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As Palo Alto prepares for its next phase of citywide bike improvements, local officials are also bracing for a potentially transformational project they never signed up for: the installation of bike lanes on El Camino Real.
The city only learned about the project last year, when the California Department of Transportation included the bike lanes as part of its forthcoming repaving effort on El Camino Real, between Mountain View and the northern edge of Palo Alto. This month, Caltrans released additional details about the new bike lanes, including project blueprints and clarifications about the city’s role in the $30.9 million endeavor.
According to the plans, the new El Camino corridor will include striped bike lanes on both sides of the street. Along most of the road, the bike lanes would consist of green thermoplastic markings. In some portions of El Camino, including segments around Charleston Road and California Avenue, Caltrans plans to separate the bike lanes from regular traffic by installing rows of vertical tubes, or delineators.
Several El Camino intersections, including ones at Los Robles and Park Avenue, would see striped lanes running across El Camino, according to the plans. And green markings would be installed throughout the corridor to increase visibility at intersections, driveways and transit stops.
The goal of the project is to increase safety for bicyclists, according to a letter from Dina El-Tawansy, Caltrans’ district director. She pointed to department data showing there had been 33 collisions on this El Camino segment involving bicyclists between 2016 and 2020, which led to one fatal accident and 32 injuries.
The most hazardous section of the segment, according to agency data, is in Mountain View, between Bonta Avenue and Mariposa Avenue, an area that accounted for 12 collisions, according to Caltrans. The next most dangerous section was in Palo Alto, between California Avenue and Park Boulevard. This area included nine collisions and the lone fatality.
The agency also noted that 13 of the 33 collisions involved bicyclists who were either riding on the sidewalk against the direction of traffic or riding against traffic on the road.
“The proposed bike lanes with appropriate pavement delineation and marking would reduce or eliminate the risk of riding on sidewalk and against traffic,” El-Tawansy wrote.
The Caltrans project is ramping up just as Palo Alto prepares to update its own bicycle master plan, an effort that aims to expand the city’s network of bike boulevards. But while the city already boasts several popular bike routes, including Bryant Street and Park Boulevard, its plans largely steered clear of El Camino, a state highway that is dominated by cars.
Even among the city’s biking community, the Caltrans project has received a mixed reception. As this publication has previously reported, some members of the Palo Alto Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee questioned the need for the project and suggested that it should only advance if the agency makes further traffic safety improvements on El Camino, including a lower speed limit and a reduction of driving lanes.
Eric Normand, vice chair of the committee, said its members are split on the bike lane. While Normand said this week that he personally favors the bike lanes on El Camino Real, he agrees with those who say parallel routes like Park Boulevard are typically better choices for traveling north and south.
“However, for those who need to get to stores on ECR and especially for those who will live on ECR, having to take the lane with 35+ mph cars is not adequate infrastructure,” Normand said in an email.
The city also asked Caltrans to explore the idea of removing traffic lanes rather than eliminating on-street parking to accommodate the new bike lanes. The recent letter from Caltrans effectively shuts down that idea, with El-Tawansy writing that evaluating traffic-lane reductions is beyond the scope of the project, which Caltrans plans to kick off later this year and complete in 2025.
“Eliminating one lane to keep street parking and adding protected bikeways will require long-term planning and collaboration with adjacent cities, and other transportation partners and stakeholders to evaluate and assess impacts on the local, regional, safety, operational, transit, emergency response as part of an environmental review and clearance,” she wrote.
Caltrans also asked the City Council to pass a resolution to remove parking on El Camino to accommodate the project. The new letter suggests, however, that Caltrans can advance the project even if the city doesn’t advance such a resolution. El-Tawansy noted in the letter that street parking “may be permitted or restricted through a resolution by the respective local agency to address local needs, or otherwise when determined by Caltrans, due to a traffic safety or operational need, as is the case here.”
“Accordingly, Caltrans is requesting the City to help make the community aware of the need to restrict parking and to express general support of enhancing safety along the SR (State Route) 82 corridor,” she wrote.
Ozzy Arce, a senior transportation planner at Palo Alto’s Office of Transportation, acknowledged at a recent public hearing that the decision on whether to install bike lanes will ultimately be up to Caltrans.
“It’s ultimately their purview on what facility types go in their facilities,” Arce told the Parks and Recreation Commission during its Jan. 23 discussion of the city’s bike plan update.
“The role that the Bike and Pedestrian Plan Update update can play is talking to the community and understanding the access points to El Camino Real, either to access El Camino Real in the event that Caltrans proceeds with plans to install facilities or simply to cross El Camino Real for either school routes or just general bike and pedestrian trips,” he said. “I think there is a role for (the plan) to try to align with Caltrans’ vision for the El Camino Real corridor, but ultimately, it is their facility,” he said.
It’s a terrible option. I want all the caltrans planners to ride a bicycle down el Camino when it’s over and tell me they feel safe. They just want to claim they are appeasing bicyclist demand somehow. They have one bicycle guy in Caltrains who has yet to show his face locally.
What could possibly go wrong?