We were excited to hear about new bike lanes on Pollard Road in Campbell, particularly as they would serve Rolling Hills Middle School, creating a safer environment for children to bike to school. Pollard is a 4-lane through street which has a fair amount of traffic, particularly before and after school.
I decided to ride out last weekend to take a look. The bike lanes appear incomplete, so I am hoping that there will be a Phase II to ensure bicyclist safety, particularly for children biking to school. Here are some pictures.
Comments
Bryan Lafferty
April 12, 2012 - 10:01pm
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door zone lanes
These are worthless lanes sitting right in the door zone. They should have gone with a wide rightmost lane, sharrows and signage. Assuming the wheels of a parked car only have to be just to the right of the parking crosses, any open door will be blocking the bike lane. These are really safety lanes to give parked cars a buffer from traffic. They should do just that: let cars park on the side of the road, paint a line where the leftmost line of the bike lane would be and put a sharrow to the left of that.
Also, how does the bus load/unload at the stop pictured above? Does it just sit in the lane of traffic with it's flashers on?
Anne Fisher
April 15, 2012 - 8:37pm
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Pollard Road Bike Lanes
I don't think there are school buses involved. Rolling Hills is at the corner of Pollard and More Ave. (the cross street,) and the main entrance to the school is actually on More. There are off-street drop-off areas for cars both on More and on Pollard. If they did not allow parking on Pollard in front of the school, it appears to me there would be space to continue the bike lane past the school. As it is, the westbound bike lane ends a block before the school. It would be interesting to know what the thinking was.
L
May 8, 2012 - 10:18pm
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Pollard Road Bike Lanes
Rolling Hills Middle School isn't served by any school buses (except for maybe a few special situations). The off-street dropoff area on school grounds was constructed just this school year. In previous years, the Pollard Road drop of area was on the road at the curb of Pollard Road in front of the school, and the passenger loading zone signs are probably leftover from that. With the new off-street drop-off area, very few children are dropped off curbside on westbound Pollard. The parking on Pollard near the school is often used by people using the baseball field next to the school, which has its entrance on Pollard Road.
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