In December, 1995 the City Council authorized the filing of a grant application to complete an inventory and evaluation of major roadway facilities for the possible installation of bicycle improvements. A $50,000 Transportation Development Act grant was awarded in May, 1996. The firms of Anthony Mori & Company and Alta Transportation Consulting were selected to prepare the study. This study, subsequently named the Sunnyvale Bicycle Opportunities Study, is now complete for the Council’s consideration.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study represents the broad planning phase of an effort to provide a comprehensive on-road bicycle network in Sunnyvale. Currently, a small proportion of the Sunnyvale roadway system provides bicycle facilities-only 18% of major (arterial and collector) streets have bike lanes or wide shoulders. City policy calls for maximizing bike facilities and encouraging bicycling as a transportation alternative. Studies have shown that providing comprehensive on-road bike networks can dramatically increase bike use without compromising safety.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study has inventoried the physical conditions and usage of all arterial and collector streets in the City. This information was then analyzed to determine what types of actions would be necessary to provide bike lanes or improved shoulders. From this evaluation, a set of recommendations for action was prepared on a roadway segment by roadway segment basis. Anthony Mori, the project lead consultant will be in attendance to assist staff in presenting the study methodology and findings.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) was integrally involved in the preparation of the document. The BAC reviewed and commented on the scope of the study, and reviewed work products on three different occasions. The BAC reviewed a draft report to Council at its December, 1998 meeting and supports acceptance of the Study, with minor text clarifications. Staff will incorporate the BAC’s suggested changes.

Should the Council accept the Bicycle Opportunities Study, staff will initiate efforts to refine and implement the study recommendations. Bicycle Opportunities Study recommendations include low-impact, easy-to-implement re-striping projects; projects requiring parking removal and other legislative actions; and projects requiring road widening or adoption of new traffic controls. These recommendations stem from a broad-brush, City-wide, planning-level effort. A handful of the recommendations can be easily implemented without detailed engineering or public outreach. However, this study is not intended to be an improvement plan. Implementing certain recommendations will require careful scrutiny, targeted public outreach, and evaluation and refinement of alternatives. Many recommendations would impact neighbors and neighborhoods, and public input and acceptance would be necessary. The recommendations contained in this draft study are intended as guidance, not as an action plan. Implementation of the particular study findings is not absolute. Further, project-specific study and more detailed evaluation of alternatives is required in many cases, and is assumed to occur over an extended period of time.

At its October 20, 1998 meeting, the City Council adopted a work plan to prepare a Bicycle Capital Improvement Program (CIP) that will serve as the outline for the implementation of the Bicycle Opportunities Study. This Bike CIP will identify resources and prepare a program of projects and studies according to the available resources. This program will be incorporated in the Ten Year Resource Allocation Plan.

Funds are programmed in the Ten Year Resources Allocation Plan under project 820450 to prepare the next phase of the project, the Bicycle Capital Improvement Program. Eventual implementation of comprehensive bicycle improvements could have significant implications that are not currently funded.

Staff has fielded several phone calls on the Study. Staff mailed copies of the draft study to citizens expressing interest.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee considered the work scope for the Bicycle Opportunities Study at its February 20, 1997 meeting. The Bicycle Advisory Committee reviewed and commented on drafts of the Study at their August, September and October, 1998 meetings. The Bicycle Advisory Committee considered a draft Report to Council at its December, 1998 meeting.

This item was also posted with the Council Agenda. Reports to council are also available at the City Library and on the City’s Web Site.

Staff recommends that the City Council accept the Bicycle Opportunities Study.

Sunnyvale has a long-standing policy commitment to providing on-road facilities for bicycles. Sunnyvale’s first Bicycle Plan was adopted in 1985. In 1991 the City Council adopted policy to include space for bicycles in all widening projects. The Mission Statement of the 1993 Sunnyvale Bicycle Plan states that "Safe and accessible bicycle and shared roadway facilities will help clean up the air, reduce traffic congestion, and preserve our natural resources." This statement was furthered with the adoption of the Land Use and Transportation Element in 1997, which includes policy to "Maximize the provision of bicycle…facilities."

However, these same documents recognize that Sunnyvale’s bicycle network is poorly developed. Sunnyvale’s roadway system was largely developed prior to the establishment of bikeway standards and policy. Of 97 miles of arterial and collector streets, only 17.5 miles include bike lanes (Attachment 1). Increasing traffic growth over time has resulted in many roads having automobile capacity maximized, at the expense of space for bicycles. The City has had few opportunities to implement policies for the provision of bike improvements. Those improvements that have been made have been done in piecemeal fashion, without benefit of a comprehensive improvement plan.

In December, 1995 the City Council authorized the filing of a grant application to complete an inventory and evaluation of major roadway facilities for the installation of bicycle improvements. A $50,000 Transportation Development Act grant was awarded in May, 1996. The firms of Anthony Mori & Company and Alta Transportation Consulting were selected to prepare the study. This study, subsequently named the Sunnyvale Bicycle Opportunities Study, is now complete for the Council’s consideration.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) was integrally involved in the preparation of the document. The BAC reviewed and commented on the scope of the study, and has reviewed work products on three different occasions. BAC input was critical to the development of alternative recommendations. The BAC reviewed a draft Report to Council at its December, 1998 meeting and supports acceptance of the Study, with minor text clarifications. Staff will incorporate the BAC’s suggested changes.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study is intended to serve as the initial, broad planning phase of an ongoing effort to retrofit a comprehensive bike network onto the city’s roadway system. At its October 20, 1998 meeting, the City Council adopted a work plan to prepare a Bicycle Capital Improvement Program (CIP) that will serve as the outline for the implementation of the Bicycle Opportunities Study. This Bike CIP will identify resources and prepare a program of projects and studies according to the available resources. The program will be incorporated in the 10 Year Resource Allocation Plan.

Land Use and Transportation Element C3.5, Support a variety of transportation modes.

C3.5.4, Maximize the provision of bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

C3.5.1, Promote alternate modes of travel to the automobile.

C3.5.5, Implement the Sunnyvale Bicycle Plan

Bicycle Plan BP.A1, the City of Sunnyvale shall facilitate bicycling through its transportation planning process

BP.A1.b, prepare a bicycle capital improvements list for Sunnyvale and/or TDA Article 3 funding.

BP.B, Provide for and maintain a safe and effective system of bikeways and shared roadway facilities suitable for bicycles.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study represents the broad planning phase of an effort to provide a comprehensive on-road bicycle network in Sunnyvale. Studies have shown that providing comprehensive on-road bike networks can dramatically increase bike use without compromising safety. The Bicycle Opportunities Study provides the base information necessary to begin exhaustively addressing Sunnyvale’s deficit of on-road bicycle facilities, consistent with a number of City policies.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study has inventoried the physical conditions of all arterial and collector streets in the City. This information was then analyzed to determine what types of actions would be necessary to provide Class II bike lanes or improved shoulders. From this evaluation, a set of recommendations for action was prepared on a roadway segment by roadway segment basis. Anthony Mori, the project lead consultant, will be in attendance to assist staff in presenting the study methodology and findings.

Arterial and collector streets form the focus of the study as a means to concentrate the study on primary travel corridors. These corridors, by virtue of their definition and function, are likely to have more traffic (including bicycle traffic), and hence greater need for recognizing bicycle space on the roadway. For several reasons, bicycle volumes were not considered as a means to prioritize streets for study. By law and in practice cyclists can be found on any street, and should be anticipated on any street. Directness of route is as critical a factor in route selection of cyclists as it is for motor vehicle drivers, and arterials and collectors typically provide the most direct routes. Finally, the absence of bicycle traffic data and the level of effort to collect this data were factors. It is known that bicycle volumes as a percentage of total traffic in Sunnyvale is very low, however. Changing this statistic is the key reason for conducting this Study.

The initial step of the study was to conduct an extensive data collection effort. The purpose of this effort was to identify the physical characteristics of the roadways on a roadway segment by roadway segment basis. Information was gathered on street cross-section width, number of lanes, lane width, intersection width, traffic control, speed limits, presence/absence of on-street parking, and presence/absence of surplus off-street parking.

Use characteristics were an important element of the data collection effort. Traffic volume information was researched from existing sources, and new traffic counts were taken at approximately 25 locations. Speed limit information was augmented by radar speed surveys to determine compliance by drivers to speed limits. Extensive, comprehensive parking surveys were done on all study streets.

After data was collected and compiled, criteria were established to guide the recommendations. The base assumption was that Caltrans minimum- standard bike lanes on all streets was the desired improvement. A range of possible actions were identified that could be taken to provide bike lanes – simple re-striping of the roadway to take advantage of surplus space, removal of on-street parking, establishment of parking time limits, removal of travel lanes, and road widening. A decision tree was then created (Attachment 2) with criteria for taking each action. For example, if a four lane roadway segment was too narrow to simply re-stripe, but traffic volumes were below a 300/vehicle/hour/lane criteria, then that street segment was recommended for removal of a travel lane to provide a bike lane. This decision tree was used to develop recommendations for every arterial and collector street segment city-wide.

These criteria are admittedly somewhat arbitrary, particularly with regard to on-street parking. However, they are not intended to become policy. Staff and the consultant used their knowledge of traffic operations, and their professional judgement, to develop the criteria. Staff and the consultant believe that they provide reasonable guidance for making decisions on the individual recommendations. Staff is not asking for the City Council to adopt this report as policy, nor is staff recommending that specific projects be implemented at this time. Individual decisions to take action on specific recommendations, particularly those that will have any potential negative impact or controversy (i.e. parking removal or travel lane removal) will require Project-specific detailed study, consideration of alternatives, and public outreach. Public input to the decision making process will be paramount to taking action.

It should be noted that the evaluation was done on a segment by segment basis, with segments being defined as observed changes in the physical layout of a particular street, i.e. curb line changes, addition/dropping of lanes, etc. This process was very comprehensive, but it did not attempt to lay out precisely how bike lanes would fit on every street. Also, it was discovered early in the process that lane widths at some street intersections, by virtue of the presence of left turn lanes at intersections, may make bike lane installation problematic. Because of this uncertainty, the Bicycle Opportunities Study is intended to be a planning document to identify the nature of potential bicycle improvement opportunities. Any actual project to change a roadway’s configuration will require more detailed engineering and preparation of an actual striping layout. The Study has produced a voluminous body of reference data, however, that will be used by staff to make decisions about the degree of feasibility of changes for bikes. Some of this information has been used already to modify re-paving and traffic signal projects to better address bikes.

The study recommendations are grouped into eight categories:

1. Simple re-striping - 37% of streets
2. Travel lane removal - 10% of streets
3. Complete on-street parking removal - 10% of streets
4. Parking removal, one side of the street – 7% of streets
5. Daytime parking restriction - 23% of streets
6. Minor widening - 7% of streets
7. Major widening-infeasible - 6% of streets
8. Shared use symbol-alternative to actions 2 through 7

Study findings are presented in tabular and map form in Attachments 3 through 11. A summary map is presented in Attachment 12.

The tables in Attachments 4 through 11 contain additional information on roadway characteristics/issues. Developing this information was prompted in large part by the Bicycle Advisory Committee. The BAC recognized that additional factors beyond the objective data and criteria used for the base recommendations could influence what kinds of actions are warranted to improve conditions for bikes. Most of this information is related to on-street parking.

One of the key issues for the BAC was bike safety. A specific example used was at sharp roadway curves. Driver sight distance and motor vehicle tracking around a curve where on-street parking is allowed could cause drivers to venture closer to shoulders where bicyclists could be. From the bicyclists’ perspective, this is a strong warrant for considering removal of parking. However, the Study base recommendation looks only at parking demand over an entire roadway segment as the warrant for retention or removal of on-street parking. Including the additional information that extraordinary circumstances are present will assist in prioritizing and refining improvements to certain roadway segments. The presence of angled parking is also noted as a bicyclist safety issue.

Another key issue raised by the Bicycle Advisory Committee is the presence/absence of surplus off-street parking in high parking demand areas. On some streets, particularly in industrial areas, on-street parking demand is high despite the presence of large, empty parking lots on-site. This is because the on-street spaces are closer to building front doors, and therefore more convenient. The study identifies those areas where off-street parking lots could easily accommodate the on-street parking demand. This information could also be important in a decision to make bicycling improvements.

Other additional factors and information presented includes the type of parking demand, i.e. residential, commercial, etc. This augments parking demand data with information on who is using the parking. Also, some locations with parking demand greater than the established parking demand threshold for removal of parking are side yard locations. The parcel frontage retains on-street parking, but vehicles may be parked on the side yards for storage or convenience. Determining whether side yard parking is surplus should be part of the decision making process at these locations.

Tables in Attachments 4 through 11 also present alternative recommendations to each proposed action. Nearly all of the study recommendations are not intended to be absolute. This Study assumes that there will be further engineering, refinement, and decision making on the vast majority of streets. By presenting alternative recommendations, the Study identifies feasible alternatives for further consideration and investigation. The alternative recommendations for the most part are alternative parking restrictions, use of a "shared use symbol" (described below), or do nothing.

One of the important issue areas identified by staff for the study to address was residential area traffic volumes. Many residential collector streets have very low traffic volumes. Motor vehicles and bikes would infrequently encounter each other, or can safely pass the vast majority of the time. Parking volumes or roadway widths might warrant a recommendation for parking removal or roadway widening on these streets by strict interpretation of the study criteria. However, the Study recognizes that these actions may not be necessary due to the character of the roadway. The alternative recommendations for many residential streets recognize that doing nothing may be the most appropriate alternative.

Attachment 11, and several of the Alternative Recommendations call for application of a "shared use symbol." Attachment 13 illustrates an on-road stencil and roadway sign that could be used in situations where bike lanes are infeasible or otherwise not supported. In essence, this symbol, applied to the roadway and augmented with signs, identifies on-road space that bikes and cars share. The symbol is intended to increase the awareness of drivers that bikes require and are entitled to roadway space.

The symbol could be a useful option for achieving complete treatment of the entire Sunnyvale arterial and collector roadway system for bikes. Roadways that would otherwise require expensive/infeasible widening or removal of highly utilized on-street parking could be improved.

This type of symbol has been used in Denver and Boulder, Colorado. The City of San Francisco recently approved use of this type of symbol and will be implementing a comprehensive project over the next few years.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee understands the utility of the Shared Use symbol but notes that it is less beneficial than providing bike lanes.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study consolidates a large amount of technical information that is useful for planning and engineering roadway projects. Information from the Opportunities Study and the Technical Appendix has already proved useful making previously approved projects more bicycle-friendly. Staff will be able to continue to reference the information gathered as part of the Study process, regardless of the outcome of effort to provide a comprehensive bike network.

On a more formal note, staff has identified two next steps subsequent to acceptance of the Opportunities Study. First, improvements identified in Attachment 4 can be accomplished with essentially no impact to current roadway use. They represent simply the addition of bike facilities where bike facilities can be made to fit. At Council’s direction staff has successfully pursued outside grant funds to implement the improvements listed in Attachment 4. Over $ 700,000 in outside grant funding has been secured to implement bike lane recommendations since completion of the Study.

Secondly, the entire package of recommendations and information will be compiled into a Bicycle Capital Improvements Program. This program would essentially be the implementation plan for the Bicycle Opportunities Study. Once the City Council accepts the Opportunities Study, the Bicycle Capital Improvement Plan will allow staff, the Bicycle Advisory Committee, and the City Council to commit to a long term menu of actions to study and implement bicycling improvements. It will also facilitate the long-term allocation of financial and other resources for bikeway development. The Program will eliminate piecemeal, reactive planning for bicycle facilities and replace it with a long-term, reasoned, programmatic, sustainable approach.

Council approved a work plan for the Bicycle Capital Improvements Program at its October 20, 1998 meeting. A consultant has been retained to work with City Public Works and Finance Department staff over the next year to identify a reasonable menu of funding resources to implement the Opportunities Study recommendations. The product will be a program of projects and specific studies, keyed to anticipated funding resources, to be implemented over a specified time period (20 years).

There is no fiscal impact by accepting the Bicycle Opportunities Study and initiating preparation of a Bicycle Capital Improvements Program. Upon completion of the Bicycle Capital Improvements Program, the City Council will have an opportunity to consider appropriate sources and levels of funding for bicycle improvements and studies over the long term. Implementation of comprehensive bicycle improvements could have significant financial implications. No new expenditures are being recommended at this time, however.

The Bicycle Opportunities Study is a thorough document that will guide planning, analysis and implementation of bike improvements well into the future. The document answers the quintessential questions of "why don’t we have a bike lane here?" with concrete data for decision-making. In concert with the Bike Capital Improvement Program, the City will have a roadmap to providing comprehensive facilities for bicycle travel. The Bicycle Opportunities Study represents an important milestone in implementing City bicycling policies.

Staff has fielded several phone calls on the Study. Staff mailed copies of the draft study to citizens expressing interest.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee considered the work scope for the Bicycle Opportunities Study at its February 20, 1997 meeting. The Bicycle Advisory Committee reviewed and commented on drafts of the Study at their August, September, and October, 1998 meetings. The Bicycle Advisory Committee considered a draft Report to Council at its December , 1998 meeting.

This item was also posted with the Council Agenda. Reports to Council are available at the City Library and the City’s Web Site.

1. Accept the Draft Bicycle Opportunities Study.
2. Direct staff to make modifications to the Study and conduct additional research as necessary.
3. Reject the Bicycle Opportunities Study and discontinue planning for a comprehensive bicycle network on Sunnyvale City streets.

Staff recommends Alternative 1, accept the Bicycle Opportunities Study.

Prepared by:

Jack Witthaus
Transportation Planner

Reviewed by:

Raymond C. Williamson
City Traffic Engineer

Reviewed by:

Marvin A. Rose
Director, Department of Public Works

Approved by:

Robert S. LaSala
City Manager