The City of Burlingame and Caltrans are in the mid stages of a roadway renewal project for the troubled 4-lane section of El Camino Real extending from San Mateo through Burlingame, and ending at Millbrae city limits. The section has prominent issues with bicycle and pedestrian safety, flooding and drainage, and tree health/hazards along the corridor. Caltrans has released four alternatives so far and a draft EIR that fail to address the needs of transit and bike users along the corridor.
Sign The Petition
Resilient ECR believes that the existing EIR done for the Burlingame El Camino Real Roadway Renewal Project is inadequate and dangerous, and that roadway configuration options including the following should have been studied and included as alternatives in the environmental impact report:
1. Transit-only lane in either the northbound or southbound direction, accompanied by a 4-to-3 lane road diet. 2. Shared use path for bicyclists.
🚨 Caltrans has released four design alternatives for El Camino Real AND a draft environmental review in Burlingame that fail to address the needs of transit and bicycle users along the corridor. 🚨
Cracked, unusable sidewalks caused by the eucalyptus trees discriminate against non-able bodied people or people using mobility devices. Transit travels on average 15mph, making this superior sustainable mode less appealing than driving. Bikes can either risk their lives in the traffic lanes with speeding vehicles or risk getting tripped up on the broken narrow sidewalks.
• The El Camino Real Corridor has over 13,000 daily boardings
• According to a SamTrans Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) phasing study, the Burlingame section East of El Camino is one of the densest parts of the corridor, in terms of housing and jobs.
• This type of density is well-served with fast, reliable transit service
• Bus-only "public service lanes" ensure that buses that can carry tens to hundreds of people do not get stuck behind single occupancy vehicles
• Buses only travel at roughly 15 mph on El Camino in Burlingame - while the speed limit is over twice that
• Transit signal preemption gives buses the priority at intersections (while prioritizing safe bicycle and pedestrian crossing)
• As a bus approaches an intersection, it will be given priority for the next green light, minimizing delay at the intersection
• Transit signal preemption and its cousin, transit signal priority, could result in over 8-10% travel time savings at intersections
• Shared use paths are paths separated from car traffic and shared by bicycles and pedestrians. These are some of the safest types of paths that minimize conflicts with cars
• Parallel routes to El Camino are noncontiguous and disjointed, and there is a lot of housing on El Camino with associated bike trips
• This study suggests that traffic fatalities are reduced by 44 percent by separating bike from vehicles, making protected bike lanes/shared use paths safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and even drivers! https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-separated-bike-lanes-means-safer-streets-study-says/
• Schools such as McKinley school are situated on El Camino, and see high levels of roadway crossings. Kids can't bike to school because of the high vehicle speeds and lack of safe bike facilities. Crossing the street is dangerous in and of itself.
• The most dangerous conflict points for pedestrians and bicyclists that see the highest numbers of collisions with cars are at intersections.
• Protected intersections for bicyclists look like adding bike boxes ahead of the stopping line for cars to improve line of sight, dedicated bicycle signals, and traffic calming improvements to reduce the speed of cars
• Protected Intersections can improve sight distance and safety
