Recap: October 2016 San Jose Local Team Meeting
Above: The 'parking lot' at SVBC's offices, the night of the local team meetingSVBC’s San Jose Local Team enjoyed a presentation by a special guest during the October 26 meeting – Yves Zsutty, Trail Manager for the City of San Jose. He presented lots of interesting trail news, from the current state of trails (we’ve got almost 60 miles of paved trails!) to recognition of Lupe the Mammoth as a tourist attraction along the Guadalupe River Trail. Attendees also learned about how different cities count trail mileage. For instance, Portland counts mountain hiking trails while San Jose does not include those in its trail mileage total. When factoring in these different counting methods, it turns out that San Jose has a better-than-average trail system.A few attendees took this opportunity to share with Mr. Zsutty their hopes for further improvements to the trails. One of the main concerns was the signage along Guadalupe River Trail - some people pointed out that trail exit signs with information about connecting streets would be helpful. Another point that got a lot of attention was improving the notice system for temporary trail closures. With the volume of information that Mr. Zsutty presented, everyone wanted to know if they could review the various trail updates somewhere online – turns out that the City of San Jose maintains a page with all the latest news and reports.Ever eager to help improve conditions for biking in San Jose, the last question to Mr. Zsutty was “What can we do to advocate for more trails?” It was a question he welcomed, and encouraged the group to attend a budget meeting in the spring to speak in favor of trail funding. He promised to let SVBC know when the meeting will take place, so … if you’d like to see trails get some attention in San Jose, please come to our next San Jose Local Team meeting on Wednesday, November 30 from 6:30 – 8pm here at the SVBC office and learn how you can help with this and other projects in San Jose that will help the bicycling community!Don't live in San Jose? We have local teams focusing on and meeting in Palo Alto (Nov. 10), Mountain View (Nov. 28), and San Mateo County/Peninsula (tomorrow!).