“Suicide Alley:” Arnold Drive’s Miserable/Miraculous Mile
Daily commuters on Arnold Drive between Glen Ellen and Sonoma are painfully conscious of the one-mile stretch running from roughly St. Andrews Presbyterian Church just south of Sobre Vista Road down to the Sonoma Golf Club.
It’s sometimes referred to as “Suicide Alley.”
Those commuting in cars, trucks, Amazon vans, Semis, Sonoma County Transit busses, garbage haulers or the occasional farm tractor will flinch reflexively and jerk there steering wheels to the left as they approach a bicyclist waveringly focused on the fading, four-inch white strip of thermoplastic resin bonded to the asphalt and denoting the outer edge of the road, beyond which is crumbling rubble descending precipitously into an ominous ditch or a waist high stand of desiccated weeds.
Those commuting on bicycles are pedaling with their hearts in their throats because during that death-defying stretch of road there is not only no bike lane, there’s not even a reliable shoulder.
A recent cyclist named “Jim,” who declined to be photographed or give his full name, was willing to observe to the Sun that, “Every time I do this – and I have to do it a lot because I don’t have a car – I honest-to-God fear for my life. I can’t believe nobody’s been killed on this road. Really. It’s crazy scary. And Highway 12 is as bad or worse.”
Steve Brumme, a well-known artist and disabled cyclist who once commuted regularly on Arnold Drive – operating a hand-pedaled, three-wheel recumbent cycle – described his Arnold Drive experience as, “truly terrifying. I try not to think about it.”
The two-lane road, named for pioneering Air Force General and Sonoma resident Hap Arnold, is one of only two north-south routes in Sonoma Valley. Like Arnold Drive, the parallel route of Highway 12 has hit and miss stretches of bike lanes between Glen Ellen and Sonoma, but riding there is considered even more dangerous because of higher speeds and more traffic.
Why the County has not widened that one-mile stretch of Arnold asphalt is an ongoing question, frequently related to matters of money and local politics. Historic opposition to tree removal along Arnold Drive has always cast shadows on road improvement plans. And outgoing First District Supervisor Susan Goren has been eyeing the problem for years and recently reported six-figure plans for the preliminary studies needed to develop an engineering plan.
Estimated cost of upgrading the one-mile corridor? Gorin doesn’t have more than an educated guess, but she says it could “maybe” go as high as $10 million. “There’s a lot of trees that will have to be removed.” The money, she suggests, could come, at least in part, from Sonoma County’s Measure M, the 2004, 20-year, quarter-cent sales tax for transportation improvements in Sonoma County.
The Measure M implementation plan includes Arnold Drive as one of its 15 “bicycle and pedestrian projects” and originally estimated the cost at $4.1 million, with $2 million allocated from Measure M funds, another $1.2 million coming from the general fund or “other” sources, leaving a shortfall of $900,000.
The 2022 planning document envisions two bike/pedestrian path options, running from Country Club Drive to Madrone Road. The first, a conventional Class II bike lane, would involve widening the roadway in “Suicide Alley” to match the bike lanes at either end of the project length. That would presumably include the removal of some trees, culvert improvements, repaving and little if any land acquisition.
The second option listed is creation of a Class I bike path that would require five-feet wide lanes, separated from the road way by a five-foot buffer. Class I bike lanes are implicitly more expensive, usually require right-of-way purchase and perhaps exercise of eminent domain. How that option would fit within the budget or the timeline of the proposed project is also unclear.
These projected plans and costs reflect the picture extant in 2022, when the expenditure plan anticipated environmental and design work would be done by the end of that year, with right of way acquisition occurring in 2023 and construction taking place in 2024.
At present, however, that schedule appears largely obsolete and there is no estimate publicly available for a final project cost, although Gorin said earlier this summer that, nevertheless, the county would “like to start construction in 2025.” Where the necessary funding will come from isn’t clear.
Meanwhile, a more ambitious bicycle trail has established vestigial beginnings deep in the Springs, with a modest investment of Measure M money to connect Verano Avenue to Agua Caliente Road by creation of the Central Sonoma Valley Bikeway, a Class I, II and III collection of segments that allow pedestrians and cyclists to travel from Maxwell Farms Regional Park – the terminus of the Class III Sonoma Bike Path – north to Agua Caliente Road which could, in some perfect future scenario, receive a Class III lane to connect west to Arnold Drive.
Vestigial pieces of the pathway are already in place, linking Larsen Park to Flowery School, Sonoma Charter School, the Fetters Apartment Complex and the Springs Village Apartments.
Far off on the distant horizon – in both financial, political and environmental terms – is the long-discussed, long-dreamed of, perhaps hopelessly expensive and politically impossible plan for a Class I bicycle and pedestrian path running along Highway 12, all the way from Sonoma, through Kenwood to Santa Rosa, tied into wineries, hotels, tasting rooms, restaurants and state and county parks along the way.
Were that ever to happen, dreamers who carry the dream envision a car-free bicycle/hiking-centric tourist attraction, internationally famous and drawing outdoor-oriented visitors from all over the world.
Will that ever happen? If the simple, one-mile reach of Arnold Drive that deservedly retains the title “Suicide Alley” remains an unfinished county project, anything more ambitious feels like sheer fantasy.
Report by David Bolling
4 thoughts on ““Suicide Alley:” Arnold Drive’s Miserable/Miraculous Mile”
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Just another reason Arnold drive can not support the SDC development,
Tent cities along the bike lanes like it other parts of the county. Bad idea.
Bike lanes are very 2010. There are better ways for us to spend our local resources. Part of the enjoyment is for the bikers to ride slow and block traffic and yell “three feet”. No one else has time to ride bikes. Only the rich old folks. Please stop with the spandex.
I recently visited Sonoma and couldn’t believe how fast people drive on that road. I had to pull over two or three times for people that were tailgating me. It is ridiculous.