San Mateo commissioners didn’t mince words while weighing the future of controversial bike lanes that replaced parking spots in the North Central neighborhood — the city is growing, and residents must adjust to shifting needs.
The bike lanes along Humboldt Street and Poplar Avenue removed about 200 parking spaces in 2022, as part of a $1.5 million federal grant, and the initiative caused an uproar in the neighborhood.
The two-and-a-half-year battle is emblematic of the growing pains a suburban city like San Mateo faces, as it begins to feel the effects of denser neighborhoods and larger housing developments, while also accommodating demand for better non-vehicle infrastructure, such as bike lanes. Still, the lack of parking has been a longstanding problem. The houses tend to have a higher number of family members compared to other single-family home neighborhoods, and commercial vehicles, including landscaping and food trucks, take up significant portions of some of the streets.
For many, the city’s removal of the parking spaces to install bike lanes was tone deaf at best, discriminatory at worst, and inflamed tensions among many North Central residents, reinforcing the perception that the needs of the neighborhood are often overlooked to accommodate more affluent residents from other communities.
“We’re so tired of people outside of our district, that are privileged, go home to their big houses that have driveways you could fit four or five cars into, and making decisions for us,” said North Central resident Trina Pierce during a Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission meeting Dec. 10.
Others, however, have stated that the bike lanes are critical for many San Mateo residents, including those living in North Central — as many do not have a car — and that they have a right to bike safely to their homes, school or work, which also alleviates parking issues.
“The parking in front of my house was removed on my side of the street, and I don't want you to give it back to me,” said Kevin Simpson, another North Central resident. “This is really important for the future of our city.”
The current and prior city councils have been split on the issue with some in favor of keeping them as is and others, including Deputy Mayor Nicole Fernandez — whose district encompasses North Central — wanting to see at least a partial removal of the bike lanes.
If the bike lanes are removed, Engineering Manager Jay Yu confirmed the city would likely not have to pay back the grant money it received to install them, but it could impact prospects for future grant applications and would cost about $1.5 million to restore the segment of the road where the lanes are removed.
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“If we do go ahead and propose another project of this nature, if we did remove a bike lane, we've been told that that's something [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] would consider,” Yu said. “Qualitatively there is potential reputational impact, but that is yet to be seen.”
To address both parking and cycling concerns, commissioners supported keeping the bike lanes but encouraged city staff to commit to alleviating the parking problems, such as implementing a permit program or even exploring a one-way street on Humboldt.
“Parking in North Central is a perpetual issue. It has been an issue for years. It was an issue before the bike lane, and it's an issue after the bike lane,” Commissioner Kimiko Narita said. “I would encourage the council to spend significant resources exploring parking strategies holistically in North Central in general.”
While it’s garnered the most controversy in the last few years, the project is by no means the only bike lane effort that has faced pushback. In fact, some of the bike lane infrastructure discussions have started to rival age-old debates over new housing — proponents reiterating the need for safer, connected bike routes, while impacted neighbors lament their congestion or parking concerns aren’t adequately considered. Some residents opposed the new bike lane on Delaware Street this year, and another proposed installment on 19th Avenue and Fashion Island Boulevard has sparked concern.
Almost all commissioners responded to a brewing sentiment among those opposed to the bike lanes — as the city inevitably grows, residents have to share the space, including streets, and tradeoffs must be made. Living near vibrant areas like downtown has its benefits, but it also means accepting more surrounding noise, for instance, Narita said.
“Some of the comments that we heard use language that makes it sound like that square footage of the street in front of someone's home belongs to them,” Narita said. “It is the definition of living in community that we have to sometimes be inconvenienced for the sake of fellow community members … I have to be chill when the spot in front of my house is utilized by someone else.”
State-mandated housing goals are more ambitious than ever, and just in the last year, the city has received a couple massive development proposals that would build more than 800 housing units on each site, not to mention several others that would each build more than 200 housing units. The city is changing and must accommodate growing populations, Commissioner Rich Kranz added.
“We’re going to be building seven- to nine-story apartment buildings,” he said. “We are going to be getting more people.”
The City Council will discuss the item in February.
(10) comments
It is not surprising that the City’s survey produced questionable results, given how it was designed. As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out.
That said, one outcome is telling: residents on Humboldt Street, Fremont Street, and Idaho Street all indicated they do not want bike lanes on their own streets. When asked to choose between locating the lanes on one another’s streets, each group preferred that the largely unused bike lanes be placed somewhere else.
That collective response speaks volumes about the lack of neighborhood support for this approach.
The survey results said
- Humboldt Street residents like the bike lanes and want to keep them
- Fremont Street residents don't want the "Bike Boulevard" on their street
- Idaho Street residents don't want the "Bike Boulevard" on their street
So absolutely no one believes "Bicycle Boulevards" or "shared bike lanes" are even a thing and the majority of people want to keep the bike lanes.
The neighborhood needs a permit system to send all these private car collectors packing.
But who needs surveys anyways, this is about incompetent Democrats occupying important city council seats:
- the city brought in HUD money to provide Transportation Equity - and three middle-aged white men did exactly that.
- then several BIBOCs colluded to take away bike lanes from school children in a low-income neighborhood.
Basically all PTOs and PTAs in this area said they were promised these bike lanes and they want to keep them.
So shame on former Mayors Claire Mack, Amo Lee, and Diane Papan.
Shame also on current council members Nicole Fernandez, Danielle Cwirko-Godycki and Lisa Diaz Nash for going after these children in a low-income neighborhood. Some of them even want to bring weed shops to their city when real politicians fought so hard to reduce smoking almost anywhere.
Who votes for such individuals?
As the commissioners said - the bike lanes are having the intended effect as recent surveys suggest that ridership has increased. In addition, surveys indicated that a clear majority of local residents support the bike lanes.
We need more leaders like Commissioner Narita - willing to look out for all residents, even those who are less affluent.
Narita's mis-informed opinions confirm an extreme bias - before resident parking was removed, Humboldt St. had "SHARED BIKE LANES" --- one would think she would be OK with and advocating to restore resident parking and re-install "SHARED BIKE LANES", a more common sense and reasonable position to take where everyone benefits - and not just a position where ONLY ONE GROUP (bikers) get to own the road.
there is no such thing as "shared bike lanes" or "shared roads" or "Bicycle Boulevards" or "Bike Routes" or "Neighborhood Greenways". These is all hoax-infrastructure-spending, this is how San Mateo Democrats have been stealing bike funding for many, many years by subsidizing "free" car storage.
These contraptions only exist so San Mateo can falsify it's bike infrastructure statistics.
American drivers have become so bad and Democrats are too soft-on-crime that all these fake-name-projects need to go.
(see Calmatters articles about License To Kill)
Our children deserve real, safe, separated bike infrastructure away from these car collectors that are misappropriating public space for their private convenience.
Everyone in this neighborhood MUST have 2-4 spots to store their own cars - any car collector with more vehicles can be asked to walk a few minutes around the block.
Any city council member promoting "bike boulevards" for children needs to be recalled for incompetence or being too gullible.
Luckily these committee members saw right through this.
The removal of parking for over 200 residents on Humboldt street was a gross misuse of power. While some bike zealots continue to claim there are over 10,000 bike trips happening each day on Humboldt St., real video recorded data and real people observations confirm that these bike lanes (like others) go virtually unused. The data shows there are less than 5 trips per day on average in those costly bike lanes. The city needs to own its mistake on this failed experiment and restore parking to those residents living in an Equity Priority Community. And YES - we should hold those previous elected officials responsible for the cost to install these bike lanes that go virtually unused and the cost to the impacted residents.
Privileged people mis-using "Equity" for their own purpose, I like it. That's right out of the playbook of Amo Lee, Rick Hedges and Nicole Fernandez. So let's dive in.
Yes, North Central is an "Equity Priority Area" (EPA or EFA), which means that this area has too much pollution (from 101 "Lexus Lanes"), too much speed, and too much car violence. This area is rated as one of the most dangerous in San Mateo for people on foot or bike. Nicole Fernandez said so herself ... and then she turned around and now wants to encourage more car violence.
So what does Transportation Equity really look like?
The title "Equity Focus Area" or "Community of Concern" is handed out to neighborhoods with a high ratio of people that can't afford cars, don't want to afford a car, or simply can't drive cars because of age, abilities, disabilities, medications, etc.
Basically if you can own and operate a car in these neighborhoods, congratulations, you made it. For you, "Equity" is fixed. If you can afford a car in the Bay Area and pay for gasoline, you can also afford a little smaller car with better MPG and pay for your own storage. That is not too much to asked for.
But the easiest way to frame this is:
"If children in affluent neighborhoods in Palo Alto or Menlo Park deserve bike lanes, then children in low-income neighborhoods along hwy 101 deserve them even more so."
Parents in Equity Priority Areas might not be able to call UBER for every school trip. Of course the privileged and entitled residents asking for "I want my parking back", "I can't be asked to use my own garage", "I don't want my car on my lawn" fight hard to keep this subsidy the city simply can't afford anymore.
So when Commissioner Narita says, “…we have to sometimes be inconvenienced…” the "we" applies only to homeowners in the area and not bicyclists (however little and whether they live in the area or not) who are able to ride on existing roads. It’s apparent these councilmembers are looking to force their vision of the future onto you, however much you’ll be inconvenienced.
As for Mr. Simpson, who doesn’t want the city to give back the parking in front of his house – hey Mr. Simpson, the parking in front of your house is not yours. You never gave it away – the city took it, as it did for many of your neighbors. If parking returns, you’re free to not use it. Good luck to residents in removing the bike lines. It appears councilmembers are slow-walking the removal. I’d recommend folks look into replacing commissioners who want to discriminate against you.
TBot old friend, you keep forgetting that the Humboldt Street home owners (and renters) like the bike lanes now. They recognized it makes their street safer, cleaner, better organized.
Bicyclists cannot use the existing roads, soft-on-crime Democrats made sure of that.
Calmatters has shown that Democrats have handed drivers the "License To Kill":
https://calmatters.org/series/license-to-kill/
Who wants to "share the road" with all these drunk, distracted drivers?
And I know you like to protect the biological female against the violent outbursts of a male. It has been known that biological female cyclists really don't like "sharing the road" with violent, drunk, distracted, biological males. American drivers don't have a great reputation of driving well or willing to share. And Democrats don't have the reputation of holding them accountable.
Anyhow, Streets are Made for Transportation and not Private Car Storage.
Bike lanes are means to transportation, parking lanes are causing congestion.
The Humboldt Street residents have seen it, understand it, and like to keep it.
And the residents on Fremont and Idaho have spoken as well. They don't want that nonsense called "Bicycle Boulevard" either. They can see right through that hoax.
In the end the committee made the right arguments and perfect choice. We need more people that can read and follow a few simple plans (transportation plan, bike/ped plan, climate action plan, sustainable living plan, quality-of-life plan, SMC Active Transportation Plan, etc).
Some additions: The San Mateo Sustainability & Infrastructure Commission vote in favor of the bike lanes was 5-0. The city conducted a survey which showed residents support the bike lanes 2-1 with all segments showing consistent results including Humboldt St and North Central. Public commenters at the meeting supported the bike lanes - 22 pro comments with 7 against. The message is clear - the bike lanes should stay and are paramount to the current and future transportation needs of San Mateo.
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