Santa Clara County sets deadline for deal on Alpine Road trail Santa Clara County sets deadline for deal on Alpine Road trail (September 21, 2005)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

All of a sudden, an obscure vote in San Jose has propelled the controversial issue of Stanford's proposed recreational trail along Alpine Road back onto the front burner.

On September 13, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to require an agreement on the trail in San Mateo County as a condition for approving another trail around the southern end of campus.

Supervisor Liz Kniss, who represents Palo Alto and Stanford, voted against the requirement to tie approval of the northern trail (known as C1), which is in another county and has not had environmental studies, to the southern one, which is almost ready for construction.

The deadline for Stanford and Santa Clara County to forge an agreement on both trail alignments is set at December 13.

Supervisor Kniss said she felt "blindsided" that Stanford is now requesting agreement on the C1 trail before it will agree to an alternative for the southern trail called S1-C.

"The trails have always been linked," said Larry Horton, director of government and community relations for Stanford. He noted that Stanford has spent nearly half a million dollars exploring options for the C1 route that would generally follow Alpine Road and the creeks from Junipero Serra Boulevard to Arastradero Road.

The running controversy on Stanford's new trails dates back to 2000 when the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved a general-use permit for Stanford's future expansion. In exchange for permission to add nearly five million square feet of new building on campus, the county required the university to build two trails: one around the south and east of campus, and one around the north and west.

While trail proponents envisioned recreational trails crossing Stanford's lands, the university insisted it agreed to trails along the perimeter.

In the case of the C1 trail, Stanford has refused to run the trail on the campus side of the golf course and across its open lands above Los Trancos Creek. It focuses on rebuilding and widening the existing bike trail along busy Alpine Road in San Mateo County and Portola Valley.

Stanford is proposing to pay for widening the present bike trail, which is narrow and occasionally squeezed between the busy road and the creek, to 8 feet wide with 2-foot shoulders on each side -- a total of 12 feet.

Initial reaction from neighbors and people who use Alpine Road was outrage. "This was kind of a stealth bomb dropped by Stanford on the Santa Clara County supervisors," said Lennie Roberts of Ladera and the Committee for Green Foothills.

"The major issue is safety," said Ginger Holt, who lives in Stanford Weekend Acres, squeezed between Alpine Road and Los Trancos Creek. "I don't think it can be mitigated."

Rich Gordon, president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, noted there has been no official approach to the county, although there have been numerous discussions.

"This is an issue for Santa Clara County and Stanford," he said. "Nobody's made any offers; nobody's offered us money; nobody said they want the trail on our land."

If there is a formal proposal, Mr. Gordon promised there would be very public deliberations including environmental studies, and review by the San Mateo County Trails Advisory Committee and Parks and Recreation Commission, and -- eventually -- the Board of Supervisors.

"I'd want to see their offer," Supervisor Gordon said. "There are serious issues related to public safety and environmental concerns that would have to be resolved for any trail in the Alpine Corridor."

Stanford's strongest selling point is its offer to pay for building the trail, Mr. Horton said. He estimated the cost at $8 million.

Work would include stabilizing the creek in areas where it threatens Alpine Road, and possibly moving the road away from the creek in narrow places.

Since the issue is politically volatile, Mr. Horton suggested using the inter-agency negotiations that led up to the widening and improvement of Sand Hill Road -- now under construction -- as a model.

Those negotiations, which involved Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Stanford, only took 10 years.

Don Kazak of the Palo Alto Weekly contributed to this report.

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