Northern California - Los Altos a Bike Friendly Town?

Overall, I think it is ... but a poll seems to think otherwise???

http://www.losaltosonline.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

I commute by bike into downtown Los Altos 2 or 3 days a week. Other than the traffic confusion where Northbound Foothill meets San Antonio (lots of cars merging into a right hand turn lane while cyclists need to move through them to the left to go straight), I don't have any issues. Drivers are pretty bike aware and patient. I also don't see too much crazy cyclist behavior there, even though there are quite a few cycling groups and rides who meet up at Peets.

The poll results might be due to the Town Crier being the favored paper of the cranky local curmudgeon readership who is negative on anything and everything.

My definition of "bike friendly": do you think the streets and routes are safe enough for you to encourage your kids and your neighbor's kids to bike to school? I see hundreds of kids biking to school in Palo Alto, but I don't see the same thing in Los Altos. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Yes, very bike friendly ... Foothill blvd has more bikes than car every weekend .... :thumb:

Overall it is quite bike friendly and the drivers are courteous. The traffic signals are not set to detect bikes as well as neighboring city's signals are. And it would be nice if the city had street lights for biking at night.

I have never really had problems, thought I have not done much riding through there except on Foothill on a somewhat frequent basis and a few other various streets once in a while. The downtown area can be a bit unsafe at times, mainly because there are a couple confusing intersections (one of which Marko has alluded to) and so many cars parked face in on the street. I have almost accidentally taken out a lady that walked behind her car from her driver's door. She wasn't paying attention and I wasn't paying enough attention, though I swerved in time to miss her. I take partial fault in this near incident though because I was a little too close to the parked cars and not taking enough of the lane.

Other than that, Los Altos has been pretty good to me. I have ridden various random residential streets and also ridden Foothill (quite often) with no incident.

I think it all boils down to individual people's perception. I've heard people complain about how "bike unfriendly" Portland, OR is, if you can believe that.

I live in Los Altos and commute to Cupertino. My personal preference is to simply avoid the main streets and instead take side streets. The roads are wide, most people park their cars in the garage and at the times I ride to/from work there are not many cars out. On the way to work I usually pass more bikers, joggers, walkers than I do cars. Many of the main roads do have bike lanes and in general motorists seem to pay attention to bikes.

I had my bike stolen from the downstairs "secured" parking when I was living in Los Altos.

Raises my blood pressure every time I go through Los Altos to somewhere else.

I was reminded of another aspect of bike friendliness on my way home yesterday: a number of the intersections with stop lights have bike-specific loop detectors which actually work. From the days when I rode a motorcycle I was constantly frustrated by the detectors that didn't pick up my motorcycle. I happened to have to make a left turn on my way home yesterday and noticed that the left turn lane had a bike detector and was pleasantly surprised when it actually worked and tripped the left turn light even though there were no cars behind me. Similar experience in Cupertino, FWIW.

From the days when I rode a motorcycle I was constantly frustrated by the detectors that didn't pick up my motorcycle.

There's one in Sunnyvale that drives me nuts, a left-turn on-ramp onto 237. :mad:

Hmmmm...kind of a stupid poll. It's mixing the idea that a town is friendly either because of the people or because of the physical characteristics. You could have a ton of bike lanes but really crappy, discourteous drivers.

My experience is that the Los Altos major thoroughfares provide a lot of accomodation for cyclists. I'm thinking San Antonio Road, El Monte, Springer, Foothill Expwy, etc. In town, traffic is typically light and slow, so bikes can blend pretty easily with traffic. I've found the drivers to be largely aware of the bikes, especially at the "tricky" intersections. Then there are the curmudgeons (probably like my father) who think everyone should move out of his way when he's on the road (and they probably should!).