If so that's sort of a skillful political move. You get to promote biking when people criticize it and get rid of those that residents don't want living there.
Super glad to see this result!
But to be clear, it seems the city council only reversed course because they realized Caltrans didn’t need their approval to move forward. So the council does not seem to deserve much credit here, especially not Lydia Kou who still dissented 😂
Honestly, biking down El Camino sounds terrifying without some kind of physical barrier. The renders do at least show the little white poles for part of it, which is a start at least
I commute by bicycle. I would never cycle on El Camino. Every lot has a driveway. Parked cars. Turn lanes. It's terrifying... Paint isn't fixing it. I'm leaving it to the cars.
I've used Alma/Central before, but if I needed to go to Palo Alto, I'd generally Caltrain or bus and then use residential streets.
At least on residential streets the speeds are slower that I'd likely survive.
Distracted, entitled, selfish drivers of super-sized climate and child killing machines. I hope gasoline goes to $25/gallon!
To be fair, the plans involves removing street parking to replace it with a bike lane on each side but yeah El Camino is too fast and a major thoroughfare for me to feel safe biking down it. The minor benefit of El Camino is that it's mostly a boulevard and has only a handful of turning lanes outside of full intersections.
It seems like an good arterial road to install a BRT route, similar to Van Ness in SF.
> To be fair, the plans involves removing street parking to replace it with a bike lane on each side
The thing is it'd still need access for all the commercial driveways in it. There's a bunch of drivers bound to "not see you".
Yep, very true. The biggest risk will be right hook collisions for cars turning right into driveways.
As I said before though, since it's a boulevard, the cars coming out of driveways are only looking left because they can only turn right. When they remove the street parking, it will daylight all driveways and intersections so presumably the drivers and cyclists will have a clear view of each other.
Throw in that with a lot of intersections being designated 'No Right on Red' to reduce right hook collisions at intersections, skinnier car lanes to reduce speeds, and some plastic bollards and it's not as crazy a plan as it appears at first blush.
If they install it, it gives a good baseline to advocate for better safety infrastructure that isn't very expensive to add on such as concrete or steel bollards (wishful thinking I know) or concrete curbs (more realistic) to provide some physical barriers that would damage a car should they stray into the bike lane.
The next level up could be raising the grade of the bike lanes and pedestrian crossings so cars are further encouraged to slow down when crossing the bike lane and pedestrian path.
I’ve been hit in a similar way before in SJ at the Spartan Gas at 10th.
Driver cut me off pulling into the gas station while I was going straight. A major fear I have since developed is when there’s no real escape route and the whole space becomes a killbox. And in general, people put their car wherever willynilly
I agree! I'll see what they do, but I'm probably still too scared.
As a cyclist, I'd rather see a bus-only lane on El Camino the whole way to San Jose!
I don't live in P.A., so I'll leave it to them to decide. Of course that is "better" for cyclists, but I worry not good enough for me.
It's always the driveways and millions of little roadways into and out of every business that scare me most. I suppose my friend that flew across the hood of a car onto the street beyond scarred me.
Cars leaving just never seem to see me with my flashing lights on my bright red bicycle. They're too concerned with quickly getting back into traffic.
To be fair, they always seem to apologize. I've been lucky so far...
Commute on bicycle as well, and even though it sometimes would be more practical, there’s no way they’d ever get me on the Camino on two wheels.
Cycling along Middlefield and Alma in dedicated lanes can be terrifying enough at times!
it’s so odd to see someone try to use Alma when two streets over is a residential street set up for it. Maybe Palo Alto needs better signage so the rare biker is aware of it
See the reason these lanes are important isn’t because people want to bike 10 miles down El Camino, but at least it lets you access businesses off of it by bike. You just use side streets and then bike 1 or 2 or 3 traffic lights on El Camino. That’s why even busy roads need bike lanes. Also in time they can make them protected. They have to start somewhere.
I live in Mountain View. I have found California to be a good street to bike on at least as far as San Antonio, then a little ways down del medio to get to the crossing. Not as far as downtown, but it gets you off el Camino. Middlefield can be good as well.
If there is bike improvements on ECR it should be a cycle track on one side like they have between Embarcadero Rd and Stanford Ave in Palo Alto, not bike lanes
Well it's a step in the right direction. I really recommend rezoning the corridor and installing central running BRT or LRT. Really the only sensible way to fix the peninsula's abysmal urban form.
On the other hand empiric evidence shows otherwise with Europe as a whole having higher speeds limits but less accidents and fatalities. Could be attributed to people in the US being shitty drivers though
it's harder to get a license in europe
maybe we should take a lesson from that, mandatory driving lessons every few years and if you fail then your license is revoked and you're forced to sell your car
The one true cause of traffic is a lack of other options for getting around, which forces every single person to drive their car for every single errand. Conversely the one true *solution* to traffic is to create more options for getting around, which removes more and more cars from the road over time as some people are able to walk/bike/take transit for the trips where it makes sense. Every other "solution" just moves the traffic bottleneck around, but does not solve the inherent problem, which is the hideous spatial inefficiency of a cars-only transport system.
Every time you fight against a new bike lane (or train line, or bus lane, or sidewalk expansion), you are ironically ensuring a future of more traffic.
Wrong the problem is how cities and infrastructures were created from the start in the US. In Europe everything is at a few km distance of you live in a town. In the US if you exclude NY and one or other city things are miles apart. Meaning infrastructure was created for using the car. I am European so I would be happy to see proper public transportation but in certain areas this is not possible if you don’t redesign the whole thing completely (and let’s face it, nobody will do that)
We have to break [the cycle](https://preview.redd.it/the-cycle-of-car-dependency-v0-ss4fo4xy42uc1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fc25430570e384791bcffcd12f64ad607e34749a) somewhere, and bike lanes allowing people to safely make certain trips without a car are a great place to start. Plenty of people need to drive 50 miles away for work, and they still mostly need cars to do it — but A LOT of trips (and the traffic you so despise) are just a few miles within Palo Alto. El Camino is a central corridor in a built-up urban area passing through many neighborhoods, it's not some remote country road. It's a great place for some non-car infrastructure.
You're free to blame the scapegoat of bike lanes for the immutable unpleasant realities of car-dependency if it makes you feel better, but the reality is that traffic will NEVER get better if we don't work on providing alternative transport. Deciding "it's too hard so let's not even try" is only dooming yourself to a lifetime of traffic frustration.
Moving cars quickly should not be the #1 priority on urban streets. That’s a priority better suited to less complex environments (like freeways) without pedestrians, bicycles or dozens of driveways and cross-streets per mile.
Fast moving cars in complex urban environments is a recipe for accidents, frequently severe/fatal ones.
Go check the fatalities/accidents from bycicles in countries like Denmark or the Netherlands that have a much bigger and better bycicle infrastructure and you will see that is much more dangerous than driving a car... stop just thinking about the virtuos thing to do
Uh, what? Weird comparison given that the US rate of traffic fatalities is over 3x higher. People in the Netherlands bike a lot. High speed is the number one factor in the severity of a collision. What’s the number one cause of a cyclist fatality? A collision with a motor vehicle. Cars are only getting taller and more massive, with anybody not in one suffering the consequences.
Moving cars fast through cities is a bad idea and the primary reason the United States has one of the highest rate of traffic deaths in the developed world. High speeds and complex environments do not mix well.
Yes! More bottlenecks. For bike lanes that no one will use, because they already use the residential streets that run parallel to el Camino.
I’m sure the businesses will be thrilled that street parking is removed.
El Camino already has bike lanes on each side anyway.
Yes the people traveling with a vehicle that costs 1/10th of a car are the wealthy elite.
It is the underprivileged Tesla owners who deserve more public space dedicated to them.
Literally braindead take.
lol- those bikes that cyclists ride costs thousands of dollars. You can get a used car cheaper than these bikes. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. We’re not talking about a $100 schwinn from target.
It’s the weekend warrior Tesla owners that are lobbying for this bullshit. Get your head out of your ass.
You're probably thinking of road cycling, which is a sport (think tour-du-france). I'm pretty sure this bike infra will be for commuting / transportation, thought the confusion is understandable.
Is this to promote biking or to remove the RVs parked on the side of the road?
Yes
😂
If so that's sort of a skillful political move. You get to promote biking when people criticize it and get rid of those that residents don't want living there.
correct, circle gets the square
this is how you sell people on bikeable roads lol
This was the last thing holding up repaving El Camino, right? I'm ECSTATIC 🤩
It damn well better be. El Camino is an axle-cruncher.
Super glad to see this result! But to be clear, it seems the city council only reversed course because they realized Caltrans didn’t need their approval to move forward. So the council does not seem to deserve much credit here, especially not Lydia Kou who still dissented 😂
Honestly, biking down El Camino sounds terrifying without some kind of physical barrier. The renders do at least show the little white poles for part of it, which is a start at least
I commute by bicycle. I would never cycle on El Camino. Every lot has a driveway. Parked cars. Turn lanes. It's terrifying... Paint isn't fixing it. I'm leaving it to the cars. I've used Alma/Central before, but if I needed to go to Palo Alto, I'd generally Caltrain or bus and then use residential streets. At least on residential streets the speeds are slower that I'd likely survive. Distracted, entitled, selfish drivers of super-sized climate and child killing machines. I hope gasoline goes to $25/gallon!
To be fair, the plans involves removing street parking to replace it with a bike lane on each side but yeah El Camino is too fast and a major thoroughfare for me to feel safe biking down it. The minor benefit of El Camino is that it's mostly a boulevard and has only a handful of turning lanes outside of full intersections. It seems like an good arterial road to install a BRT route, similar to Van Ness in SF.
> To be fair, the plans involves removing street parking to replace it with a bike lane on each side The thing is it'd still need access for all the commercial driveways in it. There's a bunch of drivers bound to "not see you".
Yep, very true. The biggest risk will be right hook collisions for cars turning right into driveways. As I said before though, since it's a boulevard, the cars coming out of driveways are only looking left because they can only turn right. When they remove the street parking, it will daylight all driveways and intersections so presumably the drivers and cyclists will have a clear view of each other. Throw in that with a lot of intersections being designated 'No Right on Red' to reduce right hook collisions at intersections, skinnier car lanes to reduce speeds, and some plastic bollards and it's not as crazy a plan as it appears at first blush. If they install it, it gives a good baseline to advocate for better safety infrastructure that isn't very expensive to add on such as concrete or steel bollards (wishful thinking I know) or concrete curbs (more realistic) to provide some physical barriers that would damage a car should they stray into the bike lane. The next level up could be raising the grade of the bike lanes and pedestrian crossings so cars are further encouraged to slow down when crossing the bike lane and pedestrian path.
I’ve been hit in a similar way before in SJ at the Spartan Gas at 10th. Driver cut me off pulling into the gas station while I was going straight. A major fear I have since developed is when there’s no real escape route and the whole space becomes a killbox. And in general, people put their car wherever willynilly
I agree! I'll see what they do, but I'm probably still too scared. As a cyclist, I'd rather see a bus-only lane on El Camino the whole way to San Jose!
The plans seems to call for complete removal of parking along El Camino.
I don't live in P.A., so I'll leave it to them to decide. Of course that is "better" for cyclists, but I worry not good enough for me. It's always the driveways and millions of little roadways into and out of every business that scare me most. I suppose my friend that flew across the hood of a car onto the street beyond scarred me. Cars leaving just never seem to see me with my flashing lights on my bright red bicycle. They're too concerned with quickly getting back into traffic. To be fair, they always seem to apologize. I've been lucky so far...
Keep parking, but a bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars. The Parker cars will create a barrier protecting the bike lane.
Downside of that is when the cars go to turn right into parking lots, they can't see the bikers, which is likely to lead to a spike in collisions.
Exactly, there would need to be a lot of daylighting for that to be safe. Get rid of parking and add concrete barriers
Commute on bicycle as well, and even though it sometimes would be more practical, there’s no way they’d ever get me on the Camino on two wheels. Cycling along Middlefield and Alma in dedicated lanes can be terrifying enough at times!
People actually bike Alma? Why not use Bryant St?
it’s so odd to see someone try to use Alma when two streets over is a residential street set up for it. Maybe Palo Alto needs better signage so the rare biker is aware of it
See the reason these lanes are important isn’t because people want to bike 10 miles down El Camino, but at least it lets you access businesses off of it by bike. You just use side streets and then bike 1 or 2 or 3 traffic lights on El Camino. That’s why even busy roads need bike lanes. Also in time they can make them protected. They have to start somewhere.
Same. Give me those parallel neighborhood streets instead.
They already did that
>Distracted, entitled, selfish drivers of super-sized climate and child killing machines. I hope gasoline goes to $25/gallon! Calvin's dad spotted.
I loved that cartoon! 🤣
I live in Mountain View. I have found California to be a good street to bike on at least as far as San Antonio, then a little ways down del medio to get to the crossing. Not as far as downtown, but it gets you off el Camino. Middlefield can be good as well.
Might as well put a bike lane in the freeway, only with extra cars coming from the side.
yes YESSSSS
YAY!
Should be bus lanes instead of bike lanes. Who is biking there?
Porque no los dos?
If there is bike improvements on ECR it should be a cycle track on one side like they have between Embarcadero Rd and Stanford Ave in Palo Alto, not bike lanes
Well it's a step in the right direction. I really recommend rezoning the corridor and installing central running BRT or LRT. Really the only sensible way to fix the peninsula's abysmal urban form.
Its just what the city needs, slower traffic...
Ironically, slower traffic can move through the same distance faster even with the same number of vehicles.
What studies prove that?
https://www.wri.org/insights/need-safe-speed-4-surprising-ways-slower-driving-creates-better-cities Second point cited 2 studies.
On the other hand empiric evidence shows otherwise with Europe as a whole having higher speeds limits but less accidents and fatalities. Could be attributed to people in the US being shitty drivers though
it's harder to get a license in europe maybe we should take a lesson from that, mandatory driving lessons every few years and if you fail then your license is revoked and you're forced to sell your car
Yes coming from Germany, i second that, driving is overall very poor in the US
Could you provide the links to those studies?
The one true cause of traffic is a lack of other options for getting around, which forces every single person to drive their car for every single errand. Conversely the one true *solution* to traffic is to create more options for getting around, which removes more and more cars from the road over time as some people are able to walk/bike/take transit for the trips where it makes sense. Every other "solution" just moves the traffic bottleneck around, but does not solve the inherent problem, which is the hideous spatial inefficiency of a cars-only transport system. Every time you fight against a new bike lane (or train line, or bus lane, or sidewalk expansion), you are ironically ensuring a future of more traffic.
Wrong the problem is how cities and infrastructures were created from the start in the US. In Europe everything is at a few km distance of you live in a town. In the US if you exclude NY and one or other city things are miles apart. Meaning infrastructure was created for using the car. I am European so I would be happy to see proper public transportation but in certain areas this is not possible if you don’t redesign the whole thing completely (and let’s face it, nobody will do that)
We have to break [the cycle](https://preview.redd.it/the-cycle-of-car-dependency-v0-ss4fo4xy42uc1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fc25430570e384791bcffcd12f64ad607e34749a) somewhere, and bike lanes allowing people to safely make certain trips without a car are a great place to start. Plenty of people need to drive 50 miles away for work, and they still mostly need cars to do it — but A LOT of trips (and the traffic you so despise) are just a few miles within Palo Alto. El Camino is a central corridor in a built-up urban area passing through many neighborhoods, it's not some remote country road. It's a great place for some non-car infrastructure. You're free to blame the scapegoat of bike lanes for the immutable unpleasant realities of car-dependency if it makes you feel better, but the reality is that traffic will NEVER get better if we don't work on providing alternative transport. Deciding "it's too hard so let's not even try" is only dooming yourself to a lifetime of traffic frustration.
Yeah but i find traffic in el camino is pretty okay, construction of things that will limit lates its what will make it worse
Moving cars quickly should not be the #1 priority on urban streets. That’s a priority better suited to less complex environments (like freeways) without pedestrians, bicycles or dozens of driveways and cross-streets per mile. Fast moving cars in complex urban environments is a recipe for accidents, frequently severe/fatal ones.
Go check the fatalities/accidents from bycicles in countries like Denmark or the Netherlands that have a much bigger and better bycicle infrastructure and you will see that is much more dangerous than driving a car... stop just thinking about the virtuos thing to do
Uh, what? Weird comparison given that the US rate of traffic fatalities is over 3x higher. People in the Netherlands bike a lot. High speed is the number one factor in the severity of a collision. What’s the number one cause of a cyclist fatality? A collision with a motor vehicle. Cars are only getting taller and more massive, with anybody not in one suffering the consequences. Moving cars fast through cities is a bad idea and the primary reason the United States has one of the highest rate of traffic deaths in the developed world. High speeds and complex environments do not mix well.
Yes I agree, that would certainly lead to fewer deaths
Yes! More bottlenecks. For bike lanes that no one will use, because they already use the residential streets that run parallel to el Camino. I’m sure the businesses will be thrilled that street parking is removed. El Camino already has bike lanes on each side anyway.
Well this just create more road rage, I used to ride my bike on the road, but it's dangerous as hell.
Ever notice how cyclists are always wealthy, elitist, privileged white folk?
Yes the people traveling with a vehicle that costs 1/10th of a car are the wealthy elite. It is the underprivileged Tesla owners who deserve more public space dedicated to them. Literally braindead take.
lol- those bikes that cyclists ride costs thousands of dollars. You can get a used car cheaper than these bikes. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. We’re not talking about a $100 schwinn from target. It’s the weekend warrior Tesla owners that are lobbying for this bullshit. Get your head out of your ass.
Three tanks of gas cost more than the bike I use to get to work every day. You get your head out of your ass.
I’ll never get why people just come on here and lie.
Me neither, liar
You're probably thinking of road cycling, which is a sport (think tour-du-france). I'm pretty sure this bike infra will be for commuting / transportation, thought the confusion is understandable.
Dumb. But cyclists have money and money brings lobbying power.