A Win for a Safer El Camino Real in Mountain View
Caption: Mountain View's El Camino Real Streetscape Plan is a winner!
On Tuesday, Oct. 1, the Mountain View City Council unanimously approved an estimated $81 million improvement plan for El Camino Real featuring protected bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks and three new crosswalks with signals. Yahoo! The council’s approval of the El Camino Real Streetscape Plan is big win for improved safety and mobility for everyone using El Camino Real in Mountain View and can also influence neighboring cities’ plans.
El Camino Real, aka State Route 82, is a heavily trafficked route throughout the peninsula. It is a prominent source of injuries and fatalities for pedestrians, people on bicycles and cars and is overdue for improvement. In the past year, two people have been struck and killed along the 4-mile stretch of El Camino Real just in Mountain View.
SVBC has been educating and informing residents about the importance of supporting protected bikeways all along El Camino Real for years and we worked on the Mountain View El Camino Precise Plan back in 2013/14. City by city, we advocate for improved infrastructure to make El Camino safer and easier to access by bike. Here is our page about our projects along El Camino Real.
There is a strong group of bicycling advocates in Mountain View, some of whom are also part of the SVBC Mountain View team. Nine of them came out when the draft plan was before the council on June 18. Supporters came out again on Oct. 1 to encourage adopting the final plan.
April Webster, an SVBC Mountain View team member, urged the council Tuesday night to approve the plan and move swiftly to implement improvements. “I don’t really feel safe crossing anywhere along El Camino Real, and I bike a lot all over the Bay Area and the Los Altos Hills,” Webster told the council. “I think it would benefit not only cyclers like me but pedestrians and drivers and the businesses along El Camino Real.”
SVBC is also working with our local teams in both Sunnyvale and the City of Santa Clara to get plans in both those cities to include protected bikeways on El Camino Real as well. Redwood City passed a plan including protected bike lanes in 2017, with SVBC advocacy. Please consider joining any of our local teams to have an impact where you ride.