Matadero Creek Link

County Trail S-1, from Stanford's version of the Santa Clara County Trail Master Plan. The mapped trail route shown follows Matadero Creek, and dead-ends at the I-280 / Page Mill Road interchange, where the creek disappears into a pipe. This trail does not currently exist, although the lightly-travelled section of Old Page Mill Road is to some extent usable as a trail. There is a bike path along Page Mill Road through the I-280 interchange, but it is in the middle of traffic lanes and is not a trail.

A more useful trail routing, shown in red, would connect Palo Alto's Arastadero Preserve (outlined in green) with the Matadero Creek Trail and the Stanford Dish area.

Proposed Routing

This proposed routing is entirely within the City of Palo Alto. A narrow strip of Palo Alto connects the foothills with the valley. This strip is currently zoned PF- Public Facility by the City. Stanford is the property owner.

The red section shown begins at Peter Coutts Tower, a brick cylinder on Old Page Mill Road, and continues uphill alongside a residential area of Los Altos Hills. The trail heads south at the top of a hill, following an existing firebreak and merging with an existing paved service road near I-280.

The service road goes under I-280 in an existing underpass at the proposed trail crossing point. This is a Caltrans facility.

South of I-280, the service road turns west, but the proposed trail routing would continue south to the Arastadero Preserve. This last section of trail is up a steep hill in a wooded area and would probably require switchbacks to protect the hillside from erosion. The trail problems are no worse, though, than those dealt with successfully elsewhere in the Arastadero Preserve.

Additional Trail Connections

There's an obvious opportunity to tie this trail into trails in the Stanford Dish area. Existing service roads are within a few hundred yards of the northernmost point of this trail. A connection would provide unbroken trail access from the Stanford campus to the Arastadero Preserve, offering a range of new recreational opportunities.