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Palo Alto will have a rare chance to dramatically transform one of its main thoroughfares on April 1, when the City Council considers a proposal to remove parking spaces all along El Camino Real to make way for bike lanes.
But as the council nears one of its biggest transportation decisions of the year, city officials continue to face a thorny dilemma: Should they support a design that many consider to be imperfect and that their consultants say fails to comply with the city’s newly adopted “safe systems” approach? Or should they oppose the project and effectively ensure that El Camino Real won’t see any major bike improvements for four or more years.
The proposal from the state Department of Transportation has galvanized both significant support and vociferous skepticism from local bicyclists and city officials since Caltrans unveiled it last year. Both were in evidence over the past month, as Caltrans officials made their case at public meetings that replacing parking spaces with bike lanes would improve El Camino.
According to Caltrans’ analysis, there were 20 crashes on El Camino in Palo Alto between 2016 and 2020 that resulted in injuries and one fatal collision.
Yet a recent review by the city’s consultant Fehr & Peers found that the project fails to comply with some of the principles of the “safe system” approach, which seeks to minimize the number and severity of injuries related to collisions and which both Caltrans and the city have embraced. Specifically, the review faulted the plan for failing to account for high speeds of motorists along El Camino, which create a hazard for cyclists at intersections and which would continue to pose “significant risks to vulnerable road users.”
The review puts the city in a bit of a bind. While the city hopes to bring safety improvements to its network of high-injury roads — which includes El Camino — as part of an ongoing effort to upgrade its bike master plan, it hopes to do so on its own pace. And as those who use the Charleston-Arastradero corridor can testify, Palo Alto’s pace can feel glacial. The city’s phased plan for improving the heavily used road has been stretching for well over a decade and is still not entirely completed.
While Caltrans has authority over El Camino, which is a state highway, Caltrans officials had assured the city that if the state agency does not get local support for the bike lanes, it would continue to work with local officials on a new plan. But in recent hearings, Caltrans also made it clear that without advancing the current project, which is tied to a broader effort to repave El Camino, delays could jeopardize the project.
If the city were to decide in the future that it wants bike lanes on El Camino, Caltrans would need to look for a new funding source, officials said. And even once this source is identified, the agency would have to start all over with planning and designing.
“Even if we are able to secure the funding, it will take us like four year to develop the project to install bike lanes in the future,” said Aung Maung, senior transportation engineer at Caltrans, at a March 13 meeting of the Planning Transportation Commission and the Human Relations Commission.
Yet moving ahead poses its own risks, city officials say. Council member Pat Burt, who attended the Feb. 29 community hearing that Caltrans hosted to discuss the project, told this publication after the meeting that he remains unconvinced that the proposal from Caltrans would actually make El Camino safer and reduce the number of collisions. He noted that the city has many safer bike routes, including Park Boulevard, and questioned the benefits of attracting more cyclists to El Camino.
Planning Commissioner Keith Reckdahl similarly touted the superiority of Park over El Camino at a recent discussion of the Caltrans project. He also exemplified the city’s ambivalent attitude toward the project. He said he loves bike lanes but noted that many factors remain unresolved, including impacts on local businesses that don’t have off-site parking.
“It seems like we’re rushing things and I’m always worried about rushing things and not making informed decisions,” Reckdahl said.
Others were more excited about the proposal. Planning Commissioner George Lu said that while he was concerned about some aspects of the design, including bike lanes that disappear in certain segments of El Camino, the project would overall benefit the community.
“I think the net ridership on ridership will be positive,” Lu said at the March 13 discussion. “I think there are a lot of use cases where bike lanes on El Camino are different bike lanes from Park — people who ride their bikes on the bus, people who live on El Camino or maybe have multiple destinations along El Camino and don’t want to circuitously detour.”
Human Relations Commission Kaloma Smith, a supporter of the Caltrans plan, said he was struck by the inconsistency between the city’s vision, which is all for bike improvements, and its cautious attitude toward actually implementing projects. He supported moving ahead with the bike plan, its imperfections notwithstanding, and called the Caltrans plan an opportunity to further the city’s values.
“When you start putting bike lanes and other commuter-friendly things on main intersections, you will start generating more opportunities for economic activity,” Smith said. “Also, if you connect to regional bike options, you now create equity because essential workers who are taking the VTA bus can now ride. … So it’s an equity issue.”
A new report from the city’s Office of Transportation lays out four options for the city council to consider on April 1, three of which would delay (and potentially derail) the project. It could adopt the Caltrans approach and remove parking spaces while acknowledging that more improvements would need to be made to align with the “safe systems” approach; defer action until Caltrans plans compliance with “safe system” principles; defer action until Caltrans considers reducing travel lanes on El Camino (which is not part of the current scope of work); or defer action to align the El Camino decisions with the completion of the city’s bike plan upgrade, which is slated for late 2025.
The report from Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi also notes that there remains some uncertainty over whether the council will even have the final say over the bike lane project.
“While Caltrans staff have consistently expressed a desire to collaborate with the City on improving safety on El Camino Real, to date, Caltrans has not stated if it will implement the proposed bicycle lanes without a Council vote to support the removal of parking,” Kamhi’s report states. “Caltrans has established that a bicycle facility is needed on El Camino Real based on a safety analysis. Given the safety and complete street policies that now govern state transportation planning, it is unclear if Caltrans will re-pave El Camino Real without adding a bicycle facility, regardless of City support.”
The city should welcome this change. 10+ years to do the Charleston/Arastadero project is an unacceptable rate of change. Even then we got a pretty bad project for the young cyclists in that route. Trucks and busses flying past with no protection. Lack of vision is all I can way.
Instead of playing hard ball with caltrans, the city needs to put up some money to actually make the safety improvements they want. Until then they’re just letting their consistency ride on the sidewalks wondering if in 4, 8, 12 years things will get better.
Cmon Palo Alto, show us that you deserve the Gold standard biking honour.
No matter what they do I will not use El Camino Real way of travel….less cars will only make it safer for bicyclists on El Camino that not going to happens…just create more bike passes like Bryant Street Blvd
People are constantly speeding on Bryant and Park. There is not enough traffic calming. Would you support more traffic calming?
State Highway 82 the El Camino Real is unsuitable for bike lanes. I attended the Feb. 29th presentation hosted by CalTrans. Saleh and other staff insisted that CalTrans are all about safety. The analysis by Fehr & Peers found otherwise. Council member Burt an avid cyclist found fault with this proposal as did Planning & Transportation Commissioner Keith Reckdahl also a major bike enthusiast.
CalTrans has an agenda to push bike lanes along the peninsula. Their false dilemma is funding may not be available in the future so we had better hurry up and kill two birds with one stone paving the ECR and implement bike lanes.
Young people will model behavior of the commuter class on bikes. Is that what you want for your kids? Why are these advocates so militant about putting bike lanes on a state highway?
The community will be better served when the city does due diligence in researching safe alternative routes for Palo Alto. The council needs to reject this unsafe proposal by CalTrans.
> Why are these advocates so militant about putting bike lanes on a state highway?
Because that state highway has housing, shops, schools, work places and other destinations.
It’s time to transform ECR. Other cities have done it to their state highways and there is no reason we can’t have the same. Check out Carson City’s transformation!! https://youtu.be/VMiB9Men2TY?si=tGImriTbV2CQgvwM
Worst idea ever. The city has managed to kill California Avenue and is now working to kill ECR. ECR is a main location for large buildings that provide tax resources for the city. Children and adults on bikes do not belong on ECR. They have trails in the city to move them from point A to point B. Suggest some bike underpasses along the street where needed similar to the underpass under the Caltrain in Downtown. There are underpasses further up ECR so that bikers can cross safely. A bike underpass is an easy fix.
My suspicion is that ECR which is smooth in other cities but not in PA has something to do with the Bike Coalition. How does your car like ECR? Right now not at all.
If you read the Real Estate news major hotels in San Jose are being sold at bargain prices to foreign and out of state developers. Suspect they are now going after the hotels and land on ECR. This is a major scam and the PACC is participating in it. In the city of SF now a majority of the rental units are owned by a Canadian Company. Go no further then your local papers to read about all of the buildings that can’t meet their mortgages and are being sold. Major hotel chains are backing out of the city. Note that neither the PACC or Caltrain has enough money right now to entertain this activity. All will end up with a half assed activity that will tie up the city for years. I am all for bike safety on other streets where the predominant number of children ride bikes – school locations. Those are already fixed up.
“Fewer” cars, not “less”!!! Isn’t Palo Alto supposed to be an educated community.
Re El Camino bike lanes, just say no to this absurdly dangerous destructive plan. Stop appeasing yet another illogical harcore group of lobbyists so intent on destroying businesses and depriving all the new residents of their promised amenities.
The bike riders can’t even observe traffic signage now for Right Turn Only and STILL ride right in front of cars whose drivers are literate and assume others are also.
I’m tired of their fact-free virtue signalling lectures about how we should all get out of their cars when they are totally clueless about our situations. Are we transporting the elderly, toddlers, pets, lots of cargo etc that we couldn’t do on a bike? Are we supposed to become PIMBYs (Prisoners in our Own Back Yards) because their lives are limted to a few miles around them where they can easily bike when the rest of us have friends in areas where there’s no public transit and/or where we don’t want to waste an entire day running a simple errand,
Have they given any thought to how many businesses this plan would destroy and how much our utility rates would have to rise AGAIN to compensate for the lost sales tax revenues?
Have our expensive retail consultants weighed in on this or will we continue to pay them many millions of dollars for their uninformed opinions?
It would be lovely to have people who can see the big picture and who can tell them to start fixing the potholes and other problems with El Camino cost us $$$$$$$$ in car repairs over the last few years.
Just wanted to say these bike lanes will improve your life too. Yes, as you mention some people, like you, need to drive but others don’t and may choose another option (like riding a bike or cargo bike) reducing the traffic for you making it easier for you to get around. Why are you denying someone else’s chance to ride instead of drive?
No one is trying to make you a prisoner. You’re describing exactly the world we’ve built where we are unable to get around unless in an expensive to operate, dangerous car. You’re already a prisoner and we don’t want to join you.
FEWER cars, FEWER… look it up.
Pick a different safer route, not one so dangerous! As for being a prisoner, I have friends in other cities and in SF and in the East Bay and in Marin and in Carmel….
Trust me, I can’t bike there. Nor would I want to live in a world restricted to where I could bike. What a sad sad world you must live in! Do you wear your helmet everywhere??
Do you have a clue what all your ideas would cost if they were implemented?
The Vision thing has put row of bollards across from my house and I live in fear that a distracted driver will rear-end me while I’m trying to turn into my own driveway. The Vision thing is utter BS because there are no hedges or other obstacles impeding vision.
Wow wow relax, grammar are really grinding your gears.
The costs are relatively low compared to the money the city wastes on parking garages and free parking and the state spends on highways. I don’t think that’s contentious.
Like I said before, this is not gonna force you to bike anywhere. It’s just going to make it easier for people who want to bike around to visit their favourite businesses. I visit my friends all around the bay just fine. I just have options on how I get everywhere.
If you have data about the “vision thing” let me know I’m curious to see. Last I checked daylighting is saving lives like in Hoboken NJ https://apnews.com/article/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-daylighting-pedestrian-safety-007dec67706c1c09129da1436a3d9762
And it sounds like you have issues with speeding on your street. Palo Alto 311 has a category to report that.
This video made me think about your prisoner comment!! https://youtube.com/shorts/oboaMzrU4WU?si=yzm8V1CDKuEjCoXj
While concerns about parking impacts and safety design are understandable, this plan presents a balanced solution that will benefit our entire community.
The safety benefits cannot be overstated. According to Caltrans’ data, there were 20 injury collisions and one fatality on El Camino in Palo Alto from 2016-2020 alone. Removing parking dramatically improves sightlines which is a proven Vision Zero design. Separating cyclists from high-speed traffic through protected lanes is proven to dramatically reduce the risk of serious accidents and near misses on the sidewalks. While more improvements may be needed over time, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good – these bike lanes are an important first step.
Regarding parking, the plan maintains adequate accessibility by retaining side street spaces and directing drivers to ample off-street lots. As bike usage increases over time, parking demand will naturally decrease. This aligns with our city’s goals of improving sustainable transportation and equitable housing.
Critics point to routes like Park Blvd as preferable for cyclists, but El Camino serves a vital need for multi-stop trips, connections to transit, and providing a continuous thoroughfare across multiple jurisdictions. A comprehensive network is key for making cycling a viable option for all types of trips. We have proven Safe Routes to Schools, it’s time for Safe Routes to Work and Shopping.
Cities nationwide and our neighbors in Mountain View, Los Altos and Redwood City are embracing multi-modal transportation networks as critical infrastructure for economic vitality, sustainability, and quality of life. By implementing this plan through close collaboration with businesses and residents, Palo Alto can position itself as a forward-thinking leader on par with our reputation for innovation. Please City Council, embrace this opportunity and vote to make El Camino Real safer and more accessible for all aligned with the Complete Streets Grand Boulevard vision.
As a driver, I don’t drive El Camino for more than a block or two as it is a very slow traffic corridor. As a bike rider (seldom nowadays I acknowledge) I would not choose to ride El Camino due to all the driveways and bus stops. Slow moving motorized vehicles that can’t reach the speed limit are just as dangerous as at the limit vehicles, it is volume of traffic that makes the dangers.
In reading this, I see no provision for treating EBikess differently from pedal bikes. Some EBikes are as fast, or in slow moving traffic faster, than pedal bikes. What will happen with bikes of varying speeds use the same bike lane and the need for overtaking a slow bicycle means encroachment into motorized lanes. Are EVs the same as a motorized vehicle or are they the same as a pedal bike?
I think it is time to improve legislation to protect pedal riders from EBikes and treat them as having differing needs on our streets.
Right on Online Name. The previous comments by More bikes, more transit… reveal the lack of concern for safety. This person is ignoring the facts regarding intersections like grade F Page Mill at the ECR and the many aprons where consumers exit businesses onto the highway. Buses contribute to conflict as they intersect the proposed lanes. The consultants stipulate that bike lanes are DANGEROUS. What is disturbing is the indifference re: safety for young people including teenagers, junior high school kids and younger who will want to model the behavior of the mostly male commuters on this hazardous highway. I am a native Palo Altan and my mother would have killed me if she found out that I rode my bike on the El Camiino Real. She was a mother and a doctor who had common sense. The city council must not cave in to pressure from lobbying by bike militants nor CalTrans.
“The safety benefits cannot be overstated. According to Caltrans’ data, there were 20 injury collisions and one fatality on El Camino in Palo Alto from 2016-2020 alone.”
So for 4 years there were 20 collisions which equal 5 a year? Any comparisons for how many there are on other roads?
Re “Vision Zero,” that was the city’s argument when the planted bollards at every intersection on Middlefield between Oregon and Embarcadero but instead you saw accidents soar because drivers couldn’t bypass turning traffic which caused more accidents and backed traffic into the major intersections because traffic was gridlocked.
Stop by and look at my poor street tree that got slammed by a truck when the car in front of it unexpectedly wasn’t able to make its turn.
Ask someone how long it took to educate Fletcher Middle School students how to use their new bike lane separated from the lanes of traffic. YEARS.
Ask people how many cars drove down that bike lane because the design was so confusing. LOTS.
Ask people about getting stuck in the middle of major intersections because the bus lanes are only a few car lengths away and whether that idiocy was even considered re the El Camino redesign.
There is nothing GRAND about El Camino except delusions.
El Camino is not bike friendly and never will be even with the proposed changes. It’s just not safe for bicycles and the recent review by the city’s consultant Fehr & Peers should serve as a warning to City Council. The “equity” claim is another prime example of virtue signaling. My office is located on El Camino and Park Blvd. with a bus stop right on the corner. The buses are nearly always empty every time I see one parked at the stop with a driver reading the paper.
As a senior and avid biker, I will never ride on El Camino – bike lanes or not.
I also predict that bike lanes will have a negative effect on businesses along El Camino Real.
The challenge in the Bay Area is every city has its own idea of transit and the programs don’t work well together. If Los Altos and Mtn. View are doing bike lanes on El Camino, Palo Alto should do it too. Palo Alto has more bike infrastructure than other local communities. Let’s support a regional approach.
The “Transportation” Committe is using children as the excuse for all of this. From Oregon to San Antonio there is nothing on ECR that would interest children. The Little League and soccer fields are next to Middlefield. CHS is next to Middlefield with it’s fields. Paint Middlefield to your hearts content. There are under crossings on ECR for the creeks – expand those for bikes and pedestrians. Oregon up to Menlo Park is a different story. This is SU and PAHS land. This would be a good place for more bike stuff. The Transportation center for SU should be at Embarcadero on their land – clear those trees in that huge piece of land across from PAMF. Put in the bus lanes for both PA and SU. Put in a underground crossing for people to go to the train station. SU has to pay into this whole scheme. Meanwhile Caltrain is electrifying the train – they have no money for all of this. WE have no money for all of this. Trying to manipulate the section of ECR from San Antonio to Charleston is a death blow. There is nothing there that a person on a bike would be indulging themselves just to ride. People joy ride on Foothill to gather at a bar. People ride in groups to sit out in the sun and eat lunch – like down by the golf course. My son worked at the golf course. That is a big kid hangout. If you are using kids as an excuse look where the kids are. Not on ECR. There is very little kid stuff on ECR.
AS to Mt. View and Los Altos – ECR from San Antonio to Los Atos Street – Dinah’s – is MT. View and Los Altos. Their main city functions are not on ECR at this point. Check where their city halls are – If near ECR not painted with bike lanes. That is another stupid argument from the Transportation Committee. If you have a safety problem then create more underground tunnels for bikes and pedestrians. That is an easy fix – already there for the creeks.
Why don’t they first figure out how to train bicyclists to follow traffic laws, enforce traffic violations by cars, before creating more death traps on more streets here?
Good point.
How exactly are delivery trucks, DoorDash & Instacart drivers, customers of businesses and visitors to underparked apartment complexes going to park, when all parking on El Camino Real is removed? It’ll kill a number of small businesses.
Have you seen the off street parking lots? There’s 9x more parking off the street than on.
There aren’t any!! Go walk down El Caminoo and you’ll see how few businesses have their own parking lots.
And all the new developments are under-parked since we wouldn’t want to deprive the developers of every cent they can wring from people.
And its FEWER cars, not less. You’re ignorance is showing.
Thanks I updated my name!
I think we should charge folks for parking in el Camino. What do you think? That might evaporate the demand for it and send people into the lots.
Caltrans has admitted this is only paving a project, without any real physical separation proposed between cyclists and car/truck traffic. Since their director has signed a department directive, but they have no jurisdiction on better-suited routes parallel to ECR, they have come up with this deeply flawed scheme. If the PA City Council does the right thing and says “no”, we can move forward with properly safe bike routes.
Surprised that no one has mentioned increased traffic enforcement as an effective, easy to implement measure.
Why can’t we have both ECR protected bike lanes and other parallel routes? Cars have multiple parallel routes and so should bikes.
Why do cyclists have to be shuffled onto the side streets? Don’t they deserve a safe way to get to businesses on ECR?
Physics shows bicyclists are safer away from cars. If you want instead to move all the cars off El Camino onto other streets, leaving ECR for bikes, that would work, too 🙂
As Caltrans has stated, this is only a paving project – the bike lanes would not be “protected” ones, just paint and a few short stretches of plastic sticks.
Encouraging cyclists to ride on ECR a foot away from heavy cars going 30+ mph faster, with no physical protection, will increase injuries rather than reducing them.
Bike lanes (with no door zone) are away from cars and have great visibility at intersections. Bike boulevards like Park and Bryant don’t have any separation between cars and bikes (Park does have some door zone bike lanes, though). I rode Park daily for almost 20 years, and I know it is not a magical alternative to dedicated lanes: speeding cars, horrible pavement, RV’s blocking visibility at driveways, and narrow slots. Bike lanes like the ones proposed by Caltrans exist everywhere. This whole debate is basically people who don’t want to lose any parking for a greater good of sustainable transportation.
The proposed bike lane configuration I saw at the Caltrans meeting showed the bike lanes right next to traffic, with buses driving into them at bus stops.
More bikes -why are you trying to direct how people go about their daily lives. Why a state highway? If people work on ECR then the business has to be up and working. It is not going to be there long if no one can get there in a car. A business has to have customers. No customers – no business. Hotels – that is a about tourist – tourist do not come here on bikes. If you work at a business on ECR then you are in their garage with a section carved out for bikes. You came in the back door. You are not parked on the street. The arguments you all come up with astound for lack of reality. I don’t get the big insult that the word CAR presents – that is your own personnel thing. The taxpayers want a city that is profitable. And that is visitors in CARS. Go no further than the PAMF parking garage – a sea of CARS. You do not go to a medical event on a bike. As to off street parking Menlo Park has a giant parking lot behind the businesses. WE do not. SU events have a lot of people who come in CARS. They do not live here – they are coming for the events. You have to have rational arguments.
I am reading an opinion piece by the lady who is the head of the Bike Coalition. She has an aspirational goal of a “grand boulevard”. In this city we have California Avenue. We have blocked it from cars so that it is walkable. So how is that turning out. We have a blocked street. But for how long if they build the giant condo complex. Do you all feel a compelling need to go there? Then we have University Avenue – I see that as our “grand boulevard”. People go there to visit stores, eat, see and be seen. That is our Grand Boulevard. El Camino is not a grand boulevard – not meant to be – not walkable, not very interesting. New housing going in – that is the good news. But lots of restaurants closing and leaving. Many stores in transition – but not in a good way. You are not going to make this street interesting or walkable. It has too many variables. It is only interesting when you get to Town and Country if you are walking. Sorry – I do not get it – we have a grand boulevard – University. We have a failed attempt at a bike friendly street with no cars – California. Not interesting. ECR has a number of attempts to build large condo projects which do not seem to materialize. The FRY’s site – anything happening there? The Grand Boulevard only works if businesses want to be on that street. And they are leaving. They are not leaving because of cars – they are leaving because they are struggling to stay in business. They do not want to deal with the hassles of this city. Or the tax base of this city. So why is everyone focused on this street?
Get is repaved. Leave it as it is. Go to your grand boulevard on University. That is where the action is.
I believe a survey of bicyclists would reveal relatively few harbor a death wish and would prefer calmer and safer routes through Palo Alto.
”
“Why can’t we have both ECR protected bike lanes and other parallel routes? Cars have multiple parallel routes and so should bikes.
Why do cyclists have to be shuffled onto the side streets? Don’t they deserve a safe way to get to businesses on ECR?”
Relax, if this is implemented there won’t be any businesses left on ECR!
And where do you expect all the DoorDash, Ubers, Lyfts, Amazon trucks to park??
There are consequences to preaching nonsense.
“
“Relax, if this is implemented there won’t be any businesses left on ECR!”
> how about we see? If done right (not like what caltrans is proposing but building on it) we could see a transformation like Carson City https://youtu.be/VMiB9Men2TY?si=tGImriTbV2CQgvwM
Let me know if you think it’s possible?
“And where do you expect all the DoorDash, Ubers, Lyfts, Amazon trucks to park??”
> in the car park.
Carson City’s population is much smaller than Palo Alto current and doesn’t attract the number of commuters that at least double or triple Palo Alto’s daytime population.
And that’s BEFORE the Bay Area is due to add 2,000,000 more housing units — or 4,000,000 people — as mandated by state law.
Explain to me how that’s going to reduce traffic and lead to fewer cars. Newsom’s already cut the public transit budget now that the state is now running a huge deficit and plans more cuts.
Palo Alto, Santa Clara County and the state of California are all running huge deficits due to the tech cras, low hiring, layoffs and other factors.
Who’s going to fund your vision???
I’m not sure the population argument makes sense as there are tons of other bigger cities that have made such changes.
And yes you’re right traffic is coming our way, and the only way out of that is transformative projects. More bikes, more transit, safer streets and FEWER cars! Give people options so they don’t have to drive through our pristine town.
Or heck build some high rises and offices around the Caltrain? Then they won’t need to drive to us.
Does that make sense?
As for funding, there are a few options:
A) we can increase our tax base by increasing the number of people who live here. All the great infrastructure we have here costs money and the people who live and work here fund that through taxes.
B) how about we cancel a few highway expansions to fund all of this? Some of our highway projects can cost many billions of dollars. For the record the Caltrain electrification costs 2 billion and the bart expansion costs 9billion these projects are generation defining unlike highway expansions.
I think we are both talking about solving the same problems just that we are approaching it differently. The solutions I have outlined are futuristic and take political will. The status quo of shitty transit and bad land use cannot be sustained.
More bikes? Or do you mean the same number of bikes spread across more streets? I think the number of bikes will remain roughly the same and this will not attract more people to ride a bike.
What may make a difference is improving public transit. When public transit is more efficient than driving a car for regular commutes, including getting children to schools, it may reduce the number of cars. If you lobby for getting school buses for Palo Alto, I can imagine that would make a big difference to the number of cars on our streets on schoolday commutes. Many parents won’t let their kids ride a bike to school because it is too dangerous with too many cars. If children had school buses then they would make the road much safer for those who ride a bike whether it is to school, to work or to do errands.
I don’t think more bike lanes will increase the number of bikes or diminish the number of cars, but school buses will.
While there are better and safer parallel routes to El Camino Real, navigating to them (crossing ECR or biking to next corner) is unsafe. Caltrain bike lanes and intersection improvements would make navigating ECR safer. Also, with more housing coming along ECR…bike lanes would help all these new residents get to these safer parallel routes.
I was on El Camino yesterday before the rains. Okay at SU and T&C. Cross Oregon and a different story. Empty buildings. No one in site. A totally collapsing section of the city. Why people injured here? Because the street is mangled with cracks and pot holes. My Auto gets injured here. When we had Mr. Roadshow in the Mercury News tons of complaints concerning that portion of the road. It is a tribute to the total incompetence of all who are suppose to be Transportaion people – including Caltrain who is screwing up all over the place. They have no money. WE have no money. University is the street of choice for this city – busy, people out and enjoying themselves. California Street has it’s own problems – you got rid of cars here – how is that working out? The Cars are in the big garage. I do not see a lot of happy people on CA Ave. I see a lot of buildings in transition – and not in a good way. Did the Caltrain people hold off on obvious needed repairs because of political push and promise of money in the future? Who is negotiating for this city?
“Los Altos and Mtn. View are doing bike lanes on El Camino, Palo Alto should do it too“
Just because the “cool cities” are doing mistaken things doesn’t mean we should join in. 🙂
If their experiment works out, it will be easy enough to repaint the lines on ECR in Palo Alto and join in. Not complicated.
I agree with you, these things should not be complicated at all!
But at the rate Palo Alto City works this can take decades. Think about it, we passed a Bicycle plan in 2012 (you can see it in Chapter 6: “Recommended Facilities and Conditions” https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/transportation/projects/bicycle-pedestrian-transportation-plan_adopted-july-2012.pdf) and we are probably done less than 50% even though most of it are painting sharrows (no real traffic calming of any sort).
And now in 2024, they have paused all projects until a new plan can be made in 2025. Of course we are just wasting time planning and because we are not even going to fund any of it.
Sounds like Caltrans should stop coming up with bad El Camino plans and instead help Palo Alto make plans for more appropriate non El Camino routes 🙂
Palo Alto Irony Alert!
Irony: Palo Alto and their paid/unbiased consultants are all about safety
Alert: How exactly would opposing bike lanes make ECR safer?
I: “… both significant support and vociferous skepticism from local bicyclists”
A: There is a meme out there about these ‘local bicyclists’ that always show up opposing bike lanes. It’s called the ‘Avid Cyclist’ meme. These are often paid ‘crisis actors’.
(https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/opinion/who-are-all-these-avid-cyclists-anyway )
I: “… both significant support and vociferous skepticism from city officials”
A: In PA, the self-appointed “Bicycle Capital”, “Sustainable City”, center of Silicon Valley, where everybody thinks they are smarter, where 70% vote Democrats, … somehow here we still have politicians that are in denial about Global Warming?
I: “… a recent review by the city’s consultant Fehr & Peers found that the project fails to comply with some of the principles of the “safe system” approach”
A: If Fehr & Peers would know the “Safe System” approach they would stop proposing class III and ‘sharows’ in all of their projects. These ‘facilities’ violate NACTO, AASTHO, Davis, Montreal, Europe, etc.
I: Do ECR bike lanes fail the city’s “safe system” approach?
A: Palo Alto fails the “Safe System” approach on all their “share the road experiments” named “Bike Boulevard” – they are basically trying to use children and seniors on bicycles as traffic calming devices on 30mph streets. My sources tell me, there is a special place in hell for these kinds of ‘traffic planners’.
I: Case in point council member Pat Burt is proposing Park Blvd as alternative.
A: Park Blvd promotes speeds of >30mph, allows cars parked in bike lanes or has no bike lanes at all. It features one Vision Zero trap after another. How about cleaning up that mess by going through the Safe-System process on these streets as well.
I: Planning Commissioner Keith Reckdahl said he loves bike lanes [enter avid cyclist meme here] but noted that many factors remain unresolved, including impacts on local businesses that don’t have off-site parking.
A: Who doesn’t know by now, that parallel parking on a 50mph State Highway is in violation of the Safe System Approach? Exactly for that reason, long stretches of ECR are red-curbed already.
I: “It seems like we’re rushing things and I’m always worried about rushing things and not making informed decisions, Reckdahl said.”
A: Since the 1970s the Counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara have promised bike lanes on ECR in all their plans. Caltrans might just bring 50 years of “rushing” to an end.
Finally someone surfacing the difficult to swallow truths about Palo Alto’s undeserved “gold standard” bicycle facilities, slow pace of progress and the “Park Blvd” disappointment. Let’s also throw in E. Charleston where kids are squeezed into the shoulders and fast moving trucks.
Agree with everything you said!!!
The “Gold Standard” was handed out by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB). It’s known as a pretend-cycling advocacy group taking too much money from the car-lobby.
A city can send in their own made up reports and can give itself any status it wants. The report will not be checked or verified by LAB.
“People for Bikes” have a different approach. It’s outside-in and more objective. It also neglects Class III (mostly) in its evaluation.
In that one Palo Alto doesn’t even make the top 10 of CA cities. All bicycle statistics – which Palo Alto is using for self-promotion – are based on their strong Safe-Routes-To-School effort and whatever Stanford is forced to do. But then everything gets lost with the lack of infrastructure in PA.
Two thirds of the serious accidents and the one fatality were bikes crossing el Camino not riding along it. This plan does not in any way improve that problem.
The remains third of ECR car bike accidents are not broken down in any way so it’s impossible to know for sure how many occurred when bikes were going straight and cars were turning right. This is another really bad omission in safety improvements for bikers.
Intersection safety is greatly improved by removing parking closest to intersections.
Park boulevard should be improved where possible and advertised as the north/south Bike path west of the train tracks.
Btw- taking away parking closest to the intersection will make it safer fir pedestrians and cars too….win win win
The Department of Transportation has purposely delayed any maintenance on ECR in PA to accelerate the number of accidents to justify their actions and get funding. Further VTA efforts are to build tunnels under San Jose to connect BART to the main station in San Jose. I was working in San Jose when we had the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Not a good idea. What I do know based on all the literature that they print is that there is sufficient rail connection from the east bay to the Diridon station – Amtrak, ACE, Capital Corridor and of course Caltrain down the peninsula. The whole system is there, has been, but they do not print that – only focus on boring a tunnel. That tells you who we are dealing with. Safe streets are paved streets with all of the lane markings as provided in the CA-DMV guides – the current law of CA roads and responsibilities of the users of the roads.
I recall that there was a deep hole in the left hand turn lane from ECR to Oregon – it was produced by a electric drill tool based on the clean lines and removal of any debris. A purposeful action. All of this to get more funding. Back in the day employees of a San Jose company rode in on ACE to the Santa Clara Convention center stop and got their cars at the golf course parking lot and drove to work. A good solution for all of those drivers out there. However the Real Estate Section of the papers only shows BART proximity. No proximity to Amtrak, ACE, Capital Corridor. There is a concerted effort here to control the messaging on the systems to garner more funding. The Bike Coalition is just another funding promotor.
More Bikes obviously does not have a car so their whole POV is guided by the use of bikes. Lack of a car is a choice based on life stye. Sorry – not my life style or how I live my life. This is a suburban city whose main function is SU and their activities. Our school activities require transportation by schools for team events – coming and going. The hotels support this whole activity – tourists. The shopping center – CARS. Everyone has a POV but your POV should be supportive of the city you live in. The bike people have routes galore. The city has accommodated the bike people very well already. Now support the business people.