After heated debate from scores of public speakers that dragged past midnight on Wednesday, Sunnyvale is moving ahead with a plan to remove parking along a strip of neighborhood road and put in two bike lanes.
While the plan lacks funding and would take years before it comes to fruition, the decision by the Sunnyvale City Council marks a major milestone for a project that has faced intense public attention over more than a year of outreach.
“Certain residents … will feel safer. But it will also cause a certain amount of issues for residents that are living along this corridor,” said Mayor Larry Klein. “There’s a lot of other work that we need to get done before we actually get around to implementing this.”
For years, city commissions and officials have eyed options for adding bike lanes to Hollenbeck Avenue, focusing around 1 1/2 mi miles of mostly two-lane road with street parking. The strip connects homes, parks and schools and leads toward the city’s library. While some cyclists use the stretch of road for their commute, it currently lacks bike lanes.
To add bike lanes, the city would need to remove parking, creating a flash point between bike safety and city connectivity on one hand and parking and accessibility on the other.
Staff reports showed that, on a typical day, less than a third of the street parking was being used on the strip, though some specific blocks were used more frequently. The report also found that the strip had fewer cyclists than parallel streets, and over four years, there had been five collisions involving bicycles.
Staff presented three main options, keeping things as is, keeping some parking but adding bike lanes, and removing parking but adding bike lanes with a 3-foot, painted buffer. In both cases, adding bike lanes would cost an estimated $5 million.
Scores of advocates for bike lanes came to Tuesday’s meeting with cyclists, students and climate activists speaking out. Many focused on the students and families that use the road – or would like to use the road – to get to school.
“That’s the road that’s technically supposed to get high school students safely to school, but instead doubles as a daily obstacle course,” said local student Sara Mosin who relied on the strip of road to commute and argued that the bike lanes with the buffer zone were “the only option that offers a real choice, a real chance at safety as a city.”
Other speakers focused on the benefits of reducing emissions by making cycling easier, and how the road connected residents to key hubs throughout the city.
Still, dozens spoke out to preserve parking in the neighborhood. Since parking in bike lanes is illegal for non-emergency vehicles, many voiced concerns that the bike lanes might make it difficult for residents to receive deliveries, have work done at their homes or even receive essential services like home health aid. Others voiced worries that it might make it more difficult for seniors or disabled residents to get to their homes, or for residents on the street to invite guests or host gatherings.
Many were concerned about speeds on the roads, arguing that removing the parked cars would only speed up traffic and make the road less safe for all who used it.
“Removing parking will make it safer, … but only for bikers. Removing parking increases speeds, it makes it like an expressway,” said Vikram Jayaraman who identified as a “Hollenbeck resident,” and argued that “people with mobility challenges” wouldn’t be able to switch from cars to bikes and benefit from the lanes.
“This is a tough, tough decision and … we can’t satisfy everybody,” said Councilmember Murali Srinivasan, who maintained that removing the parking completely would affect the daily lives of those along Hollenbeck, including for those at local schools and senior residents who live along the road. (His district includes part of the stretch of road in question.)
Much of the council voiced their support for removing the parking and creating bike lanes.
“It’s critical for fighting climate change. It is critical for adapting to future growth. Is critical for the regional transportation network …Because even as the population is growing, the roads will not,” said Councilmember Richard Mehlinger, who led the initial push for the bike lanes years ago. “The infrastructure choices we make now will outlive us, and … this is the alternative that best addresses the city’s long term interests.”
In the end, the City Council then voted 6-1, with Srinivasan opposed, to remove parking and add in buffered bike lanes on either side of the road for the strip of Hollenbeck between Danforth Drive and Alberta Avenue.
Currently, the project is unfunded, and has no timeline for implementation, with funding to be evaluated during the 2027/2028 budget cycle, along with other transportation projects, according to Klein.