By Khalida Sarwari
When Napoleon Hill uttered the words, “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success,” he may as well have been referring to an effort by a dedicated group of neighbors to roll up their sleeves and beautify an area on the side of Saratoga-Los Gatos Road between Farwell Avenue and Three Oaks Way. Three years later, the residents are finally seeing the fruits of their labor.
Today, the region boasts hedges, a variety of trees, tall and medium-sized shrubs and painted curbs. A crosswalk has been added, along with solar streetlights, and soon, flowers will begin blooming along a 10-foot-wide paved pathway.
“It’s one of those things that everybody who drives by all the time can appreciate,” said Danny Swanson, a resident of Farwell Lane.
It is a far cry from the way the area looked three years ago before Bill Boller, a resident of Three Oaks, and his neighbors came along and took things into their own hands.
For years the space between Farwell Avenue and Three Oaks Way had been used as a “staging area,” where Caltrans and its subcontractors would store construction equipment and materials. Large metal machines, dumpsters and portable toilets left next to homes were a common sight. The concrete pathway that had once cut through the side of Highway 9 to allow pedestrian access between Farwell and Three Oaks had eroded over time, forcing pedestrians trying to walk through the area to go around the equipment and into the roadway.
Contractors working on other projects would park their equipment on the property without proper authorization from Caltrans. After initially not doing anything about it, Caltrans, which has authority over Highway 9, finally agreed to repave the eroded pathway. That action led to the city stepping in to undertake other safety improvements.
“The city came along and put in fencing, mounds of dirt, big boulders and a number of enhancements,” Swanson said. “It began to look like it might be something special.”
Once the city prepared the base for the beautification project, Swanson and a core group of 12 neighbors went to work–performing maintenance on the landscaping, planting trees and shrubs up until the end of November.
“We have 102 households that are in this Farwell-Three Oaks area,” Swanson said. “We hope to engage and excite all the people that are there. We feel we’ve created a really lovely entrance to these two streets.”
The pathway beautification project is part of a larger multi-jurisdictional, multi-phase Highway 9 Safety Improvement Project to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety along the busy route, according to Iveta Harvancik, Saratoga’s senior engineer.
The first phase, a cooperative effort among the cities of Saratoga, Los Gatos and Monte Sereno and Santa Clara County, entailed the installation of bicycle lanes on both sides of Highway 9 between Big Basin Way and Los Gatos Boulevard.
The second phase, which was just completed and included the beautification project, involved pedestrian improvements in Saratoga and Monte Sereno at a price tag of $1 million. The third phase, which was completed last December–prior to the second–consisted mostly of bike improvements, specifically at the Austin Way intersection.
“The project is not completed,” Harvancik said. “We’re going to do phase four next year.”
That phase, which will involve additional pedestrian pathways and the construction of a crosswalk in Monte Sereno, is scheduled to begin next summer. Additional phases will be rolled out once federal grant funds become available to complete the master plan for the nearly 4.4-mile stretch of Highway 9, said Harvancik. The master plan was developed by staff from the three municipalities in collaboration with engineering consultants from BKF Engineers.
The entire cost of the project is estimated at about $5 million. Most of the funds thus far have come from federal grants, with the cities of Saratoga and Monte Sereno and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority also footing some of the bill. Saratoga has thus far contributed $150,000 toward the project, according to Harvancik.
“We create phases as we find grants,” she said. “These are competitive grants. We’re always looking for options.”
Saratoga, in partnership with the city of Monte Sereno, is planning a ribbon-cutting ceremony in early December to commemorate the completion of the project’s second phase.
