Friday, January 22, 2010

Crossing Highway 101 - San Tomas Creek Trail

The San Tomas Creek Trail crosses under Highway 101 between Great America and San Tomas. I was headed to meet my wife at Tasman and Great America and took a leisurely ride along this trail. The previous time I met my wife over there - at the Amtrak station at Tasman and Lick Mill, I crossed on San Tomas Expressway. Stupid. San Tomas Expressway is near deathwish territory, the creek trail is nirvana.

I took this photo, notice the bumper to bumper traffic on 101. Sadly, a few minutes later I joined my wife, put my bike in her car, and ended up in that bumper to bumper traffic. At least we got to use the carpool lane.

San Tomas creek trail - normal on Twitpic

There are more excellent photos on the website linked above (and here) One key photo is missing, however.... this one...

San Tomas creek trail - today on Twitpic

Closed? Why?

The fence in this photo is the line between San Tomas Creek a... on Twitpic

The creek floods in rainstorms and the trail floods in the underpasses. Even after the flood subsides, you need to exercise caution as a thin layer of wet slime will stay on the trail and be very tricky to navigate.

This is unfortunate, as the two adjacent crossings, Great America/Bowers, and San Tomas, are anything but pleasant. I have only crossed at San Tomas the once, and it sucked. Great America used to be me standard commute route when I worked at SandCraft at Tasman and Old Ironsides, I learned to manage it and it's not horrible but it's not great either.

5 comments:

Slonie said...

That's intense flooding!

David said...

When not flooded, the trail also offers easy crossings of Central and Caltrain, for the South Bay commute trifecta.

Mark said...

As a new immigrant to the area, I have found the bike trails very frustrating. They have little or no sinage on them, so it is very difficult to figure out where you are on the trail relative to the rest of the transportation infrastructure, and as Fritz noted, they seem to close randomly.

Chris said...

Last Tuesday, I went through almost-hub-deep water going under the Caltrain tracks between Monroe and Walsh...guess I got on the trail before they closed the gates...

Jason Shueh said...

Great blog, love the comments and explanations so far!

Before this trail was finished, I would cross 101 on Lafayette St. It's a much safer option then San Thomas / Great America, as there are no on/off ramps to 101 on this street. While there is no bike lane on this over crossing, the shoulders are quite wide.