Residents near Jardin Avenue are calling on the Mountain View Los Altos School District to work with the city to address parking issues along the controversial street behind Los Altos High.
The road striping along Jardin Drive will be redesigned less than a year after implementation to address illegal parking, the lack of a westbound dedicated bike lane, speeding violations and gaps between sidewalks. The current eastbound design on Jardin includes a westbound lane shared with bikes; an eastbound car lane; a passenger loading zone; a red buffer zone; a two-way bike lane; a sidewalk and the school.
Residents who live nearby spoke at an April 15 MVLA board meeting and expressed their dissatisfaction with the chaotic traffic and volume situation and asked for board policy parking changes and to give input to the city. Los Altos resident Mike Emrick noted many students park on the narrow streets north of Jardin Avenue due to the school’s lack of parking, which has worsened with the increased school population in the last decade.
“The lack of parking has resulted in more problems for neighbors north of Jardin,” Emrick said.
Three new design options are being considered for the Jardin changes.
Each includes a bike lane on each side of the street rather than the existing shared travel lane on the north side and a cycle track on the south side.
They also all include one travel lane for cars going each way. Only two have parking alongside the school, and one has no parking on Jardin.
Scott Spielman also lives near the school and argued the proposed city remodel is still not sufficient or good enough and felt that parking and safety issues would still remain.
He and others called for the district to work with the city of Los Altos on a design that would reduce issues for residents in the area. Several other residents spoke about how Jardin Avenue is simply not wide enough to support designated bike lanes, two-way vehicular traffic and parking drop off and instead argued for a shared lane or for more parking to be opened in the main parking lot.
“The previous design that was implemented a year ago was a bad design,”
Spielman said. “It was flawed; it was recognized by the city and others. The redesign is trying to cram too much into a small street.”
Trustee Catherine Vonnegut agreed that the current city plan needed more work to alleviate stress on neighboring streets and that more parking spaces were needed.
“I think the new one is better than the one they currently have, and I still don’t think the new one is adequate,” Vonnegut said of the plans.
Good news is on the horizon, as the school will gain about
10 parallel parking spots near the softball field and another 20 to 25 on the east driveway back for staff after the end of the current construction. District staff estimates the parking could return by the 2025-2026 school year, with the next school year still seeing construction access and staging on the east driveway.
