities together to walk or bike was irresistible, so a group of us cyclists from Cupertino decided to take one Sunday morning to see how San Jose put on one of their Viva Calle SJ events. We went on May 1, but it’s a regular San Jose event in a variety of locations where streets are closed to auto traffic and filled with families and cyclists who have great opportunity to see their city without the presence of cars. Read more
|
|
If you enjoyed this newsletter,
please encourage your friends or family to sign up too!
Walk-Bike Cupertino never shares or sells any personal information.
|
|
We'd love to hear YOUR voice!
Do you know a great walk, ride, run or hike? Want to share an issue about walking, biking, city planning, or interesting idea?
Walk-Bike Cupertino would love to spotlight it in our newsletter and on our website! Articles should be 500 words or less, and should include a picture (at least 3 pictures for hikes). All submissions are subject to approval & editing, and can be used by Walk-Bike Cupertino in future publications. Contact us here.
|
|
Happy Walking and Biking,
Your friends at Walk-Bike Cupertino
Find much more, including maps, safety data, and information on all the city projects at: walkbikecupertino.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
