The City of San Mateo is developing a 5 year Bikeways Master Plan aimed at increase bicycle usage and is currently accepting feedback from the public.  The primary goals are to reduce automobile usage and increase bicycle/pedestrian mode share for trips less than 1 miles to 30% by 2020.  I attended the San Mateo Bickeways Master Plan meeting last Wednesday, July 14th to participate.  I expected a dry, boring event, but I was completely wrong.  I walked out excited about the city’s plans for cyclists.

The meeting started in the council chambers where a group of consultants hired by the city introduced the background and goals of the Master Plan before taking us over to the atrium to speak with city representatives at several stations about possible changes.

Afterwards, the attendees broke into five groups of ten for sessions covering our bicycle usage habits, problem areas within the city, and solutions to those problems.  Back in the council chambers, representatives from each group spoke about each teams best recommendations for the city.

My group was extremely excited about our first suggestion– a “bicycle superhighway” paralleling the Caltrain tracks proposed by one of the city board members in our group.  Not only does Caltrain serve the critical North-South route, but it cuts through the center of the city, making access from most locations in the city to the “highway” convenient.  Although it sounds like a daunting task, most bicycle improvements are funded as attachments to other public works and California recently approved a high speed rail system which may use the Caltrain right of way.  The rail line would be enclosed and a bicycle path could be incorporated into the design on the outside.  This would extend the whole system along the peninsula!

The idea of being able to cruise, without stop lights or signs, from San Francisco to San Jose excited everyone.

We all agreed that the existing system of bike lanes and routes has many short comings.  Many patches of accessibility are not connected and there is too much emphasis on bicycle facilities on major roads.  Delaware, for example, is a major North-South route, however, nobody feels comfortable taken inexperienced riders on Delaware and the condition of the road is very poor, especially around 92.  Additionally, access across 101 is poor, especially the total cluster at 3rd Ave.

Other popular ideas were development of the city waterways to include bicycle paths; consistent, visible parking in downtown; and a proposal for a trial to remove a car parking space on the corner of each block in downtown and addition of raised bicycle parking.  This would make parking easy to find and also solve one of the major issues downtown: the sidewalks are not wide enough for bicycle parking.  Currently, there are places to lock bicycles in the parking garage.   However, few participants were even aware of these and most didn’t want to park in the dark, uninviting (and seemingly unsafe) the first level or walk up to the second level.

Another interesting idea was to re-purpose parking meters after conversion to an electronic parking system.  The posts left over from the meters could be used for locking bicycles.  A nice addition for electric bicycles would be to install electrical outlets on some posts.

Finally, the city must coordinate with neighboring cities as, at least in our group, no one bicycled exclusively within San Mateo.

A survey on cycling habits was open until recently; it’s still possible to post free form comments and also map the routes you commonly use within the city.

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