Recap of May 29th Carmen Bridge Community Outreach Meeting
About 40 community members attended the meeting with a strong majority in strong support of the project. Thank you those who were able to attend – you made a big difference! Here’s the meeting summary:

  • David Stillman, Cupertino Traffic Manager, presented four  Carmen Bridge Concept Design Approaches to the future bridge that will create a safe way to cross Stevens Creek Boulevard (SCB).
  • The mix of attendees included a large percentage of parents and other community members in support of the bridge.
  • Residents’ key points were the inability to cross the very busy Stevens Creek Blvd to and from schools and access to parks. There are no safe, functional crossings for the 1 mile distance between Foothill Blvd and Orange Ave at the Post office. There are ~11,000 cars per day using this stretch. The one “crossing” at Phar Lap has been problematic and residents resist using it.
  • Students can’t access their schools without driving, generating significant congestion around Starling Drive for SC Elementary, Linda Vista/Hyannisport/Wilkinson around Kennedy Middle and Orange/McClellan around MVHS.
  • Representatives of Sunny View Manor on Cupertino Road were in support of the bridge opening up more routes for their residents to walk.
  • Long-time residents want to have their neighborhoods reconnected and saw major benefits in better access to the schools and parks in the area;

 After a presentation of the 4 design alternatives, there was a question/answer/comment period with the great majority of attendees in support of the bridge. Residents also filled out comment cards regarding the project. You, too, can provide your input by emailing David Stillman at this address:DavidS@Cupertino.org The cost of the four bridge concepts were a bit higher than anticipated – and will give us something to work on!. We have been anticipating the costs to be well under $1M – and therefore more “palatable” from a budgeting perspective. 
The city team will take the resident comments and assimilate a proposal for the city council to adopt a design concept for the Carmen Bridge sometime in the July/August time-frame. If the concept is approved, it will then go into the budget/funding process for either the remainder of FY2020 (ending in June 2020) or the following year.