I notified the city of Santa Clara about the difficulty of having a bicycle on Monroe trigger the light top cross El Camino Real lat week. They responded below:
[quote]City staff went to check the intersection of Monroe and El camino Real this morning. Both left turn and straight thru detection loops were tuned and adjusted to be more sensitive to bikes. The "hotspots" were painted with circles and letter "B" next to it.
Use the new marking as your guide to be detected and try it several times.
Please give me a call to confirm that it is working then I will send an order to mark it with bike logo.
Fred Laigo mailto:FLaigo@santaclaraca.gov
Traffic Operations
408 615 3019[/quote]
So if anyone has a chance to ride that intersection in the next week or so, see if you can trigger the light over the "B" marked areas.
DvortyBikes
September 13, 2012 - 10:07pm
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Sensor markings spotted but not tested at Monroe x El Camino
I went past there this evening, and I can confirm that there's paint on the ground, but there was far too much motor traffic to be able to say whether putting a bike near the paint had any effect on the light. Perhaps I'll try again if I'm out that way on a bike either morning this weekend.
It's been my experience that Santa Clara's bike markings do work as advertised, most of the time, and that the city is generally pretty responsive to problems brought to their attention.
4Crawler
October 9, 2012 - 9:59am
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Sensor did not work last time I tried it.
I did see them last time I went through that intersection a few weeks ago. I did try the northbound lane sensor out and it did not seem to work as I sat through an entire cycle with no green light. Then I had to move out of the way for a right turning car as they put the sensor mark basically right in the middle of the right turn lane. I guess I should have just sat on that mark with the car forced to wait behind me.
Anyway, passed that info. along to the city and I should be able to ride through that intersection again tonight and see if anything has changed.
pmackay
November 8, 2012 - 9:30am
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Good point 4Crawler
Hot spot should be 1/3 of the way into the travel lane, where sharrows go. Many people don't know this is an appropriate place for a cyclist to wait for a red light (the reason Portland built bike boxes and launched an educational campaign). Merging over (while signaling :) in front of traffic while coming up on a red will place you there, which also uncorks right-turning traffic. Cupertino does it better: they put hot spots both there and in the middle of the bike lane (when there is one).
My impression when talking with Santa Clara streets and public works staff in the past is they are really nice guys... that just haven't bicycled too much.
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