MTS Letter to the County Supervisors, 9/23/03

Photo, top: Pedestrians and transit patrons have the right to use the roadways (except freeways) including access to all companies on all expressways. (Shown: Roche on Foothill Expressway). Branch Manager Jon Elson is violating these rights, State law, city codes and County policy.

Photo, right: Branch Manager Jon Elson refuses to remove illegal "pedestrians prohibited" signs, including this one (at Central & Mary) despite the fact Sunnyvale no longer prohibits pedestrians here.

Sept. 23, 2003

Board of Supervisors
Santa Clara County
70 W. Hedding
San Jose CA 95110

Subject: City codes, State law and the Policies of this Board are being violated by posting of illegal “pedestrians prohibited” signs, which are owned by the County.

Dear Board members:

As President of the Modern Transit Society and Vice-President of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, I have worked for the repeal of bicycle bans and pedestrian bans on arterial roads where the name was changed to “expressway.” All affected cities have repealed bicycle bans. Most affected cities have repealed pedestrian bans, and the only outstanding expressway with bans today is San Tomas --except that San Jose still bans people from walking on the sidewalk along Lawrence.

Most of the time, after a city repealed a prohibitory ordinance, the highway engineers of the County gave false reasons for not removing the prohibitory signs, until finally I went to higher authority. Even then, they often said they would do it but didn’t, or put signs back up later. I often had to approach the authority several times. Typically, it took one year to remove signs per expressway, a job that should have taken about two hours.

The first time was in 1987, when Sunnyvale repealed the bicycle ban [May 19, 1987], but Rollo Parsons, then engineer for Lawrence Expressway, gave one false reason after another (see footnote*) why he was not going to remove the signs, until finally Sunnyvale staff, at my request, told him the signs must be removed. During this period, I was forced to ride past “bicycles prohibited” signs, and I saw a police officer ticketing an innocent bicyclist for riding on what today could be considered a bike lane. Over the years, in similar fashion, I only got Allen Jones, Masoud Akbarzadeh and Bill Baxtor to remove illegal signs by going to higher authority.

In 1988, the County Highway and Bridge Design Department asked the Supervisors to seek legislation in Sacramento to re-impose bicycle bans. The Supervisors not only rejected that [Jan. 12, 1988], but voted that they “support” bicycles on expressways. Yet, the highway engineers continued opposing bicycles and contradicting the Supervisors’ policy before the County Highways and Bikeways Committee (which then-Councilmember Jim Beall was a member of), and informally at the city level through the old boy network.

In 1996, Branch Manger Rollo Parsons told the County Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee that they could ban pedestrians at will. The Committee did not believe that, and asked County Counsel for a legal opinion. Even with this legal opinion [dated Nov. 12, 1996, see links at bottom] clearly stating the signs were illegal, it took over a year to remove signs on Capitol. The signs were only removed because I took photographs --showing them to Supervisor Alvarado-- of pedestrians being prohibited from walking on the sidewalk, using bus stops, using pedestrian paths and wide shoulders. The photos are at: www.moderntransit.org/capitol

Today, Branch Manager Jon Elson refuses to comply with this Board’s policy that was adopted last month [Aug. 19, 2003], supporting pedestrians on pedestrian paths and wide shoulders, and Elson refuses to comply with State law and city codes. Three more cities (Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills) repealed pedestrian prohibitions, but Elson refuses to remove any “pedestrian prohibited” signs.

In the past, I used to go to the Director and -- if I proved my point -- James Reading, Larry Reuter or Scotty Bruce would give a direct order to the highway engineer to remove illegal prohibitory signs. However, the current director, Mr. Murdter, has not taken such action. That is why I must ask that the Supervisors direct the County Executive to ensure that City codes, State law and this Board’s policies will not be violated in this regard.

I will gladly supply details to whomever you designate. I can be contacted at 408 221 0694. Our web site contains many details including photos and legal documents, at:
www.moderntransit.org/expy

Sincerely,

Akos Szoboszlay, Vice-President


Footnote:

* From the Spinning Crank newsletter, Dec. 1988 issue, Rollo Parsons claimed the existence of a special agreement between the County and Sunnyvale to ban bicycles (a complete fabrication), then that Santa Clara (City) prohibits bicycles (true at the time, but wrong city), then that there is a small corner of the railroad overpass in Santa Clara city limits (false), and then that there is not enough room for bicycles (false). The County Highway and Bridge Design Department also claimed that "there is no room for bicycles and pedestrians" after lane additions on Lawrence, but today we have bike-lane width shoulders plus sidewalks plus the added car lanes. The real reason for opposing bicycles and pedestrians was that the Department --at the time-- simply wanted to spend all their budget for motorists --and none of it for other transportation modes. But the actual excuses used keep varying, including today.


Next letter to the County Supervisors

Links:

Legality of Pedestrian Prohibitions, Legal Opinion of County Counsel
Liability of City or County, Legal Opinion of County Counsel
Jurisdiction of Cities vs. County, Legal Opinion of County Counsel
Approved Aug. 19, 2003: County Supervisors Policy: The Expressway Plan.
Approved Nov. 7, 2002: VTA policy (Santa Clara County Transportation Authority)
Recent: FHWA policy
Recent: State Legislative Resolution, ACR 211
Recent: California State law, Vehicle Code 21949

Also see related articles:

Dangerous policies of County highway engineers
Analyses of Pedestrians along Expressways

or: Expressway topics, links page.


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