Dear Editor,

For those of you supportive of alternative transportation options, the city's meeting tonight (Oct. 2) is worth attending. For more than 10 years, both the Bicycle Master Plan and the Trails Master Plan have included a bicycle/pedestrian crossing of the railroad tracks to connect Curtis Avenue with Yosemite Drive. A quick look at a map clearly shows why.

Southern Milpitas has only two crossings of the UP railroad tracks Calaveras Boulevard and Montague Expressway neither of which is bike friendly. A Curtis/Yosemite crossing would connect Parktown homes and the industrial core of the city with the GreatMall, Midtown and light rail.

The council majority, however, wants to remove the crossing from the Bicycle Master Plan. They have offered two excuses, neither of which stands up to critical examination. First, they say it can't be built because one property owner objects. Then they say that the crossing should not be included because the Master Plan is not a wish list.

On that second point, yes it is. Master plans whether for bikes, trails, housing or the BART transit area exist as a plan of how we, as a community, wish to develop our city over the next decade or two. Any project's development begins with inclusion into the master plan. (The Capital Improvement Program, on the other hand, is where funding must be identified before inclusion.)

The other excuse offered by the council majority (it can't be done) results from

a discussion that happened almost nine years ago. At that time, one Solectron employee with sufficient clout (the security manager) objected to the crossing which stalled the project. Since then, Flextronics bought Solectron, personnel has changed, and cultural norms have changed to embrace "green" solutions. Hopefully, city staff will have a report for us on the current attitude of Flextronics to the crossing.

Please join every member of the Milpitas Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission in supporting this crossing at the public hearing tonight at 7 p.m. in the Committee Conference Room on the ground floor at Milpitas City Hall.

Rob Means

Yellowstone Avenue