So glad this bridge is finally being built after the city so badly botched the project to build it in 2014. Right now, the only reasonably direct way to bicycle from southern Palo Alto to the employers in the north Shoreline area is to take San Antonio Road, where the lighting is very poor during the winter evening commute and there are no bike lanes and reckless driving is rampant. Every person bicycling to work is one less car on the road and in the parking lot.

It's a shame that this project was rushed along. We could have had a great piece of architecture similar to the bridge in Cupertino, instead we get a cookie-cutter bridge with no redeeming qualities.

Adding this bridge without bike upgrades on West Bayshore is asking for trouble. W Bayshore is a deathtrap for bikers, especially going in the north direction. Cars on one side, fence / freeway on the other.

There are a lot of wordings in the article except for a few words clarifying the location of the bridge.

I assume it is going to be close the current undercrossing by Adobe Creek. The other question is why the city does not dredge the creek to keep the undercrossing open throughout the year. The creek is full of dirt and mud along the undercrossing. It probably cost the city much less than the cost of the bridge to clean it.

And for the last question, if there is so much demand for bikers from South Palo Alto to Bay, why I rarely see any biker or walker on San Antonio overpass. I use the sidewalk to cross the bridge. It is narrow but functional and serviceable. But I rarely encounter any rider!

@ worker - We always avoid San Antonio Road. Instead, we bike across Rengstorff. It is easier and safer to cross. It isn't that far from San Antonio Road either.

So nice to see the city leaders patting themselves on the back for something that should have been done years ago. Sure its going to cost at least an extra $6 million due to the delays but who cares since "...much of the funding will come from state and regional sources." Isn't it fun to be wasteful with taxpayer money!!

Glad the bike bridge will be built. But when I read a statement like "Keene proudly reminded the audience that Palo Alto has a 10 percent bike-to-work commute and emphasized the importance of fostering a bike-friendly city," I can't help wondering about the many millions of dollars spent on traffic diets, road furniture, bollards, roundabouts, bulb-outs etc, to make the remaining 90% of us waste our time stuck in increasing gridlock due to the ever-increasing number of commuters.

But then again, our public officials tell us we've got no traffic problems and there's no relationship between office growth and congestion.

This bridge should have been built years ago. Unfortunately the project was hijacked as an ego trip for a certain council member(we need am iconic bridge. We need a design contest. Let's ignore the results of the design contest. Forget it. It costs too much).
Finally we will get what we're wanted all along- a simple bridge.
Btw, what happened to the money that kniss got from Stanford that was for this project? Was that all wasted?

Approved, designed, funded. Let's build it before somebody changes their mind.

@Online Name - the 10% number only applies to adult commuters. 40% or more of public school children bike to Palo Alto public schools. That is why the city is improving bicycle safety on routes to and from schools.

@worker, you're right about the adults but there's still something sadistic and illogical in putting us on traffic diets and narrowing the roads WHILE growing the number of commuters and offices so dramatically.

It's past time for institutions that are adding tens of thousands of new workers (and their families) to start paying their fair share of the costs of their expansion

> "Residents don't realize how much work goes into the infrastructure assets that we have in Palo Alto -- how many nights were spent at the Lucie Stern Center eating cold pizza

If the people planning our infrastructure cannot figure out to get a microwave to heat their pizza, how good are they really at planning infrastructure?

Meanwhile, little East Palo Alto beats the pants of Palo Alto in building a bicycle bridge. Good job EPA!

> instead we get a cookie-cutter bridge with no redeeming qualities.

No redeeming qualitied except that it might actually get build within a reasonable
time and budget.


Hurray for the cookie-cutter bridge that gets build as opposed to an ostentatious
monstrosity that not everyone will appreciate, that costs too much but will show
up EPA ( serves them right, eh? ) for beating PA in putting up its own bike bridge.

Carp in the creek spawn right in that area...for now.

Everyone else seems to be able to make a bike bridge that looks nice. How come this one's such an ugly truss bridge? Bouncy and crappy.

Original estimate was $10 million, for a stylish architecture. Then it went up to what?

The EPA bridge at Home Depot looks plain and simple, like a cement overcrossing -- that alone is $13 million: Web Link

Maybe Facebook is better at pushing things through than Google? Move fast and break things, they say.

Lots of pictures of people talking, people walking and some bikes, but I would have liked to see some better pictures of the planned bridge. I have been googling but all I can find are pictures of the EPA bridge.

It may or may not be an ugly bridge but I don't really care and it was never an issue for me anyway. As long as it is functional and doesn't cost us an arm and a leg, it will be just another bridge over 101.

Next steps are: Final permit sign offs with CalTrans. Put it out to bid. Start construction in 2019, finish in 2020 I hope. The existing underpass will have to be closed during construction, so summer 2019 - no access.

The project includes a path along Adobe Creek to E. Meadow, so it will be accessible without riding on W. Bayshore!

The money that was awarded by the county Board of Supervisors, when Liz was there, is being used for this project.

The design contest... Turned into a fiasco, because the winner was unwilling to commit to building the design anywhere near the target budget. By the way, the same firm worked on the Cupertino bridge over 280, which had significant design problems with its deck, resulting in severe cost overruns.

To see images from the plans, go to the city web site here: Web Link

When it rains, there is too much water, little slope, so that underpass fills up. Dredging would make no difference. Very early on the city looked at improving the underpass, and allowing a year round path underneath, with a flood wall, but the water district needs the full cross section for flood events, and CalTrans did not want any more excavation under 101.

>> The design contest... Turned into a fiasco, because the winner was unwilling to commit to building the design anywhere near the target budget.

I thought the contest was like a contract, otherwise what was the point? Seems like Palo Alto gets jived and jerked by every contractor/developer project?

It's a bad decisions to have one long unsupported truss over the freeway instead of having it supported and anchored in the middle of 101 ... even it if does somehow make ( one-time ) construction costs a little easier or less expensive. In construction and estimation it is likely the costs will be skimped there. Palo Alto just has to show off in some way that no one really cares about.

This bike bridge project has been discussed for so long that I'll only believe it's real when I can bike over it. Sort of like underground power lines or fiber to the home real.

Don't get me wrong, the bridge is long overdue, but the number of bicyclists in this city is vastly over-inflated as is the budget we spend to service this largely imaginary community.

Some car drivers complain that bicycles are always getting in the way of their car and slowing them down. Some car drivers complain the city does not have enough people riding bicycles for the city to need spending money on safer streets. Both groups are probably driving while distracted and not seeing all road users.

This bike bridge design is what a village puts over a stream, not what a city puts over a major highway. Construction got expensive because of the market and because of delays caused by worries about rising cost, not because of the design. The "cost reduced" design is still expensive to build. The major beneficiary is a large employer in Mountain View who's paying a small fraction of the total cost.

Good that something is happening, but probably a preview of how grade separation will proceed.

Why why they don't dredge Adobe Creek along the existing 101 underpass?! It is a much cheaper solution to keep it open year long!

Thank you, electeds who supported this project. Thank you to Paul Goldstein, Richard Swent and Robert Neff who, each in turn, have worked on the county ped/bike committees and supported this and other county-wide bike/ped facility projects for almost 20 years. Thank you County of Santa Clara for your $10 million contribution. Thank you, Water District, for allowing access in your right-of-way. Thanks, Google, for your contribution of $1M to the project budget. Thank you, City of Palo Alto for your financial contribution and support. Thanks to the many people who bike commute and walk in the bay lands who wrote letters and turned out at meetings to support this project. Thank you, Audubon Society for working with staff to identify environmental mitigations for potential impacts on sensitive bird habitats in our bay lands.

These new connections will provide safer, year-round access to regional bike routes on the bay trails and easy pedestrian access to bird watching and hiking in the bay lands.

Money well spent. Let's get it built!!! I know lots of people feel impatient, but there were a lot of constituencies whose needs, property rights and concerns had to be addressed. This was a complex project that has finally come together thanks to the help and leadership of many.