My bike route to work takes me on Kifer between Lawrence and Bowers. This is a stretch or road that see quite a few bicycles, probably partly because one can cross over the railroad by Lawrence station. It has two car lanes in each direction where the cars can get pretty good speed. (Think the speed limit is 40 mph.) When bicycles bike along the side of the road, it is really not a whole lot of space to fit also car in that rightmost lane. At the same time, the traffic intensity on this road is not nearly high enough to warrant having two lanes in each direction. Also, no cars are ever parked along this road. The cars all park in the company parking lots. Seems one really should create bike lanes and keep only one car lane in each direction. Note that this stretch is marked with 'Extreme Caution' on the Santa Clara Valley Bikeways Map.
colin
August 7, 2012 - 10:21am
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This seems like a great
This seems like a great project to propose at a meeting of the Santa Clara BAC - http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=1201. It looks like west of Uranium Drive, the south half of the street is in Sunnyvale, so you also might want to bring it up to that town's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission - http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/CityGovernment/BoardsandCommissions/BicycleandPe.... Both organizations have active SVBC member advocates as members. Let us know what you decide to do and how it goes!
mark_s
August 16, 2012 - 6:20pm
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But there is!
As someone who rides on Kifer every day - I would have to remind you that there is a bike lane between lawrence and bowers - it is on the westbound side of Kifer, just before Lawrence and is about 10' long - it is the City of Santa Clara telling cyclists to keep out of the way of the cars!
Seriously Kifer/Walsh is a great candidate for bike lanes and lower speed limits. Motorists who are in a hurry have Central Expressway just a few feet away which is great for high speed through traffic.
pmackay
August 19, 2012 - 12:12am
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Au Contraire
Central is a parking lot at rush hour, and when it stops up just jog over on Oakmead (?) to Kifer and voila! you're speeding along again. I was nearly hit changing a tire in the breakdown lane because if it stops up closer to Lawrence people will scream down the entire breakdown lane to use this trick.
I don't ride Kifer anymore (but still drive it :), though I agree it's a prime candidate for lanes.
Erik
August 17, 2012 - 1:57pm
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There is at least one more
There is at least one more funky thing on this street and that is that when you are riding on Kifer towards Lawrence (from the 'Bowers side'), you are not allowed to, or can't because of the barrier, make a left turn onto Lawrence station road. I understand the reason for this must be that they don't want a heap of cars waiting to make a left turn into Costco and thus blocking the general access to Lawrence but this would not be a problem for bicycles and it effectively makes it impossible to get the Lawrence Station Rd in any reasonable manner (without cutting across Costco's private property). This seems to me to be an example of forcing bicycles to follow an infrastructure created to solve problems for cars when it would have been quite easy to allow bicycles to make a left turn here. I have a similar example of this where I live. Seems we should let cars deal with problems created by cars and not unnecessarily burden bicycles with these solutions.
bobstoll
August 17, 2012 - 2:05pm
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I've often thought Kifer
I've often thought Kifer/Walsh could use a diet. But don't stop at Bowers, the first bit between Bowers & San Tomas is somewhat narrow also.
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