Belmont leaders push for ECR bike lanes

GBI is a nearly 20-year-old effort that involves ECR improvements throughout the entire county, however, it has undergone some twists and turns. The initiative was once focused on housing and land use along the corridor. But with stricter housing mandates from the state, SamTrans recently pivoted to focus more on transit-related projects and has been collecting feedback from numerous cities along the Peninsula to improve biking, transit and pedestrian access along 22 miles of El Camino Real, from Daly City to Palo Alto. 

During a recent Belmont City Council meeting, SamTrans presented city leaders with a few ways to improve the corridor, including widening sidewalks and removing some street parking to make room for a dedicated bus lane or bike lanes. Another option just proposed widening sidewalks and adding more trees along ECR. 

Councilmember Thomas McCune said the city's traffic doesn’t justify a dedicated bus lane. 

“We have buses, but it's not that kind of system where you have so many buses that you really benefit from dedicated bus lanes,” McCune said during a Feb. 10 meeting. “That one to me is a non-starter.”

Other councilmembers agreed that they’d prefer to move forward with a bike, not bus, lane. 

“The bike lane really reflects the facts of the world that we live in — cars do predominate — but also the world that we want, more folks on public transportation, more people on bikes and more people on their feet,” Councilmember Gina Latimerlo said. 

Bike and pedestrian infrastructure is a likely outcome for most of the jurisdictions along ECR, especially as residents have increasingly made calls for improvements along busy corridors. In January, a 62-year-old woman was killed at the El Camino Real and 17th Avenue intersection, prompting renewed concerns over the dangerous intersections along ECR. Changes to the corridor are also particularly difficult and time consuming, as it falls under state, not local, jurisdiction. 

The initiative is still in the early stages and could change as other cities decide what improvements they’d like to make.