Congressman Ro Khanna joined local leaders at Sunnyvale Community Services (SCS) a few weeks ago to announce $3 million in funding for pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on Sunnyvale and Santa Clara streets: Santa Clara’s Pruneridge Avenue Complete Streets ($1 million) and Sunnyvale’s Safe Routes to Schools and Parks ($2 million).
Improvements include quick-build curb extensions — often called “bump-outs” or “bulb-outs,” — ADA curb ramps, longer pedestrian signals, bike lanes and narrower streets to slow traffic. It will also provide a bikeway along the Pruneridge corridor that connects to 14 schools serving nearly 9,000 students.
The event also celebrated the near-completion of SCS’ new energy-efficient roof, made possible by funding that Khanna secured. Although the money was allocated during the Biden administration, it was held up first by the Trump administration’s claw-back attempts and second by California PUC regulatory changes.
Khanna was responsible, Bernard said, “for securing federal dollars so that we could literally raise our roof in this much needed facility. He and his amazing staff made it possible for us to actually access the funds after they were allocated — it’s been three years. We have a second round of funding. We’re hoping that we can then start using that to put solar on the roof.
“We are a regional hub, including food services for over 11,000 people,” she continued. “We need to be energy efficient. For every dollar that we raise, we want to make sure it goes to services.”
“I’m so proud of not just the food that they [SCS] provide, the rental assistance they provide, the counseling they provide,” Khanna said. “What they do [is] uplift people and provide them dignity and respect.”
But money for human services is a non-starter in the Republican Congress these days, Khanna said.
“The current situation,” Khanna continued, “is such that if you fund something that is needed for health or education, the Republicans nix that. It’s got to be an infrastructure project.”
Khanna continued his remarks with a short list of what Americans could buy with the $200B President Donald Trump wants for the war in Iran.
Khanna then listed what Americans could buy with the $200B President Trump wants for the war in Iran: free college, $10-a-day childcare, full K-12 special education funding, teacher salaries of at least $60,000, and a thousand new trade schools.
He ended his remarks with a plea for community spirit.
“Silicon Valley represents people who go build great companies and build a lot of wealth,” he said. “We don’t resent that at all. But we were all in the same community together.
“I fear what’s happening today in this country is that we’re really becoming two countries,” he continued. “One for the extreme wealthy … and then another for those who are struggling. We need more community spirit in this nation. We need to become one country.”
Also on hand for the event were county supervisor and former Sunnyvale mayor Otto Lee and Sunnyvale city council members Alysa Cisneros, Linda Sell, Charlsie Chang and Eileen Le.
For more details about the District 17 grants, visit https://tinyurl.com/dist172026grants
Carolyn Schuk can be reached at carolyn@santaclaraweekly.com
To be honest I don’t like what they’ve been doing to Pruneridge. I use it to go shopping and the section east of my house is often unusabe because of the changes that they’ve made. The alternative is using 280 or Stevenscreek and those are even worse. Note, they put in bike lanes which are almost never used and are a total waste of money.
Some more thoughts, why don’t they put in a subway under El Camino all the way form Palo Alto down to where Monterey Road starts. This also requires putting self-driving EV shuttles on the major cross streets. That would take a huge number cars off of the streets. This would all be in Santa Clara County thus much easier to do that say go further west into San Mateo County and it would require little use of emanate domain and purchasing properety.