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Mountain View is taking steps to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety on Middlefield Road, a major thoroughfare that has been identified as a high risk corridor for vehicle collisions.
The Council Transportation Committee weighed in on proposed upgrades to the corridor Tuesday evening, backing a city staff recommendation to put in protected bike lanes, high visibility crosswalks and modified curb ramps. They also supported a proposal to prohibit vehicle parking in existing bike lanes, which is currently allowed at certain times.
A community request to put in a “road diet” that would reduce the number of driving lanes on Middlefield Road, however, did not gain the committee’s support – a notable departure from other projects in the city. In the past few years, road diets have been planned for Miramonte Avenue, Moffett Boulevard, and El Monte Avenue and implemented on California Street.
“We still need those major corridors to get people from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills to 101,” Council member John McAlister said, expressing general opposition to road diets at the May 5 meeting. “They need to be able to keep moving.”
In Mountain View, Middlefield Road covers about 3.6 miles and is the only city-owned street that runs continuously between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale. Currently, the corridor is a four-lane street with two vehicle lanes in each direction. Bike lanes run the full length of the road and on-street parking is allowed between Moffett Boulevard and Whisman Road on weekends and on weekdays between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m.
The Middlefield improvement project covers only a portion of the road, roughly 1.6 miles from Moffett Boulevard to Bernardo Avenue near the Sunnyvale border. The city is planning to put in protected bike lanes along the entire segment, requiring the removal of on-street parking, according to the staff report.
The proposal drew support from Council members Alison Hicks and Ellen Kamei, who encouraged city staff to take out the on-street parking as quickly as possible to improve bicycle safety. They also voiced support for reducing the driving speeds on Middlefield Road. The legal limit is 35 mph, but drivers often go faster. Hicks noted this was partly a function of the street design and advocated for reducing the width of vehicle lanes and adding buffers and green elements.
“You get the impression this is kind of like a freeway and I should be going 40 or 50 (mph) and honestly, that is the feeling I get when I’m there,” Hicks said. “I want to give people the feeling that they should be going slow.”
Other improvements to Middlefield Road include repaving and putting in high-visibility crosswalks, accessible pedestrian signal buttons and curb ramp upgrades at intersections. At the Tyrella Avenue intersection, the city plans to install a pedestrian-activated flashing beacon.
No road diet, for now
On the whole, the Council Transportation Committee supported the concept design for Middlefield Road, including a city staff recommendation to not pursue a road diet.
The staff report described Middlefield Road as a highly trafficked corridor that would experience a high amount of backups at intersections if a road diet was introduced. The report also noted that a road diet would push drivers onto other streets, causing backups elsewhere in the city, potentially hindering emergency response services.
Public commenters urged the committee to consider the positive impacts of vehicle lane reallocations, noting that a road diet, or even just narrowing the lanes, would help slow down speeding drivers.
“What other things can we do that maybe isn’t a full road diet of removing a lane, but instead making the lanes narrower where it is safe to do so?” said Valerie Fenwick, a former bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee member.
Some commenters also questioned why a road diet was not evaluated earlier in the concept design process. Part of the reason city staff are not evaluating the option of a road diet further is because it could potentially impact a grant funding deadline. The Santa Clara County Valley Transportation Agency awarded the city roughly $2.4 million for the project, and delays could cause the city to lose the funding, according to staff.
Community members from local advocacy groups, like the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and GreenSpacesMV, expressed dismay about the timing issue, urging the city to incorporate more foresight earlier on in future design processes. They also encouraged city staff to consult with VTA about extending the funding deadline.
“Our main concern is not simply whether a road diet is chosen,” members wrote in a letter to the city. “It is whether Mountain View’s project development process supports lane reallocations – including lane narrowing and road diets – early enough to deliver green complete streets.”
Council member McAlister was not swayed, however, and argued that road diets and more bicycle lanes were not the best use of the city’s limited resources.
“We still have a silent majority out there that I sort of represent,” he said. “I need to get from point A to point B, and I want to get there efficiently and safely. I don’t see a large percentage of the city (bicycling).”
Community members pushed back on this view, arguing that more people would use the bike lanes on Middlefield Road if they were safer to use.
“The traffic count on this road is not very high but that’s because biking in that bike lane sucks,” said a Middlefield Road resident. “It’s dangerous to use this lane because there’s always cars parked in it, and always people popping out of driveways. You’re not going to know the actual natural traffic level in that bike lane until normal people feel safe biking.”
We have some very safe bikeways that have been built, that are rarely used. Steven’s creek carry’s less than 100 people an hour at its peak. Across sunnyvale and Palo Alto, the bikeways are not used. The build it and they will come argument has lost steam with me. We are not Paris or Stanford’s campus and never will be.
For an ever brief moment, I got my hopes up. Then I read that they will do this from Bernardo to Moffett. Like, what!?! Anybody drive the stretch from Moffett to Rengstorff on school mornings?! Between the inconsiderate Parker’s in no parking lanes, over-caffeinated drivers rushing to work, and being honest, lackadaisical kiddo bikers, I’m surprised a child hasn’t been hurt. It’s freighteng to do that drive. If there were ever a spot to increase bike safety it was that stretch of Middlefield!!
The city council and the Public Works department seem to make important transportation decisions based on what in the legal business we used to call “canine jurisprudence”: sniff, and decide based on the odor you detect. Where is the data? What is the average speed? How many accidents happen each year on Middlefield? Is the number increasing over time? The Council and Public Works need to incorporate the Hippocratic oath – first, do no harm. Collect real proof that change is justified or leave well enough alone.
Thank you for your horse sense.
Who holds the ethical higher ground, someone who leaves their car home and walks or bikes, or something driving out to get their next junk food hit? Think climate change. Think health. Think actually being out in your community. I do not buy the “silent majority” argument on this at all. I want our city to look forward, not in the rear view mirror at the status quo. We already have plenty of that!
Nice. I use that all the time. The 85 overpass definitely needs help. It’s a bit of a blind curve where cars like to speed.
Isn’t there a new high rise going in along Middlefield at Tyrella? The one with less than 1 parking space per unit? Maybe the City can get the builder to retroactively plan for some more bike storage lockers for the residents because they will all be using bicycles to get to the bus stops and Caltrain/Light Rail Downtown. So Yea, improving the bike lanes on Middlefield is a great use of limited resources.
Maybe this will become the new standard: build housing with limited to no parking to force residents to use the bicycle lanes we are building and improving.
You need a team that know how to design bike lanes The last 2 El Camino and California are a night mare. Yes they made it semi safe for some at times but are now a traffic nightmare for bikes pedestrians and cars. The other street suffer now Gran and Evelyn cannot hold a good traffic flow.
I live at Middlefield and Rengstorff. I would love protected bike lines to extend that far. My son and I just biked home from school today, and he had to use the sidewalks to be safe.
I don’t see the need for a road diet – Middlefield has nice medians already.
But I would love to see some smart design for speed reduction. I am shocked at the speed of drivers tearing down Middlefield at night. It sounds like drag racing.
Failing redesigns, I’d love for some proactive or reactive traffic enforcement. I once called the non-emergency line to report cars racing back and forth along Middlefield, and got a shrug in response.
Why don’t they analyze and fix the unworkable situations they’ve created on California and Latham streets before taking similar kinds of measures on other streets?
Mountain View isn’t Groningen. The supposed paradise of Groningen is a myth anyhow.
What about bike lanes where students bike? On Middlefield near Crittenden, and all along Rengstorff, where the high-school students bike to and from Los Altos High? This is where people are biking now, and at great hazard!
Thank you council for no road-diet.
We (the large majority) who need to drive (kid-shuttling, groceries, older ages, darkness, far-from-ideal transit, etc.)…even if we’re sympathetic to biking…would like to get from A to B (even in MV alone) in less than 20+ minutes. And the fumes from backed up cars in traffic probably aren’t ideal either.
There also may be a false sense of security in a few instances:
a) Those white vertical “barriers” for bike lanes are great for designating bike lane space. But, they’re extremely flimsy. Bikers still need to be aware.
b) The push-button mid-block crosswalks on 6-lane (3 in each direction) roads (i.e. Miramonte, El Camino) are scary. Many cars don’t stop, and in some instances when cars stop in 2 of the lanes, someone may still fly by in lane 3. Especially bad at night. Walkers REALLY need to be alert (some are on their phones). Don’t trust that cars will stop (or see you). Make eye contact before proceeding!
The city turned California Ave. from four lanes to two, at a time when population and traffic is increasing. The traffic around San Antonio is already very slow. Why reduce Middlefield down to two lanes? This is terrible planning.
The article says they are not doing a road diet.
As a member of the sometimes not so “silent majority” who John McAlister does represent, who both bicycles when feasible and drives most of the rest of the time, and as a past member of the BPAC and participant in local grassroots bicycle advocacy from a time when we really did get work done of the type of projects that did gain widespread majority support from bicyclists and car drivers alike,
rather please consider:
Looking at the names and neighborhoods above, I’m not seeing targeted constructive practical and FEASIBLE comments from anyone who actually lives or will be regularly using the new Middlefield Road infrastructure.
Allowing the phrase “road diet” itself to be used is deliberately misleading because it imbeds a declaration that the road itself is currently “fat”. IF we have smooth stable homogenous traffic flow on Middlefield, where the MVPD has not problem issuing as many tickets for running red lights and driving 20mph or more over the posted speed limit, than we neither have an improper posted speed limit, nor excessive traffic capacity.
Personally, I see the removal of on street bar parking in the bicycle lane, and installing those rubber fringe bumpers EXACTLY THE SAME as was done on upper Castro/ Miramonte based on the Safe Mountain View advocacies work in the mid to later 2000teen years, as a step that should be taken FIRST before these divisive segregated bike lanes that deny bicyclists from being able to be the VEHICULAR CYCLISTS that all bicyclist who take to the streets need to be able to bicycle like.
As both a bicyclist and car driver living right off of Middlefield, and past member of the BPAC who kept free and independent of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s intermeddling in what got advocated for in Mountain View based on its own agenda, and having talked with a MVPD bicycle patrol officer who was glad to express their views, I will feel less safe as a bicyclist, and more in danger as a car driver due to the reduced overall width and visibility that both bicyclists and motorists will have of each other, and the reduced runoff and avoidance width.
Will anyone posting about MOUNTAIN VIEW bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, identify themselves as either
a 1. Mountain View resident who will be using this infrastructure,
or 2. living outside of Mountain View who should identify themselves as promoting a bicycle coalition’s agenda, regardless that they won’t be using the infrastructure they speak in favor of without firsthand experience bicycling on the affected stretches of road.”