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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.
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I attended the meeting yesterday and have a completely different impression than the article author.
As far I understood, the City Council’s motion in the end required the State Department of Transportation to address the missing safety improvements addressing 80% of the observed bicycle with car collisions on El Camino Real in Palo Alto which they currently miss to address. Because 80% of the collisions have been broadside when crossing El Camino Real and not while riding along El Camino Real. That means bike lanes would at max reduce the 20% of all collisions and at the same time would attract more bicycle riders on El Camino Real and thereby most likely even increase the total number of collisions.
Caltrains completely failed to address those 80% in their current published plan. It was obvious for every attendee who listened to the statistics presentations and it is also visible on the collision heatmap where the about 4 hot spots for collisions are happening over only about 200m in total of the several km street length through Palo Alto.
I’m personally using the bicycle daily in a neighbor town and ride towards Palo Alto about weekly and never needed bikelanes on El Camino Real as enough safe and quiet parallel streets exists already.
There is no need for bike lanes _along_ El Camino Real.
Correction: CalTrans completely failed to address those 80% (not Caltrains)
For those who don’t believe that current street planning for wide main roads can exclude bike lanes, look at Van Ness Ave in San Francisco. That road is focused to concentrate car and bus traffic while bike traffic is perfectly fine going through the parallel smaller streets.
Gee. If only the Mountain View council could be this proactive vs rolling over with whatever Caltrans wants. They seem to have a spine on spending other people’s money!
seems to me that riding a bike on ECR will never be safe or comfortable. How about fixing the potholes and finding a separated right of way where the bicyclist and ride safely without having to stop at intersections (or just blow thru them whilst making rude gestures at motorists and pedestrians who give them the stink-eye)?