In surprising unanimous votes, the Cupertino Vision Zero Plan (VZ) and the Lawson Middle School Protected Bikeway were approved by the City Council on July 9, 2024. Both of these projects will significantly improve safety for all residents in the city.
Thank you to all the community members that wrote an email to the City Council or came to speak at the Council meeting to support the Lawson Bikeway and/or the Vision Zero Plan.
We’re proud that WBC was instrumental in coordinating support for both items and providing key input into the Vision Zero Plan to make it the best it can be.
Together, WE made all the difference in these votes!
Vision Zero
The goal of Vision Zero is to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries to users of our roadway system, including vehicle drivers and passengers, bicyclists, pedestrians and transit riders by 2040.
WBC has written about the Vision Zero plan previously and some of the missing items in the first draft. We are pleased to say that our feedback–like that of many other residents and the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission –was incorporated in the final draft.
WBC commends the city staff for their significant work on creating a detailed and complete plan using a robust process that provided multiple opportunities to the community to provide input and participate in the process.
The approved plan includes a data-driven analysis of high injury corridors and intersections, a comprehensive toolbox of available infrastructure and policy options, a detailed action plan for implementing Vision Zero, and specific performance metrics to track our success.
Specific projects for improving each of these high-injury corridors and intersections will be detailed in the upcoming Active Transportation Plan which will replace the old 2016 Bike Plan and the 2018 Ped Plan. There will be opportunity for resident input into the specific plans as they are being developed. City Council as always will need to approve each project before any design or construction can begin.
Lawson Bikeway
Since 2018, the city, in partnership with CUSD, the Lawson PTA and the Bike Ped Commission, has been exploring solutions to the safety issues for students who walk or bike to Lawson Middle School. In 2023, a large independent consultant-run Feasibility Study was completed with extensive public outreach and several community meetings. The study identified an on-street two-way protected bike lane as one of two possible solutions. In May 2023, the Bike Ped Commission voted for this solution as the best option and recommended that the City Council approve it.
Only July 9th, 2024, the City Council approved moving forward with this solution. The new separated, protected two-way bikeway will not only improve safety for current students, but also encourage future students to get to school actively.
A large number of students and parents from Lawson (past, present and future), community members, Walk Bike Cupertino members, three CUSD board members, and the CUSD District Superintendent emailed or came to speak at the Council meeting in support of the bike lanes.
Cupertino resident Phillip Nguyen said in his letter to City Council, “Parents will see the biking infrastructure and know that their child has a reliable and safe method of active transport to get to class. This will only create a healthier, stronger community.”
Stacy Yao, CUSD Superintendent, stated in her letter to the council, “This solution is the outcome of multi-year collaborative work by our CUSD staff, City Staff, Lawson school staff, and the parent community, and solves many issues at all points of entry to the school. This bikeway option provides the necessary separation for cyclists from both motor vehicles and pedestrians.”
The Greene Middle School two-way bikeway in Palo Alto, which was installed several years ago and is the same design as the Lawson Middle School bikeway.
Bikeway Plan
The timeline for the new bikeway is to have designs and project bids completed in Fall/Winter 2024, and construction completed in Spring 2025.
A diagram of the new bike lanes at Lawson, for illustration purposes only. The final design will be available fall 2024.
Key reasons that community members support the bikeway:
⬥ Safety for our children is a priority. Accidents have already happened, and we need to implement a solution before another child is hurt. Students cycling to Lawson have frequent dangerous conflicts with cars if biking on the road and pedestrians if biking on the sidewalk.
⬥ The bikeway completely separates pedestrian traffic, cycling traffic, and car traffic, making all students safe, regardless of how they commute to school.
⬥ The bikeway is a reasonable cost ($120K) and fully funded with an Apple grant.
⬥ Even though the bikeway removes 50 parking spaces along Vista Ave, the city’s parking analysis shows there is still an adequate amount of parking for residents and teachers, and 500 more spaces within a 5 minute walk for visitors. CUSD has also offered to allow visitors to park in the CUSD parking lot after hours.
⬥ The alternative plan proposed widening the sidewalk to create a multi-use path shared by pedestrians and cyclists. It did not eliminate conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists, cost $1 million more, required removing 28 trees, and required significant utility work.
We’re excited that these positive changes were approved by our current city council for the safety of all users of our roads. Together, we made it happen!
The information in this article is solely the opinion of the author and Walk-Bike Cupertino and does not reflect the opinions of any other organization or entity. For more information, contact WBC at info@walkbikecupertino.org.