Bike Lanes vs Parking – and guess who won!
Guest blog by San Mateo team member Mike Swire and Raayan Mohtashemi
Summary: At its February 22, 2022 meeting, the San Mateo City Council voted to implement the North Central Bike Lanes project, which will add bike lanes on key east-west and north-south routes that are responsible for 11% of all bike-related collisions in the city in the past 5 years.
For SVBC, this win embodies everything we are trying to be, the way we want to work, the way we know is best to work. SVBC’s power resides in people like you coming together in what we call local teams, in this case, Move San Mateo, to get involved and push for people-centered streets. We’re so excited to see the work of the San Mateo local team paying off and invite you to read on to learn how normal people can come together to get more bike lanes. We hope you are just as inspired as we are by their work, and want to get involved in your city’s local team, (you can find out how here.) Together, with support from SVBC, you and your neighbors can push your city councilmembers to make the streets safer for all.
Before getting in to the details of the story though, we have to give a special thanks to the City staff and Council who were thoughtful in adopting a good process and outcome. Thank you San Mateo Mayor Rick Bonilla, and Council Members Eric Rodriguez, and Joe Goethals for supporting a project that will advance vision zero goals, parking policy options which will help mitigate the impact of parking removal, and provide reliable and safe access to mobility for residents and all road users. Thank you Deputy Mayor Diane Papan and Council Member Amourence Lee for highlighting important considerations for the North Central neighborhood and for striving to achieve consensus around a project with difficult tradeoffs. And, hats off to city staff Sue-Ellen Atkinson, City Manager Drew Corbett, Public works director Azalea Mitch, and public works staff Bethany Lopez, as well as all other staff involved in the design and implementation of the project.
…And now, the story of how everyday people who love bikes came together to make space for more bikes.
After a 4-hour long discussion at its February 22nd Meeting, the San Mateo City Council voted to implement the North Central bike lanes project. This includes installing 2+ miles of bike lanes on N. Humboldt Street and E Poplar Avenue, two high traffic routes adjacent to San Mateo High School and three key highway 101 bike/ped crossings. These are the 2nd and 4th high priority projects as listed in the city’s recently adopted Bicycle Master Plan. Leading up to this crucial vote, the SVBC San Mateo Local Team engaged in 6 months of stakeholder outreach, analysis, petitions (Bike Lanes petition – English & Spanish, Safe Streets near schools petition), op-eds (Kevin Simpson op-ed, Lisa Rayle op-ed), news bites (KQED News, Patch), parking counts, focus groups, translating communications materials into Spanish, rides on the project corridor, parking policy ideation, meetings with decision makers, and turn-out out at three separate marathon city meetings.
It’s hard to pinpoint when this project’s story began. It could have started well over half a century ago, when racial segregation, disinvestment, streetcar removal, and subsequent auto-oriented development forced the city’s most diverse neighborhood into car-dependency, sowing the seeds of resentment in a community that didn’t feel heard by decisionmakers. It could have started 3-4 decades ago when increasing housing costs led to overcrowding and higher parking demand in the neighborhood, exacerbated by a lack of safe alternative transportation options. It could have started 11 years ago when a community-based plan identified key corridors including Humboldt Street as needing bike lanes to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety. It could have started in May 2021, when members of Move San Mateo first heard of the project or it could have started later in 2021, when neighbors heard that the project would require the removal of 214 parking spaces on the project corridors.
The project faced several significant challenges for the local team and there was constant concern that such an ambitious project could not be approved. Whenever there is a major change proposed in a community, there tends to be backlash, which is natural, isn’t it? The loss of 200+ parking spots had the same effect. For the residents, it was very hard to digest – Where would we park? How would specially abled folks and seniors get access to their cars? Opponents of the project argued that the parking removal would impact working class people who relied on on-street parking, that the city’s parking analysis didn’t occur at the right time of day, and that the city’s virtual outreach wasn’t effective in reaching the community (San Mateo Daily Journal 10/22/21, 2/18/22). This response resulted in council voting 4-0 at their October 4th, 2021 meeting for the staff recommendation to award the contract but delay implementation of the bicycle lanes portion of the project until more outreach and analysis could be conducted.
Council member Amourence Lee and city staff convened an in-person focus group to ideate parking policy options and outreach methods and locations which hence included pop-ups and a survey. The city’s revised parking analysis found that the removal of 200+ parking spots from the project corridors could be accommodated within 1-2 blocks, or 600 feet, of the project corridor. The survey also found relative support for each parking policy option. The project received significant coverage in the local press and was seen as a referendum of whether the city was willing to allocate street space away from vehicle storage in order to implement its bicycle master plan, despite opposition. Move San Mateo continued its advocacy efforts mentioned above along with organizing rides and rallies around the project area.
At the city’s February 9th Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission meeting, staff presented the project and results of additional outreach and analysis. The commission unanimously recommended that the project be implemented, with one commissioner expressing reservations surrounding the sequencing of the project. The stage was set for a positive staff recommendation to the city council to implement the project, as well as parking policy solutions that could move the needle on parking supply and demand in the neighborhood. The team continued meeting with council members, this time to take the temperature of where they stand and attempting to address their issues and concerns around the project.
Finally, the day of the final decision arrived! Staff presented their updated report which included a plethora of recommendations to mitigate the removal of parking spaces, along with analysis of alternatives like one-way streets and a shared overnight parking/bike lane. Approximately 30 members of the public spoke, almost 20 of whom were supportive. Those in support included appeals to address safety issues, a desire to have safe access to alternative transportation, and the fact that low-income folks using bikes for transportation, not recreation, would most benefit from this project. Those opposed commented that they wished for other alternatives to be studied and evaluated, feeling that the city had ignored other pressing issues such as pedestrian safety and the high parking demand.
Council members engaged in a robust discussion of parking demand, a desire for more outreach and evaluation of other options to see if less parking could be removed, and a concern that if this project were voted down, the city would be abdicating its goal to implement the bicycle master plan and reduce the severity and quantity of traffic collisions. At the end of the day, the council voted 3-2 to implement the project based on the staff recommendation regarding parking policy options.
What a victory! Campaigning for this project not only helped pass this project, but also helped grow the local team and build relationships with staff, commissioners, and council members, while taking a deeper dive into the tradeoffs presented by projects that are forced to reallocate street space to ensure safety for all modes. This project presented many difficult questions, including whether the city was committed to taking a vision zero approach to street safety, and whether it was committed to its climate action plan and bike master plans. It also raised questions for how the city should thoughtfully and appropriately engage with communities, especially historically marginalized communities.
This project serves as an inspiration to other SVBC teams and advocates as they, too, seek to change car-centric mentality and implement controversial projects. Don’t assume that a project is too ambitious; several times the San Mateo team debated scaling back and also discussed a potential Plan B in case the vote was not in their favor. It’s also important to present a broad base of support; the team showed that this wasn’t a project for only the lycra-clad bicycle elite – they had a diverse group of supporters, from various demographics, neighborhoods, ages, etc. Ultimately the team was able to convince the council that the parking concerns were legitimate because of the high demand for parking, but that free parking is still not a better use of the space than dedicated space for people biking on a high-injury corridor. The council agreed and hence voted in favor to help the city reach their vision zero goals. This vote set a positive precedent for implementing the 2020 Bicycle Master Plan with the vision to improve safety, connectivity, and bike mode share in the city, and reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions.
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Shout out to the San Mateo local team members who worked hard to make all this happen: Raayan Mohtashemi, Mike Swire, Heather Wolnick, Brynne Myers, David Hunt, Carol Steinfeld, Seema Patel and Lisa Rayle. Thank you to these fabulous folks who played a critical role in improving street safety in the City of San Mateo.
Upcoming forum: The problem of parking: Parking has been one of the major barriers for implementing bike lanes. People are very rigid in their parking being taken away for other uses! Is it fair to prioritize vehicle storage over safety of those biking? The government is subsidizing driving by providing ample space for cars on streets and for vehicle storage. Is the government equally subsidizing other modes of transportation? Should there be a bar on parking requirements for new developments, or should it be left to the discretion of the developers? Would discouraging parking or making it difficult to find parking make people shift to use other modes of transport? Find an answer to all these questions at our upcoming forum on March 16th @ 5pm. Register today!
