The continued pressures of quarantine related to COVID-19 make outdoor recreation an increasingly important part of everyone’s lives.  The current County of Santa Clara regulations related to park hours effectively eliminate access for many individuals due to our very short winter days, the skew of daylight savings time and the challenges of scheduling with many families dealing with COVID implications.

Outdoor activities including hiking and biking are among the most important options people have available right now, but the current schedules are too restrictive:

1. Sunset closure of park trails mean many individuals cannot access the parks at all during normal weekdays as they are likely not finished with their workday before the parks close. With gyms and other health options already limited or closed, this limits people’s options even further.
2. Sunset closure creates denser use periods.  Weekends become more crowded for those who cannot beat the clock during weekdays.  Increasing usage density on the weekends is counter productive to people trying to social distance.
3. For those who can shift their work schedule on weekdays, they will find the trail systems much busier just before sunset as many people try to quickly access the trail systems before the sunset deadline.
4. One can find parks open after sunset in the East Bay Regional Parks system which has multiple facilities that allow extended hours.  Note however that this goes against recommendations for staying near home during COVID and it requires more people to travel.

This petition asks the County of Santa Clara to adopt changes to the park hours to more effectively serve the community and allow extended periods for trail use.

Ideas include:

• Extend park hours to sunet +2 hrs during daylight savings time periods. This will more closely match the summer hours and decrease pressure on density by allowing more options for trail use over a wider time period each day.
• Require safety equipment for any park user using the trails after dark.  This includes lights, reflective clothing, and a requirement that no one should be alone (minimum of 2 people at all times).
• Designate certain parks for specific uses after sunset. This can help to distribute load more carefully among various parks. Trail usage would then be defined as biking or hiking only per park for the post-sunset usage period, or you could alternate even/odd days at each park similar to how many trails in Tahoe are handled.

We ask the County of Santa Clara to adapt quickly with creative solutions to better serve the community during this challenging time.