$81 million safety upgrades plan for El Camino Real is approved
The upgrades are expected to take years to complete
One of the busiest streets in Mountain View is expected to get a muchneeded facelift in the coming years.
On Tuesday night, the Mountain View City Council unanimously approved an estimated $81 million improvement plan for El Camino Real featuring protected bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks and three new crosswalks with signals.
Although the upgrades are expected to take years to complete, the council’s decision marks the first step toward making the safety improvements that elected officials and city staff have spent years discussing.
“This has been a long time coming and I look forward to it actually getting completed and coming to fruition soon,” Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga said during the meeting.
Stretching over 600 miles of California and cutting through the middle of many cities on the Peninsula, El Camino Real — also known as State Route 82 — is a heavily trafficked thoroughfare for motorists. The boulevard, however, has historically been a prominent source of safety concerns for pedestrians and cyclists.
In the past year, two people have been struck and killed along the 4-mile stretch of El Camino Real in Mountain View.
In January, Joseph Polston, 61, died after getting hit by a vehicle when he stepped off of the sidewalk on El Camino Real near Yuba Drive, according to police. And in April, Mary Ellen Cabanski Evers, 59, was struck and killed while crossing El Camino at Palo Alto Avenue, which is one of the boulevard’s many intersections without a crosswalk.
April Webster, a resident of Mountain View for nine years and a frequent cyclist, urged the council Tuesday night to approve the plan and move swiftly in putting it into action.
“I don’t really feel safe crossing anywhere along El Camino Real and I bike a lot all over the Bay Area and the Los Altos Hills,” Webster told the council. “I think it would benefit not only cyclers like me but pedestrians and drivers and the businesses along El Camino Real.”
In 2014, the city of Mountain View adopted a plan for El Camino that provided a road map for future changes and investment to the boulevard. City staff subsequently began developing a more detailed outline.
Under the newly adopted plan, on-street parking will be replaced with protected bike lanes, bus stops will be updated to allow for the safety of cyclists and three new mid-block crosswalks with signals will be constructed at Crestview Drive, Bonita Avenue and Pettis Avenue.
The city expects that half the anticipated $81 million in total improvement costs will be covered by developers along the boulevard as part of their required frontage improvements.
As for the remaining $40 million in estimated costs, city staff said that Caltrans will cover some as part of its upcoming paving and ADA projects, the city will seek outside grants and the remainder will be funded through the city’s capital improvement program.