New bike plan to target dark streets, stressful intersections

Palo Alto leaders like to boast about their commitment to bicycling, an activity that they say is key to meeting the city’s environmental goals and to encouraging a healthier community.

Over the past decade, City Council members put their money where their mouth is as the city completed major infrastructure projects like the new bike bridge over U.S. Highway 101 and a roundabout on Ross Road and East Meadow Drive while making many smaller upgrades to existing bike boulevards on Bryant Street and Park Boulevard.

But as the City Council moves toward adopting a new bicycle and pedestrian plan, city leaders and residents also acknowledge that riding in Palo Alto isn’t always a smooth – or safe – experience. At an April 29 community meeting on bike improvements, numerous bicyclists complained about the persistence of dangerous conditions both on neighborhood streets and on major arteries such as El Camino Real and San Antonio Road.

Even supposedly bike-friendly streets like Bryant Street aren’t particularly safe, said resident Mark Shull. He blamed cut-through traffic and minimally visible bike markings.

“I’ve been knocked off my bike twice by cars during commute hours on Bryant and Churchill, both from the side,” Shull said.

Like others, Shull suggested that the city needs more direct inner-city bike corridors to encourage more biking around town — a request that is supported by a recently performed analysis by the city’s consultants. The study, which was performed by Kittelson Associates, found that only 68% of the city’s street miles fall under the top two categories of “traffic safety,” which suggests that they are safe for riding for most children and adults.

The rest fall into the moderate- or high-stress categories and remain largely inaccessible to most children and many adults. The problem is particularly acute along arteries like San Antonio Road, Oregon Expressway and El Camino Real, all of which are in the highest stress category, Level 4. Many other streets, including Charleston Road, Loma Verde Avenue, Colorado Avenue and Embarcadero Road fall under Level 3, suggesting plenty of room for improvement.

Amanda Leahy, an associate planner at Kitteloson who is working on Palo Alto’s master plan, said that some parts of the city are disconnected from the bike-friendly areas by “high-stress roadways and intersections,” which may deter many potential riders.

“This means that somebody living on one side of San Antonio road perhaps may choose not to bike across that intersection if they live opposite a destination,” Leahy told the council.

Penny Ellson, a bike advocate who lives near San Antonio Road, pointed to several features of the road that make bicycling less than ideal: a bike lane that abruptly vanishes near the Middlefield Road and San Antonio intersection and “sharrow” markings for bicycles in a highly congested area with a posted speed limit of 35 mph. With the city planning to add about 2,000 new housing units in this area over the next eight years, Ellson suggested that the city consider preserving some land on San Antonio for future bike lanes.

“I want this space reserved, and I hope you do too because the future residents of that area are going to need a bike facility,” Ellson said.

As part of the planning process, consultants looked at five years of collision data between 2018 and 2022, which included 257 collisions involving bicycles and 104 involving pedestrians. The analysis concluded that the vast majority of the bike crashes – 61% – were broadside collisions.

Of the 13 bike collisions that resulted in fatalities or serious injuries during this period, seven were broadside collisions (54%). Head-on collisions and cases in which a bicyclist hit an object were tied for a distant second, with two collisions each.

While high traffic levels and a lack of separated bike lanes contribute to cyclist stress, darkness creates a problem for pedestrians. The Kittleson analysis also found that about 29% of the injury collisions involving pedestrians happened at night. The same held true for about half of the pedestrian-involved collisions that resulted in fatalities or severe injuries. There were six such collisions during the five-year period, the consultants found.

“Although the majority of nighttime pedestrian-involved collisions take place in areas with streetlights, the effectiveness of this lighting is inconsistent,” a report from the city states. “Often, streetlights may not be bright enough or may be spaced too far apart. This issue particularly affects pedestrians and those on sidewalks, as streetlights are often designed primarily with vehicles in travel lanes in mind.”

While the consultants don’t plan to release recommendations for bike improvements until later this year, Vice Mayor Ed Lauing pointed to the collision data as indicators that the city’s next bike plan should pay special attention to intersections and to “investing more significantly in lighting throughout our city.”

Several residents and council members questioned the results of the study, which suggests that some roadways are less stressful than they actually are. Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims noted that the residential neighborhood around Gunn High School is marked as a low-stress area on the consultant’s map but regularly features “a sea of cars and bikes.”

She suggested that the city and consultants install additional counters in various parts of the city to better understand traffic patterns in neighborhoods that are turning into thoroughfares.

“It’s not just my neighborhood,” Lythcott-Haims said. “This is happening in different segments of the city, particularly as Waze redirects people away from the major arteries, through the residential, in order to get them to the highway or their destinations quicker.”

She and her colleagues all agreed that the city needs to invest more in encouraging people to bike and walk. Council member Greg Tanaka, an avid cyclist and fiscal hawk, said that bike improvements represent the highest return on investment for the city as it tries to meet its climate change goals and foster a healthy community.

Bike and pedestrian improvements aren’t just good for cyclists and pedestrians, said Council member Pat Burt. It also benefits drivers who have to contend with traffic and parking issues.

“If we don’t frame it that way, we’re structuring a plan around just a fraction of the community who, like me, really cares about the biking system,” Burt said.