Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Repair work closes parts of Los Gatos Creek Trail

By Jeff Kearns

Runners, cyclists and in-line skaters who frequent the Los Gatos Creek Trail may be surprised to see that the part of the path, from Miles Avenue to Main Street, is closed for repairs. Work started Monday and should be completed by about Aug. 15.

Caltrans, which owns and maintains that section of the trail, closed it last week with no advance warning, even to town officials. Surjit Bains, an engineer at Caltrans, says the agency was at the mercy of the contractor's schedule, which recently opened up, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which controls the amount of discharge from Lexington Reservoir.

"I think it sucks," said Jeff Benoit, who works at Caere Corporation in Los Gatos and rides his mountain bike on the creek trail during his lunch hour, after he found the trail was closed. Benoit said he would have liked some warning.

"That's ridiculous that they'd close it during the peak summer season, when people want to use it most," he said. "They should wait until the rainy season when people aren't using at as much. It's like closing Highway 280 at 8 a.m."

Trail users can get around the closed segment by going up Miles Avenue to University Avenue, then get back on the trail on the other side of the Main Street bridge. Detour signs will go up sometime this week.

Town Manager Dave Knapp said the town was not given advance warning that the trail would be closed. The town isn't involved with the project, which is on a narrow section of land owned by Caltrans.

Crews began the job by pulling one-ton boulders out of the creekbed. The rocks were placed there on a temporary basis in 1995, when heavy runoff from winter storms threatened to erode the banks of the channel, Bains said.

When the rocks are gone, workers will build a makeshift dam and divert the flow of water on one side of the channel while pouring new concrete on the other side, then switch sides.

During the current phase of the project, workers will build a new channel for a stretch of about 100 meters south of the bridge at Miles Avenue. The second phase, scheduled for later this year, will replace a 100-meter section north of the bridge. Exactly when the next phase will get under way, however, depends on how long the water district can keep down discharge from the reservoir. If it can keep a low flow into September, Bains said Caltrans should be able to finish the job this year.

The project's price tag is estimated at about $500,000.

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