At last Tuesday’s evening meeting, the Cupertino City council unanimously approved funding the study for the Carmen Bridge project! This is all good news for moving the project to the next step and thank you for writing the council with your support.
Some additional meeting feedback:
Interestingly, two members of the council brought up the issues of who would really use the bridge at the Carmen location and what the general level of community support exists. This questioning tells me that we can do a better job preparing the council for these issues, and helping them become more familiar with the topology of the neighborhoods and the school commute patterns. We also could have reminded them that last June, a petition of 170 signatures in support of the idea!
Councilman Rod Sinks also questioned whether the crossing ought to be at the bottom of SCB, near the bridge under/over the creek. He likes the idea of having a path that goes from Blackberry Farms/SCB along the creek to Varian Park and that it may serve a greater number of community members, particularly KMS and MVHS students from the SCS area and in connecting the parks. (FYI, there is a set-back along the creek from Crescent Court down to the be bridge at the base of SCB).
Public Works Director Timm Borden will look at this route as part of the study, but wasn’t optimistic as access to/from this potential route is quite limited. Byron Rovegno and I have walked it and it’s not clear how that route could work, so we’ll let the city do its research. You can view the meeting on the city channel or via the city’s website.
Another aspect of this project is the wide variations of the cost estimates (~$500K to $10M). The latter number is a “planning placeholder” number and not really based on any formal estimate – that will be better determined as a result of the study. Director Borden indicated that it will take ~ 9 months to complete the study.
Again, thanks for your help and support and there will likely be more work ahead later in the year in gaining more support for this project.