Most of San Mateo’s top bike lane projects could remove parking or a lane of vehicle travel, leaving the city with a delicate balance to strike between mitigating traffic congestion and cyclist safety.
The tension is indicative of many Peninsula cities' unique growing pains as they face pressure to accelerate development while minimizing congestion, along with cyclist and pedestrian collisions. Between 2024 and 2025, there were 129 pedestrian and cyclist collisions combined throughout San Mateo, according to recent data gathered by the city from the Transportation Injury Mapping System. In January, a pedestrian was killed crossing the street at El Camino Real and 17th Avenue, and in March, a serious pedestrian collision occurred at the North Delaware Street and State Street intersection.
Many city leaders and advocates are hopeful that injuries and fatalities will decrease as the city invests in non-vehicle infrastructure like protected bike lanes, better traffic calming measures and pedestrian-friendly intersection signaling.
But most of the top priority bike projects could require the removal of either a lane of traffic or parking spaces, which may lead to more tense disagreements over whether vehicle or bike infrastructure should hold more weight.
“The majority of the road requires some reassessment of the right-of-way, and when you combine those together in a city of our nature, it does make for tough decisions whether we need to reduce a vehicle lane or remove parking,” Senior Engineer Jay Yu said during a recent City Council meeting.
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Some of the planned high-priority bike lane projects are on Peninsula Avenue — between San Mateo Drive and Humboldt Avenue — and 20th Avenue, between Alameda de las Pulgas and El Camino Real.
City leaders are desperate to avoid a repeat of the divisive Humboldt bike lane project, when the North Central neighborhood lost 200 parking spaces to make space for protected bike lanes. The bike lanes have remained controversial over the last several years, with extensive, ongoing council meetings and neighborhood outreach.
Last year, resident complaints also led the city to reverse course on its planned removal of a lane of traffic on Delaware Street, and another project along 19th Avenue and Fashion Island Boulevard also generated pushback. Now, city leaders are acutely aware they must tread carefully on projects that may necessitate a loss of parking or traffic lane
The city has already completed about 22% of its high- and medium-high priority bike improvements, including improved infrastructure on South B Street and South Grant Street.
“We learned a lot in Humboldt … we had a lot of lessons learned,” Yu said, adding that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution and that “we’re really just learning from the past projects to optimize future ones.”
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