Living in Santa Clara County, you may not be aware that a nearly 4-mile-long section of Cañada Road in unincorporated San Mateo County is closed to vehicle traffic every Sunday from 9AM to 3PM. The closure begins right after the public entry road to Filoli Estates and continues all the way to Highway 92. This closed section allows adults and children to safely ride their bikes, although it is also open to roller bladers, skateboarders, pedestrians, strollers, scooters, etc.
The section of Cañada Road borders and provides beautiful vistas of Upper Crystal Springs reservoir, which is supplied by water from Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierras as well as from local runoff. The San Andreas fault runs through the rift valley that forms the Upper and Lower Crystal Spring Reservoirs.
image courtesty of San Mateo County
A beautiful ride
Cañada Road is surrounded by hilly and mountainous terrain but is generally considered to be relatively flat with some long gentle grades. The roadway surface is in beautiful condition as San Mateo County recently micro-surfaced and re-striped a 5-mile section of Cañada Road, that includes the entire portion closed on Sundays. It should be noted that Cañada Road is extremely popular with recreational cyclists every day of the week and has a bicycle lane for the entire length (from Town of Woodside to Highway 92).
As part of restriping, the County reduced lane widths, widened some of the bike lanes with buffering on select portions, installed speed reduction features on some horizontal and vertical curves and included new signage. The County did not reduce the speed limit as requested in some of the public comments associated with this project. It remains at 50mph in the unincorporated section (speed limit is 35 mph in Town of Woodside). These safety upgrades may have been prompted by the recent death of a cyclist struck from behind in April of 2023. A Ghost-Bike memorial was erected at the location of this tragic death near Filoli Estates.
Parking and Restrooms
Gravel parking areas are available at the north end of Cañada Road, where it meets Highway 92, and near the intersection of Cañada and Edgewood Roads. Additional parking and restrooms can be found at nearby Edgewood Park. Exercise caution when crossing Edgewood Road as there is traffic exiting from Highway 280. Restrooms and water are available at the Pulgas Water temple, which includes a Corinthian column structure constructed in the 1930’s to celebrate the completion of the Hetch Hetchy pipeline. There is a parking lot on the temple grounds which is open on weekdays but closed on weekends, however pedestrians/cyclists can still enter the temple grounds.
Thanks to Brian Hunt for this Youtube still from his Cañada Road ride.
More information on the weekly closure can be found here. Note that the road is not closed on holiday weekends.
Please be aware that cars parked in marked bike lanes will be ticketed. In addition, if you decide to ride on the section of Cañada Road not subject to the Sunday closure, there are three stop signs at T‑intersections in the Town of Woodside. Police have been known to ticket cyclists who do not come to a full stop at these intersections.
Though it’s a bit of a drive to get there, the joy of riding on such a well-manicured road without any dangerous car traffic is well worth the trip. See you on Sunday!
The information in this article is solely the opinion of the author and Walk-Bike Cupertino and does not reflect the opinions of any other organization or entity. For more information, contact WBC at info@walkbikecupertino.org.