San Carlos tries to slow speeding on Crestview Drive: Traffic calming measures, bike lanes to be added for trial run on steep arterial road

With residents’ concerns about driver behavior, and a fatal collision in 2021 at the intersection of Crestview Drive and Edmonds Road, the city has studied how it can install traffic calming measures to address the problem. 

The proposed improvements include establishing unprotected bike lanes, with 3-foot buffers on each side, with vehicle traffic on the left and parked cars on the right. Improvements will also include narrowing the vehicle travel lanes, increasing the amount of pedestrian crossings and installing crossing beacons, and adding bulbouts at major intersections. 

While most councilmembers approved the pilot improvements project, Councilmember John Dugan opposed, feeling that bike lanes were proposed as a means to calm traffic, with which he fundamentally disagreed. 

“I object to the general notion of using bike lanes as a road diet mechanism or traffic calming technique, that’s just not an appropriate way to think about bike lanes,” Dugan said. 

Dugan advocated to swap the parked cars and bike lanes to establish protected bike lanes on the street, and some councilmembers weighed this potential swap. 

Meanwhile, the design team shared concerns of swapping the parking and bike lanes primarily in regards to visibility, considering the amount of vehicles coming in and out of driveways on Crestview Drive. 

While acknowledging the concerns with either design proposals, City Attorney Greg Rubens tried to get the council to leave the design to the professionals. 

“It’s not usually a good idea to redesign a roadway like this from the dais tonight,” Rubens said. “We have to build a safe roadway so we need to have engineers design it for us and you approve the design. That’s the best way to protect the city.” 

Councilmembers largely agreed to follow the direction of staff’s recommendation, with a critical note. 

A traffic circle was also proposed at Crestview Drive and Los Vientos Way, but Councilmember Sara McDowell sternly pushed against the idea believing that the addition would only increase the potential of accidents. McDowell previously lived near a traffic circle, and actively worked to get it removed after seeing its misuse firsthand. 

“I worry that we’re setting up an accident situation more so than now,” McDowell said. “We don’t know how to use them and people do not yield.” 

Councilmembers agreed and asked the traffic circle be removed from this intersection — which wasn’t included by the design team until it was requested by the city’s Planning and Transportation Committee. 

The proposed improvements are all fast builds, which means that they can be adjusted after studies are conducted to determine efficacy. Councilmembers agreed this method will be a good launch pad to establish permanent improvements to the main street. 

The proposed designs were described to be 30% completed. Once finalized, the designs will be returned to the dais, and incorporated within the city’s pavement rehabilitation project to be constructed concurrently. Approval of this entire project is intended in the coming months. 

City staff will study the improvements, after installed, for about a year before judging what is and isn’t working. Should the improvements be deemed to not solve the issue at hand, the City Council could move in a different direction, Dugan said. 

“I don’t anticipate that, but I do anticipate learning and wanting to make adjustments, so I’m glad that’s our mindset going in,” Dugan said. 

Councilmember Neil Layton agreed, and said it will be important to keep the end goal in mind, which is to decrease speeding on the road to protect drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists. 

“We have to reduce the speed,” Layton said. “That has to be the starting point for us, and then we have at least a pilot program that we can work on.”