The bell rings, signaling the ending of a long school day. Students shuffle their feet to greet their parents as they hop into their car, but across the way, junior William Fleig is hopping on his bike, bracing himself for the journey ahead.
For some, biking to campus is their primary source of transportation. Many students and staff have concerns biking to and from school with dangerous bike lanes surrounding SCHS.
To Fleig, navigating between lane traffic on Benton, which currently has no bike lane, is difficult.
“There’s a lot of parts of Benton that have no bike lane and people are on the sidewalks, so you have to squeeze between the cars and the parked cars,” Fleig said.
Fleig has scary encounters on his route to campus frequently, but it does not stop him from getting where he needs to be.
“I don’t think safety is something people think about. When you bike, it’s more of a convenience thing,” Fleig said. “I’m sure there’s some people that are afraid.”
Junior Mango Creech, who has not biked to school in a few years, still travels through roads along SCHS, avoiding Benton all together.
“Homestead was definitely a lot safer,” Creech said. “Benton is a small residential street for a while. Once more traffic merges on it, people aren’t very careful.”
According to City of Santa Clara Transportation Manager for the Department of Public Works, Steve Chan, and Communications Manager, David Knight, new bike lanes on Benton were anticipated in the spring of 2026 and put in motion in 2019. This should encourage more Santa Clara citizens to choose sustainable transportation. The department surveyed Santa Clara citizens to give feedback to help finalize preferred lanes.
Chan and Knight are passionate about these new lanes and hope they will provide more safety on the roads.
“The project will create concept bike lane alternatives to reconfigure Benton Street, review potential reduction of on-street parking or lane reductions, analyze potential traffic and parking impacts,” Chan and Knight said in an email.
But there are still concerns from Santa Clara citizens, such as Spanish teacher Justin Williams, who feels the lanes will not have much impact.
“I’m very pessimistic about it. I’ll still ride my bike and I’ll continue to do so, but you’re fighting an uphill battle with the way things turned out around here,” Williams said.
Williams believes that with the city layout of Santa Clara, it may be hard to make impactful bike lanes while keeping pedestrians and drivers happy. Williams suggested implementing barriers around bike lanes as a solution to help the city recognize how new lanes should function and improve existing lanes.
“Put concrete barriers between cars and bicycles. If you put that the length of the expressways, I think it would encourage bike traffic,” Williams said. “Beyond concrete barriers you’re really just painting the ground. It’s something, but it’s not really the solution.”
Santa Clara community members believe that biking should be safe and accessible to all. Just as Creech and Fleig, Williams agrees with the fact that something needs to be done to ensure the safety of bikers.
“Here we are and all that stands between me and quadriplegia is a bunch of paint that’s on the ground,” Williams said.
Many hold the view that Santa Clara citizens should be able to feel the freeing independence bicycling offers without the worries of hazardous roads. Williams believes any efforts to increase bikers’ safety is a step in the right direction, but taking actions such as he described would be more beneficial.
“I would love to see that happen. That would make me feel so much better about coming home,” Williams said.