Big Road Safety Win with Sunnyvale Homestead Bike Lane Decisions

Guest writer Sharlene Liu is team lead for Bike Sunnyvale, a Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Local Team

The Sunnyvale City Council made a landmark decision this week (on Aug. 8) by unanimously voting for full-time bike lanes on Homestead Road!  And that's not all. Remarkably, they also included buffered bike lanes and road diet!  Woohoo!

Going into the Council’s meeting, the chances were 50/50 for full-time bike lanes, while buffered bike lanes and a road diet were pies in the sky. Although there was strong public opposition to full-time bike lanes at the meeting, we showed up even more strongly and spoke rationally and factually. After a 4-plus-hour meeting that lasted until midnight, the Council made the upstanding decision to improve bike safety and promote sustainable transportation. Yay!

(Full-time bike lanes are lanes in which parking is not allowed at any time. Buffered bike lanes are lanes with extra space separating lanes from traffic. A road diet is a narrowing of a roadway to slow traffic.)

We had been working on this campaign for the last six months. I am grateful to the many people whose enthusiasm and energy helped me carry this campaign through. It was really fun, and now, I can also say, gratifying.

Rolling for safety

Bicyclists on a recent ride to support road safety improvements on Homestead Road.

I would like to thank the many contributors to this campaign. Foremost, thanks to Dr. Jon Blum for collecting parking counts on Homestead Road, perusing through hundreds of pages of city staff reports, creating slides to illustrate the dangers of biking on Homestead, joining meetings with decision makers, and being rational and funny. Equally foremost is Kevin Jackson, who has been following this issue for 25+ years. From him, I learned the history of the struggle for full-time status and gained invaluable insight into how the city works. Thanks to you for also reading through hundreds of pages of city documents. Reading those documents is not my strong suit. Thanks to Marc Schaub, Alon Golan, David Wessel, Steve Meier, and Ari Feinsmith for your input to the slide presentation and for joining me at private and public meetings with Sunnyvale Councilmembers and Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD) school board members. Thanks to Tim Oey for his deep knowledge and inspiration, and for designating me the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) representative to the Council meeting so that I had double the time to speak. Thanks to Maya Bronicki for advocating for the safety of students riding on Homestead Road.

At the Council meeting, we had a strong showing of bike supporters speaking.  Your speeches were compelling. In addition to those mentioned above, I would like to thank Dr. Paul Besser, Cupertino BPAC Vice Chair Hervé Marcy, Sunnyvale BPAC Vice Chair Bryce Beagle, Santa Clara BPAC Commissioner Betsy Megas, FUHSD Board Trustee Stanley Kou, Sunnyvale Sustainability Commission Chair Kristel Wickham, Ari's father Jason Feinsmith, my daughter Kinsey Kwan-Liu, Dr. Mark Mendosa, and Anne Paulson. Thanks to FUHSD Board Trustee and former Cupertino Mayor Rod Sinks for sharing the challenges of implementing the Cupertino Bike Plan; your experience gave our Council the courage to make this landmark decision.  I am delighted to connect with the Sunnyvale Youth Climate Action Team, with whom we held the Boba Rides on Homestead Road. You spoke eloquently about the need for safe bike lanes for students. Thanks to Elisa Floyd and Jamie Nguyen for your leadership, Radhika Goel, Ishaan Goel, Aayushma, and Reena. The Council absorbed your every word.

Thanks to the people who spoke but whose names I didn't catch.  Thanks to all of you who tried to speak but had to drop off because of the late hour.

In addition, the following elected officials sent in letters of endorsement for full-time bike lanes to the xouncil: FUHSD Board unanimously endorsed full-time bike lanes; Cupertino Union School District Board President Sylvia Leong; Cupertino Middle School Parent-Teacher Organization Board; and County Supervisor Otto Lee. I am told that it was unusual for so many elected officials to weigh in on an issue at a Sunnyvale Council meeting. Apparently, Homestead bike lane safety is important for many.

Thanks to other members of Bike Sunnyvale, Walk Bike Cupertino, and Western Wheelers who wrote to Council. Thanks to CalBike for helping to spread the word.

Lastly, thanks to our Council for unanimously supporting bike safety on Homestead Road. We are lucky to have them leading our city toward a more sustainable and bikeable future. I would especially like to acknowledge Linda Sell for making the motion for full-time bike lanes with a sign change and Richard Mehlinger for making the amendment to include buffered bike lanes and a road diet. I am grateful to Alysa Cisneros and Omar Din for their steadfast pro-bike attitude. Thanks to our Mayor Larry Klein who took the time to bike Homestead Road prior to the meeting to check out what all the fuss was about.

Go Cyclists!

Homestead Full Time Bike Lane Q&A

Q: Where will the new full-time bike lane be located:

A: The stretches that will be affected are disjointed and total 1.6 miles on the 3.4 miles of Homestead Road from Highway 85 intersection to Lawrence Expressway. 

Included are today's part-time bike lanes that will turn into full-time buffered bike lanes, without parking, after the implementation is complete. (Note that there are already some segments of Homestead Road that have buffered bike lanes.) The road diet will be implemented in just a short one-sixth mile section on the north side of Homestead between Bernardo and Wright.

The bike lanes will be a category known as Class 2b, which are bike lanes marked with just paint, no physical barriers.

Q: When will this happen?

A: The work will likely begin mid-next year, when the 2024 budget is finalized. (They can't start earlier because the 2023 budget is already finalized and didn't include Homestead Road.) They will start with planning and design work. Projects like this have typically taken two years to complete.

Q: How can I get involved?

A: Join the Bike Sunnyvale local team, or the SVBC Local Team for your area.