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The Palo Alto City Council sent a strong signal on Monday that it is willing to swap parking spaces for bikeways all along El Camino Real, a project that could launch as early as this summer.
In doing so, however, council members also insisted that El Camino get furnished with additional safety improvements such as “No turn on red” signs, bike boxes and better speed enforcement. The state Department of Transportation, which is spearheading the bikeway project as part of its broader effort to repave El Camino, will consider these additional measures over the next two or three months.
The council’s 6-1 vote, with Council member Greg Tanaka dissenting, wasn’t the type of ironclad commitment to El Camino bikeways that Caltrans officials were hoping for. The state agency, which has jurisdiction over the thoroughfare, had requested that the council pass a resolution officially removing parking spaces along El Camino, which Mountain View and Los Altos have already done. The council stopped well short of that.
The April 1 vote did, however, create a path for getting to the final decision in a fairly short period of time. It directed Caltrans to return with additional safety measures based on the “safe systems” approach, which aims to reduce the number and severity of collisions. While Caltrans officials are exploring those improvements, city officials will form their own task force to explore ways to make intersections along El Camino safer and to consider other impacts of the bikeway project, including the displacement of vehicle dwellers and the loss of on-street parking that some area businesses depend on.
An overwhelming majority of the speakers who addressed the council at the April 1 hearing strongly favored the El Camino bike lanes. More than 35 project proponents, including members of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, urged the council to support the Caltrans project, which they argued would make biking safer.
Tom Oey, a bike advocate, alluded to the victims of the two bike fatalities that occurred in or near Palo Alto in February, one on Embarcadero Road and another on Foothill Expressway in Los Altos Hills. The community cannot afford to delay progress on making El Camino safer, he said.
“We need much better bike facilities everywhere and especially on El Camino. Just do it!” Oey said.
Others argued that bike lanes would help businesses by making storefronts and restaurants more accessible to people without cars. Maria Rimmel, who lives on Homer Avenue, said she and her fiance don’t own a car and exclusively bike, walk and take transit. She was among the more than 30 speakers who advocated for the bike lanes at the meeting.
“If a business is not safely accessible by bike we’re probably not going to go,” Rimmel said.
Not everyone was as excited about the bike lanes. Galen Fletcher, owner of Sundance the Steakhouse, characterized the bike lanes as an existential threat to his business, which has been on El Camino and Leland Avenue since 1974. He said his business needs about 25 parking spots. Without these spots, customers will pass up on his business and go to other restaurants that have adequate parking.
“To have my business suffer and quite possibly fold as a result of unintended consequences of providing a bike lane on a highway that’s arguably not safe for bikes even with a bike lane is tragic,” Fletcher said.
For Caltrans, the bikeways are a needed addition to the paving project as part of the agency’s recent pivot toward a “complete streets” philosophy, which aims to accommodate all modes of road users. It’s also a matter of safety, according to Nick Saleh, District 4 division chief with Caltrans. According to a Caltrans analysis, the segment of El Camino along Palo Alto and a portion of Mountain View had 33 collisions between 2016 and 2020, triggering the need for bikeways as a safety measure.
“We had 33 crashes and we need to address those crashes,” Saleh said. “By implementing the bikeway, we would reduce the crashes and incidents of the bikes riding against the flow.”
Not everyone, however, is convinced that the project would reduce collisions. At prior hearings, planning commissioners and community members noted that Palo Alto has other north-south connections that are much safer for cyclists than El Camino, most notably Park Boulevard and Bryant Street. Council member Pat Burt questioned whether the bikeways would actually improve safety, absent additional improvements.
“If we create the false sense of security without providing actual security, then we have a greater risk perhaps rather than a lesser one,” Burt said.
And a recent report from consultants Fehr & Peers argued the Caltrans plan doesn’t account for the dangers of riding alongside cars going at high speeds on El Camino. Vice Chair Ed Lauing concurred.
“I am concerned that we are with the project as presented bringing more bikes to a high-traffic, high-speed thoroughfare,” Lauing said. “And just putting some green paint on the ground isn’t really moving the needle on bike safety.”
Others were more sanguine about the prospect of El Camino bike lanes. Council members Vicki Veenker, Tanaka and Julie Lythcott-Haims all supported a motion proposed by Veenker that would have committed the city to supporting the bikeways but then also pursued further improvements after the bikeways were in place. That motion failed by a 3-4 vote.
“I want to make sure we get started with the bike lanes and then we do everything in our power to make them even safer, even better for our community,” Veenker said. “I’m not happy with just the painting, but I do think it’s a good way to start.”
With neighboring cities adopting bike lanes, Veenker said she’d hate to see Palo Alto left out.
“I think we should be a good neighbor,” Veenker said. “We don’t want to be the gap in the smile — the missing tooth.”
Tanaka, an avid cyclist, was particularly enthusiastic about the El Camino project and suggested that moving ahead with bikeways would make El Camino more accessible to casual cyclists who today would not have the confidence to ride there. He also noted that unlike with most local bike projects, this $40-million effort is being funded by Caltrans.
“This stuff is pretty expensive and sometimes you have to think about not letting good become the enemy of great,” Tanaka said.
Let’s be clear here – no one is speeding on ECR. ECR is a total wreck that will take out the tires and support system for any car. Much less a bike. I think that a lot of the accidents that occur are when people are driving and see a huge pothole in the street and move to avoid it. The fact that this street is so damaged in this city and Mt. View raises some questions. When you go on to other cities the street is okay – not great but okay. Now you see potholes on the freeway – 101. So why is this city lacking basic maintenance. What goes on behind the scenes to create this anomaly. Since it is a state highway then the state is responsible for the maintenance of the street. Why have we seen no maintenance on it? Maintenance is a sore subject for the Department of Transportation. What gives with this?
Why is Pat Burt pushing to keep “The Consultants”. If the consultants are complaining about high speed than they have not driven down the street in a car.
In true Palo Alto fashion, they effectively killed it by throwing it into the “Palo Alto Process” with an enormous workload on an impossible timeline. Caltrans already has a contractor underway. The main delay in repaving right now is the City’s own sanitary sewer replacement project.
Thank you Gennady. I was at the meeting. In my opinion, this is a really good article that is a successful and accurate summary of the important points, opinions and positions as well as conscientious representation of all sides. For the record, I am all in for bike lanes now so decision did not go way I would have wished. I just want to acknowledge that Mr. Sheynor has done some top notch reporting. This is commendable and I appreciate it.
CalTrans point was that people are riding on El Camino and there are too many bike auto crashes, mostly in Palo Alto. It was literally a state safety intervention. The separate issue was that multiple cities (Mountain View, Los Altos and Redwood City) have decided to put bike lanes on El Camino not just for bike safety, but as part of transitioning the El Camion corridor to high density housing and to reinvigorate retail. These plans are on the city’s web sites. This is the “gap in the smile.”
But, the most troubling part was how flat footed this plan caught Palo Alto, as it is only beginning to plan for these. The better prepared cities will benefit from this money which must be spent this year, while Palo Alto initiates yet another complex process, with as this article notes is to create a committee to draw up safety requirements, but does not commit to anything if CalTrans agrees to meet these.
A disaster in the making. El Camino Real is not safe for bicyclists no matter what “safety” factors are put into play. Ignoring the initial consulting report regarding safety issues has many scratching their heads.
Palo Alto needs leaders that can make decisions — not create task forces, committees and hire more expensive consultants. I don’t know that the city staff has the resources to do what the Council is asking. Excellent reporting! Thank you Gennady.
Thank you to our former Mayor Kou who was emphasizing the repaving of the street as a top priority. The state said that they can start that process fairly quickly. Repaving the street will reduce the accidents. Other members of the PACC do not acknowledge that as a problem. They are all banking on leverage for what ever their fantasies are. They need to recognize that ECR has segments of opportunity. Sections which have no connection to the other sections. The SU section has people who play sports that park next to the fields. Their interest are totally different then who ever you all think is going to bike from Oregon to El Camino Way. The section from San Antonio to Charlston is a different group of people. They live in fairly new apartments. Talking apartment what ever is happening with the FRY’s site? The Creekside rebuilding? WE had a flurry of housing opportunities that have had no follow-up. Have the developer’s thrown their hands up and are rethinking their prospects of a development on that street? If you change the accessibility of the people who would live on that street then is that a game changer? The problem with the bike people is that they do not live on that street and have no vested requirement to be there – other than to cross it and ride down it. Maybe they do not have cars. This is their only form of mobility. Who knows? I just want a street that is resurfaced and it is like the streets in other cities. Is there as reason that PA cannot just be NORMAL?
There were 2 people at the meeting and several emails who lived on ECR and supported the lanes. If you drive along ECR today you’ll see several people riding on the sidewalk getting to/from places. They have a reason to be there.
Other cities are more innovative than us and are transforming their streets to be friendly for ALL who use it. Maybe that’s at the cost of a bit of parking. NORMAL is not a real thing. We’re stuck with council members who can’t think of any other way to get around than their car.
I applaud Council members Veenker and Lythcott-Haims for staying true to their own Council-identified priorities and trying to propose a motion (which failed for lack of votes) that would have moved this project forward once and for all. These committees are expensive, painful, time consuming, and unproductive. They extend uncertainty for businesses, RV dwellers, and area residents. If we wonder why we can’t get anything done on our city, this is why……
Thank you City Council for supporting a makeover of ECR which will support bikers. All we need to do is SLOW DOWN the drivers who drive recklessly on ECR and everywhere in Palo Alto. Please enforce our traffic laws and bike and pedestrian safety will improve greatly! If they can do it in Paris and Amsterdam we can do it here.
Amen!!
Apparently, they can’t do it in Paris. From the Connection , French news in English. Road Accidents in France: Perhaps linked to the increase in soft transport use, the number of cyclists that died increased by 31% to 245, with 58 more cyclists dying in 2022 compared with 2019. Cyclist deaths outside of urban areas increased by 44%, while severe casualties increased by 20%.
It is interesting that one of the speakers at the council meeting cited the two recent tragic deaths as a basis for demanding the bike lanes on El Camino Real.
Both of the women who were killed were veteran cyclists, riding in established bike lanes. The bike lane on Foothill Expressway is extremely dangerous, just a couple of feet away from cars speeding by at 50 mph or more. The bike lane on Embarcadero Road was a shared lane with cars, clearly marked as such.
For the extremely small number of people who (crazily) already ride their bikes on El Camino Real, yes, bike lanes will enhance their safety. But the vast majority of future riders will not be those people, but rather others enticed by the false notion that it is safe to ride a bike on a major highway. Sadly, there will be injuries and deaths, like the two recent tragedies.
If the bike lanes added to El Camino are truly protected lanes, that would be a good thing. But if they are just stripes of paint on the asphalt, people will suffer. The unintended consequences here are going to vastly outweigh the good that people are seeking.
Apparently, they can’t do it in Paris. From the Connection , French news in English. Road Accidents in France: Perhaps linked to the increase in soft transport use, the number of cyclists that died increased by 31% to 245, with 58 more cyclists dying in 2022 compared with 2019. Cyclist deaths outside of urban areas increased by 44%, while severe casualties increased by 20%.
Balderdash! Council did the right thing. This is complex and they want to get it right and actually safe, unlike phony-safe as Caltran planned, and with no care for impacts on businesses assessed.
Not one biker mentioned that RV dwellers would be displaced. It was all about their demands with no care for consequences. Me me me.
Vicki Veekner’s egregious motion to just let Caltran have its way with us was shockingly irresponsible. Her saying we would not want to be in the bike lanes gap in the peninsula smile was the silliest platitude ever. Thank goodness only JLH and Tanaka agreed and smarter heads prevailed.
76% of injuries and deaths happened when bikes tried CROSSING El Camino, not riding on it (which few do). So Council saw that crossing needs addressing as priority.
Caltran thought it could just force Palo Alto to submit to its poorly thought through scheme last night. It did not.
Thank you Pat Burt for your informed leadership on this.
Speakers only had 1 minute, so i think your point about not bringing up RV dwellers is unfair. Also. the causes of both types of accidents and their solutions are the same – visibility, markings and visibility. Burt saw a difference, the Caltrans safety engineers didn’t.
Palo Alto has said that is is concerned about local businesses, but just voted to remove parking for local businesses along ECR. I wonder how many bikers will be riding over to the laundromat on ECR in Palo Alto in the rain to get their laundry done? Riding bikes is wonderful, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the consequences for others. Let’s just admit that we don’t care about those businesses — or the residents who live in adjacent neighborhoods who will see increased traffic.
Yes, because the only time to do laundry is in the rain. Do you hear yourself?
Parent comment’s point is a fair one. It’s unlikely anyone is going to schlep their laundry basket on a bike, in any weather.
Can you imagine Sundance Steakhouse’s older clientele biking there in fine clothes and arriving sweaty for that special occasion? Me either.
The benefit of bike lanes is access to other bike corridors, not to businesses on ECR. Few people will use bikes to run errands, because time to do so is usually limited, and a bike is far less efficient for this.
There is an error in the article. The cost of bike lanes is not $40M. That is the cost of repaving, ADU improvements, etc. The cost of the bike lanes was $3.2M for about 6 miles.
Also the cost is 0 to the city.
Evergreen Pk Observer – wrong. I’m looking at the motion passed.
Council did not vote to remove parking spaces last night.
No Right Turn on Red Signs, are these for motorists or bikes?
I would like to see separate bike lights when there are times in the sequence that a red bike light means no bikes to traverse the intersection and a green bike light means bikes can cross. Too often bike riders consider they are separate from motorists and often they consider they are separate from pedestrians. The problem is that with Electric bikes they can be as fast as a car, faster than a pedal bike and faster than a pedestrian. They need their own light particularly if they have their own lane and their needs to be better rules for EBikes so that they know and understand driving rules, in other words, not 12 year old school children, much too young for a drivers license.
What I miss in this new format is where people are living. That tells you a lot about what their POV is coming from. The University South young men always cheer for more housing. They are the people that go to the bars, restaurants, and hang out at interesting places on the University stroll. When people get married and start a family – they want a house and a yard. They tend to be in the residential areas in the south side. The YIMBY people want to destroy that progression in people’s lives. Are YIMBY people married with children? Or are they perpetual teenagers? What I see is a family that has one car that stays home with the wife and children – taking them to school and activities. The father takes the bike to work over the 101 bridge to Google. Mom is not racing around in her car on ECR – that depiction is so stupid. And Dad is not cruising up and down the street on his bike. He is at work. The picture that you all paint is so unrelated to the general population of this suburban city. And you all sit around comparing to Paris? What’s Biff’s story? Children? House or apartment? Big difference in how each topic is addressed. Stuck in a stage of life and not moving on to the next stage? Where you live in this city tells a lot about your POV. The bike people do not live on ECR but seem to think that they need to take control of what happens on that street. If you just repave the street you will eliminate a lot of the accidents.
Yes, separate traffic lights for cars and bikes (along with prohibiting right turns on red) would eliminate many of the conflicts that occur at intersections. However, traffic engineers don’t like to do this because it reduces the throughput of the intersection. I hope that in the future safety will be more important, but for now it isn’t.
Caltrans has a workstream in progress to review the Jan-22-24 ECR plan set against the Complete Streets DIB-94 guidelines that were approved for statewide use Jan-16-24. The traffic safety, bike & ped, and design teams at Caltrans have concurrent departmental reviews that need to be synthesized into a Complete Streets corridor plan for Mountain View to Palo Alto corridor. That’s going to take 2+ months and will be done this summer BEFORE the repaving contractor gets the restriping plan for the entire 9.5 mile segment from Hwy 85 to SandHill Rd. Caltrans has hinted the update will have more right turn on red restrictions, narrower lanes, more Class IV, more Class 2 delineators, bikes lanes across intersections, bike boxes, etc. Pat Burt’s motion for phased safety improvements is NOT delaying implementation as Caltrans’ own new guidelines and the city’s letter March 18 with Fehr & Peers report is asking them for this detailed Complete Streets network review.
This entire discussion ignores the fact that El Camino is completely parked, morning and night. Where are these cars going to park when all the parking spaces are gone?
What about the hundreds of Amazon, UPS, Fedex, DoorDash, Instacart deliveries that happen up and down El Camino each and every day?
And customers that need to park on El Camino in order to visit the parking lot-less restaurants and other businesses?
Cue the business closures.
I have couple points. First, having been a New York City bike messenger and surviving, no matter how you cut it cars, buses, trucks and bicycles are always a lethal mix. Add, your chances of dying riding a bike in Palo Alto and Los Altos is nearly 6 times greater than riding in New York City. Any death is tragic and unacceptable, but this is crazy.
While no right hand turns for automobiles were briefly discussed the night before last, the other challenge is when bicyclist have to cross traffic to make left hand turns. They are putting their lives in peril when making cross traffic turns. Oddly left hand cross traffic bicycle turns were not discussed, and while bike boxes were touched upon, I don’t see bike boxes across four lanes as a the solution.
One of the largest failings in the discussion was Caltrans’ crash statistics. It was not clear if bicyclists or motorists have been most at fault. Specifically, the most common type of “crash” was “broadside” with 79% of all accidents and an undefined “other” at 12%. These two categories account for 91% of all accidents, and yet they were virtually undefined. The “other” could be people falling off their bicycles because of lousy road surfaces, or even bicyclists on their phones. Who knows? “Broadside” would suggest that most were at intersections or crashes at driveways, but it was not clear. Not that I am against bike lanes, but a bike lane will not address broadsides, the majority of accidents according to Caltrans. How many of these crash were the result of poor visibility, the lack of illumination such as LED strobes on bikes, poor street lighting or riders not wearing hi-viz gear?
Next, unless pylons and curbs (class 1 bike paths) are install along the length of the corridor, any bike lane will not be a protected space. To be clear the plan is class 2 lanes.
Pylons, while the most effective barrier solution, will create a visual barrier/distraction for motorists entering the ECR. One idea might be to designate the third lane exclusively for use by public transit negating the need for either a curb or pylons. Islands for bus stops should be considered.
Along the same lines parking for businesses was only touched upon by the Palo Alto Chamber, and otherwise not considered except by the owner of Sundance whose concern was customer parking. As ECR becomes more commercialized over time, delivery vehicles will, if parked, block bike lanes forcing bicyclists either onto sidewalks or into the primary roadway. Again an exclusive bus lane that allows overflow would be highly desirable.
There was no discussion about the displacement of persons living on ECR.
Then, what is Caltrans’ commitment to maintaining and cleaning designated bike paths/lanes. Nothing worse than riding on broken glass, etc. One does not have to look further than the 101 to see the quality of their maintenance program.
And, there’s the consideration of city infrastructure. When this project was first proposed in 2019, pre-COVID, the city had planned Project 31, which is to upgrade the sewage lines along nearly 2 miles of ECR. This project is “ongoing”, but far from complete. The public was told this project was held up awaiting coordination with Caltrans. I don’t believe there was any discussion of a bike lane at that time, and if so, it was a footnote. Moreover the Palo Alto did not respond to Caltrans’ participating agreement to stall because the CPAU didn’t have the funds to move the sewer project forward, then COVID hit. At the time, the city’s position was that it didn’t want to pay to replace a freshly paved roadway. The questions are: has CPAU cleared the project, and what, if any, additional infrastructure, including water, gas and electric are currently planned for ECR?
It is clear that Caltrans is in a hurry to start this project with or without the acquiescence of the public or council, so much so by its own admission they have not conducted a traffic study. ECR is a blot on Caltrans’ reputation. Let’s not accept a fair plan when we could have a great plan.
PA Council thank you for slowing the roll and considering all of this project’s impacts. I welcome thoughts and responses.
One of the best comments I have read on this. Thank you.
To all of you blithely claiming “Oh, not to worry. This is free. Won’t cost you a cent,” let’s remember that Palo Alto, Santa Clara County and the state of California are all running huge deficits and can’t even pay for their own infrastructure improvements.
So tell us where the money is going to come from for the absurd boondoggle.
Extra credit for answering where the 2,00,000 new Bay Area residents are supposed to park and how they’ll get to their jobs in this new fantasy world.
Bonus points for telling us how much our Palo Alto Utility rates will have to rise (again) to pay for all the consultants, advisory committees, staff time, lawyers etc.
Will Palo Alto be hiring more retail consultants to explore why El Camino retail might be destroyed by these bike lanes and then of course how it can recover.
But hey, let’s hear more unrealistic pandering from some of our least thoughtful city council members.
The reason we are in a deficit is because we’ve been subsiding our terrible land and car use for the last 40 years. This is no longer sustainable and all these initiatives you seem to be opposed to are trying to make things better.
> Extra credit for answering where the 2,00,000 new Bay Area residents are supposed to park and how they’ll get to their jobs in this new fantasy world.
Let’s try to make a world in which these new residents don’t ALL need to have a car and they can get to their jobs on time and reliably WITHOUT driving. Why is this so hard for you to imagine?
I guess you’ve got your blinders on re the tech crash, the tens of thousands of local layoffs, the tech zillionaires forcing everyone else to subsidize their workers and contractors, the lobbyists who spend hundreds of millions of dollars to deny basic benefits and unemployment insurance to their gig workers….
But hey, don’t let reality bother you….
Oh I’m with you on that:
1. We need a diverse industry not just tech
2. Proper benefits for everyone.
3. Gig workers need to be considered real employees.
4. Billionaires should not exist.
Still doesn’t take away from my original post that the automobile induces terrible land use and poor economic benefits at the cost of climate and life. You never seem to engage about imagining a different and better world.
“You never seem to engage about imagining a different and better world.”
I can and do engage about a different and better world but not with people eager to destroy existing businesses and lifestyles.
Following how strongly the businesses are fighting the new proposal to allow workers to turn off their phones rather than be available 24/7? I am.
Let’s start with some facts. Take out your CA Real ID Driver’s License. It has a validity date. And when you get to that date – usually your birthday you have to reapply. Now that is a progression of events starting with the California Driver’s Handbook. And there is a test you have to pass based on the info in that book. That is California State Law – not Paris. Included is the interpretation of the lines in the street, Laws for bicyclist, and Laws for pedestrians. If everyone follows the Laws then we should be good to go. Everything you need to know concerning lines, signs, and rights of way are there. As to ECR we have concrete barriers in the middle of the street, trees, left and right turn lanes, a lot of directional activity on the street. ECR’s biggest issue is the resurfacing required. In order to resurface they need to remove barriers, trees? Not a minor issue. And now we have the separate issue of pipe replacement. That is reality. Next we have the political tail wagging. Cars on the street are customers of the businesses and residents and their visitors. How inconvenient that street is a designated commercial highway built to house commercial business for the city. It is also a residential location with very large buildings, including hotels which are the expected businesses on that street. That is reality. Many of the projections are not reality – painting a picture of the evolution of the street like a real estate seller. You could impress better if you resurfaced the street, put a bus lane down the middle, and some bike lanes on one side of the bus lane. You have to have car parking in some locations that can be marked. We are suppose to be building a business section for the city. That is the cities job, and Caltrans job.
In the SF Chronicle today 04/04/24 – “S.F. to ban right hand turns on red at 200 intersections.” These are metal signs – not electronic. This is SF’s answer to a street safety problem. I believe that this is a problem discussed in the PA meeting. I think the city was negotiating for electronic signs – very expensive. I think this is a good answer to our problems. Ranking the problems is resurfacing at the top. That is number 1. Signage is number 2 – that includes the street markings.
Discussed the Bike Coalition at the ski club last night – which has a lot of serious bikers. Maybe heard of them but they all have their own clubs based on where they live. Idea strange to them since they would not bike down El Camino – not their gig. Sounded to everyone like creating a “Leisure World” retirement village in the center of our city. Yes they all have been watching those advertisements for retirement locations in the outback. Based on some of the speakers then retirement village is where you all want to go.
Noted in the SF Chronicle 04/15 the businesses on Valencia Street in the city of SF are suing the city for eliminating parking on the street. They are killing those businesses. Five have closed and moved on. The city of SF keeps shooting itself in the head with ideas that are counter to creating a viable city. Businesses leaving the city are rampant. You are going to create the same problem here if there is no parking in front of businesses. Highway 82 is a business street. It is not Leisure World.