Will bike, pedestrian upgrades come to El Camino Real in San Mateo County?

The Grand Boulevard Initiative is a nearly 20-year-old effort that involves ECR improvements throughout the entire county, though 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, however, minimal funding has been secured. 

The improvements range from less-resource-intensive projects to more capital-intensive initiatives, but the agency is still in the early stages of identifying all the projects that will be included in the plan.

Cliff Robbins, member of the San Mateo Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission, said he was hopeful the city-focused efforts would include road improvements and potentially limiting left turns during peak hours. 

“The quality of the road itself just sucks to be honest,” Robbins said. “Getting that road actually regularly smoothed out … would be huge.”

He added that limiting left turns during heavy commute hours would also ease congestion. 

In addition to traffic safety improvements, the initiative also aims to improve pedestrian and bike infrastructure, but due to Caltrans’ jurisdiction over El Camino Real, cities along the road have had limited ability to make improvements to it. That means some jurisdictions, like San Mateo, have had to prioritize other city-owned roads for bike lane improvements. Unlike Delaware Street and other similar roads, however, El Camino Real spans over 20 miles along the Peninsula, making it a prime spot for connecting the northern and southern ends of the county.

Sustainability and Infrastructure Commissioner Kimi Narita said one of the limitations with San Mateo’s bike master plan, for instance, was that it was confined to city limits. Once some of the bike lanes cross city limits, it’s “just chaos,” she said. 

“ECR’s the answer, but politically it is not owned by any individual city, and instead it’s owned by the state and the state has the view of having to think about people regionally and as a whole state, rather than city by city where things are just inherently more limited,” Narita said. 

Matt Fabry, San Mateo Public Works director, warned the project may involve difficult conversations over the community’s preferences. 

“To put in protected bike lanes, something has to give, and it’s either going to be parking or it’s going to be a lane of travel,” Fabry said of changes that might be made on ECR. “There is limited right of way, and there are going to be tradeoffs to accommodate that.”

The entire Grand Boulevard Initiative, which includes about 22 miles of redesign, could take up to a decade to complete. SamTrans hopes to finalize the cost, construction schedule and secure necessary funds for the multimodal plan — from San Mateo to Redwood City — by 2026.