Keeping Up With the Team Bike Challenge No Matter What

My Team Bike Challenge teammate, Leslee Hamilton, found a way to hop on a bicycle even when she visited Washington, D.C., on a business trip this month.

While visiting the nation’s capital, Leslee rented a bike to explore the city’s sites.

“It’s a good alternative to taking a cab to get to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial,” she says.

Leslee has been biking to work every day this month as a member of my team for the Team Bike Challenge. Leslee, myself and three other teammates have been biking as much as possible to show how easy it is to make the bicycle a primary mode of transportation.

For Leslee, however, biking to work is a much more serious endeavor. For about six years now, she has ridden the 3.5-mile roundtrip from her house near Cahill Park in San Jose to the Mineta Transportation Institute downtown. She parks her bike in her office on the fourth floor.

“The only downside is that I have to take the elevator,” she says. “Without the bike, I used to take the stairs.”

Although the ride from home to work is pretty much a straight shot for Leslee, she says she encounters a lot of traffic.

“That’s why I love to ride the Guadalupe River Park Trail,” she says. “I’ve never had a serious problem with cars, but I’d just as soon not share the road.”

As current president of the Board of Directors for the Friends of the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens, Leslee has worked to improve and extend the trail running through downtown San Jose. She and I both look forward to the day that the trail goes from Alviso to Almaden Valley without interruptions.

For people who don’t regularly bike to work, Leslee says all you need is a little inspiration.

“Six years ago, I saw someone from my neighborhood bike to work, and it took the same amount of time as driving,” she says. “At that moment, I knew I could ride my bike to work every day.”

A Vision of Integrated Trails throughout Santa Clara County

The Friends of the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens had a lot to celebrate last night at their annual Window on the River Park event. Executive Director Kathy Muller and hundreds of volunteers could all be proud to hold the event in the River Street Historic Park for the first time.

I have worked with the organization for 10 years now to extend trails throughout our entire valley, and I was pleased to announce that the Guadalupe River Park’s trails will connect to Alviso by November.

The trail will also extend south to connect to Almaden Lake and eventually to the Los Alamitos Trail, allowing anyone to hike, jog, or bike the trail from north San Jose to Almaden Valley.

The grand vision I have is an integrated trail network that connects together the Guadalupe River Trail, the Los Gatos Creek Trail, the Penitencia Creek Trail, the Coyote Creek Trail, the Willow Glen Spur and many others.

I also got a chance to catch up with Leslee Hamilton, president of the Friends’ board of directors and a member of my Team Bike Challenge team, the Rainbow Riders. Our team is eighth out of more than 40 teams competing in Santa Clara County. Leslee and I took a short walk along the Guadalupe River Trail to talk about how bicyclists can incorporate trails into their daily commutes.
Corinne Winter, executive director of the Silicon Valley Bikes Coalition, joined us and reminded us about the official Bike to Work Day festivities on May 17. Energizer stations with free beverages and giveaways will help bicyclists in the morning, and the Silicon Valley Bikes Coalition is throwing a Bike Away from Work Bash from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. that evening at Gordon Biersch in downtown San Jose. I hope to see many of you there.

Connecting to Meetings via Local Trails

Even though today began with gloomy weather, it cleared up just in time for me to take a 10-mile roundtrip bike ride to the Valley Transportation Authority’s headquarters for a lunch briefing on tomorrow’s Caltrain Joint Powers Board meeting.



Biking to VTA’s headquarters in north San Jose from the County Government Center near downtown was a pleasant ride. Rather than riding through traffic, I followed the Guadalupe River Trail part of the way. The trail gave me a quieter, more relaxing ride, as well as beautiful scenery and puffy white and gray clouds to enjoy along the way.

I then took Airport Parkway to Brokaw and headed up First Street to VTA’s headquarters.

I arrived early enough to meet with Scott Haywood, VTA’s policy manager. In addition to being on Caltrain’s board, I am also a member of VTA’s governing board, and my meeting with Scott gave me a chance to chat about the latest bus and light rail fee reduction proposals.

At the lunch briefing, we discussed Caltrain’s $3.7 million deficit. The good news is that this estimate is lower than the original $5.6 million shortfall projected in February. We heard data and recommendations from Caltrain staff today, and tomorrow we hope to work together to begin brainstorming ways to reduce the deficit.

While on the San Jose City Council, I was the city’s representative on the Caltrain board. Now my appointment is because I serve on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and it is my seventh year on the board.

Even though I logged a lot of miles in the bike lanes and on the trails today, I haven’t had my fill of bicycling. Tomorrow I plan to take my bike on the train to the Caltrain board meeting in San Carlos.