In a contentious 3-2 vote on February 4, 2025, the Cupertino City Council approved the construction of the next phase (2A) of the Class IV protected bike lanes on Stevens Creek Boulevard, along with accepting grants to pay for it. Phase 1, completed in 2018, added protective concrete barriers to the already existing buffered bike lanes between Tantau Avenue and Wolfe Road. Phase 2A is a welcome and long-awaited continuation of these protective concrete barriers from Wolfe Rd to De Anza Boulevard including new bike signals at the intersections along this stretch.
A mockup of what the lanes will look like at Stelling in Phase 2B
Stevens Creek Boulevard is listed as the top priority project in the Vision Zero Plan that the City Council unanimously adopted in 2024, because it is one of the most dangerous corridors in the city for pedestrians and cyclists with 15 serious injuries and deaths in the past 10 years. Many students bike there every day to get to and from Cupertino High. Numerous studies show that protected bike lanes and off-street trails are the only types of bike lanes that reduce serious injuries and fatalities. Protected bike lanes also bring a range of other benefits, including economic growth.
Voting yes for safety
The three City Council members who voted yes on the project –Vice Mayor Kitty Moore, Councilmember Sheila Mohan and Councilmember JR Fruen – cited the increased safety that the protective concrete barriers will provide to cyclists as their primary consideration.
Vice Mayor Kitty Moore stated, “…I don’t want to be saying for car convenience sake that we’re going to create an unsafe condition when we had the opportunity to make it safer… I want everyone to be really cognizant of the choice.” She further stated that adding bollards would not solve the safety issue: “people regularly plow through those bollards and clear them out…and where there’s an opening the traffic just cuts through where they’re not supposed to.” Councilmember Sheila Mohan agreed, citing the two terrible fatal accidents in the city in the past few years: “It’s possible that both [fatalities] could have been avoided—I’m not saying they would have been avoided—by better protective barriers.”
Voting no…because the death and injury toll isn’t high enough?
The two council members who voted no on the project – Mayor Liang Chao and Councilmember Ray Wang – were clear in their opposition to all Class IV bike lanes, including the ones on McClellan Rd. In advance of the meeting, Mayor Chao created a multi-page powerpoint presentation listing the many reasons why she opposes protected bike lanes. She stated that in all cases she’d prefer plastic bollards if there had to be a change. “Something I have always wanted to do since I got elected in 2019 when we implemented the McClellan road separator, I didn’t feel that’s right…”
8000 psi rebar-reinforced concrete, vs. hollow plastic cone
Council member Ray Wang was explicit that prioritizing car traffic was key: “We want efficient lanes when we drive.” Shockingly, he also minimized the importance of the two deaths and 13 very seriously injured biking and walking residents in this stretch in the last few years by comparing it to the number of people who make right turns onto DeAnza. “I just want to make sure we use numbers properly…Fifteen [deaths and seriously injured people] out of millions of right turns over a ten year period is .0015% accidents. …I would say 15 is 15 too many, but for numbers and stats that’s a very very, very, very small number in terms of right turns being made so I just wanted to make sure that was stated out there.”
Unlike Councilmember Ray Wang, we at Walk Bike Cupertino take these deaths and severe injuries very seriously. These are not just statistics, they are people – they are our neighbors, our family members, and our friends.
Public Input on this project
Another objection raised by Mayor Chao and Councilmember Wang was that they felt there had not been enough public input on these plans and further input was needed, if possible without losing the grant money which covers the bulk of the cost of the project. The state had given a 6-month deadline on the grant to Cupertino to approve this project by the end of February 2025 or risk having the grant be rescinded.
Councilmember Fruen pointed out that there has been extensive public input on this project, which was first proposed as a top-tier project in 2016’s Bicycle Transportation Plan: “We’ve done six years worth of public outreach on this, it’s had many, many touch points both with the Council and with the Planning Commission and with the public in general and that’s with Councils of very different configurations, Bike Ped Commissions with very different configurations including frankly the three people who were just appointed to it. Every single one of them has previously served on the Bike Ped Commission so they’ve had input on this….I think people know that these are supposed to be concrete barriers. They’ve seen what they look like going down the rest of Stevens Creek when you go eastward on the street.”
Bollards don’t offer much protection
Council member Fruen also echoed Vice Mayor Moore’s contention that plastic bollards are ugly and not as safe: “as for the bollards themselves …I agree with Vice Mayor Moore with regard to what these things look like. They’re hideous. I see them all the time in downtown San Jose. I’ve seen large trucks maneuver through them because they don’t want to be obstructed by them when making a right-hand turn. That would happen here… there are plenty that are knocked over. I just don’t see them being a useful deterrent.”
Commissioner Moore was forthright that it was necessary to consider grant funding timing, and any re-review of the project by the Bike Ped Commission should not focus on costs, but rather on the safety aspect: “if you want to have further comments from the Bike Ped Commission I would hope that they are focusing on the collisions and the accidents we’re trying to prevent.”
Staff refute unproven claims of Councilmembers
Further discussion included statements by Mayor Chao that she would like to consider emergency access, as she had heard, “even now, at DeAnza, emergency vehicles cannot get through…because it used to be they can even get through through the bike lanes now they cannot and then if all the lanes are full they are stuck.” Director of Public Works Chad Mosley quickly responded that emergency vehicle access is unchanged with the new lanes: “Our traffic signals on Stevens Creek Boulevard are already equipped with the preemption devices which turn the signals green for our emergency vehicles [and red for traffic].” A picture of these special lights is at left, near the station on Stevens Creek Boulevard and Torre Avenue.
Council member Ray Wang also made further comments that “the process is broken” because intersections were included in this Phase 2A project. Public Works Director Mosley refuted this claim as well, stating, “the original plan did include intersections” and “the entire bike plan talks about intersection improvements to enhance bicycle safety.” Intersections have been a part of the project since its inception, including in Phase 1 (Tantau to Wolfe) built in 2018. Council member Wang further continued his comments by saying, “residents have seen what’s happened since we’ve had these bike lanes and the sentiments have changed.”
After almost 1 ½ hours, a vote
It was evident to all watching at this point in the discussion that Mayor Chao and Councilmember Wang hoped to stall or cancel the project by sending it back for review by two commissions followed by another review by Council. Vice Mayor Moore seemed to understand this and asked the question, “What is it that you’re hoping to actually change because I don’t support going to bollards and do support in particular protecting that DeAnza and Stevens Creek Boulevard intersection.” Council member Wang was angry and adamant: “The residents are, in general, trying to balance trying to get from point A to B, trying to make sure everything is safe, and trying to be forced onto a contract because of a timeline and an improper process to me is just not right.” There was no response to that from any of the Councilmembers nor staff, likely as that accusation had already been addressed and refuted.
Vice Mayor Moore had made an initial motion to have further review by the Bike Ped Commission, but now she withdrew her motion. Subsequently, the motion to approve the staff recommendation made by Councilmember Mohan was put to a vote and passed 3-2 (Fruen/Mohan/Moore- yes, Wang/Chao- no). The entire discussion of this item was 1 hour and 29 minutes, an extremely long time to simply consider accepting grants and a construction contract for a project that has gone through six years of extensive public, commission and council reviews.
What this means for future bike/ped projects
It’s clear that future bicycle and pedestrian projects face an uphill battle for approval by the current Cupertino City Council, regardless of if they are highly ranked in City approved plans, have extensive public outreach, and are almost or completely fully paid for by grant funding. Most worryingly, Council member Wang states that “residents”–implying all residents–will prioritize reducing any perceived inconvenience to car drivers over increased safety for residents who walk and bike, even if the data does not support that perception. The thousands of Cupertino residents who support better and safer walking and biking do not seem to be considered in these comments.
Thanks to the support of Vice Mayor Moore and Councilmembers Mohan and Fruen, this particular project is moving forward. Once implemented, it will provide a safer commute for many city residents including hundreds of students, on an important east-west corridor.
All quotes were taken from the Youtube video of the City Council meeting on February 4, 2025 at the link below. (For a transcript, scroll down to “more” below the video then click “show transcript”). Utterances that did not affect the content (such as saying “um”) were deleted in the quotes.
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.