Sunnyvale holds second community meeting on Hollenbeck Avenue bike‑lane feasibility study

City of Sunnyvale staff and consultants presented three preliminary options for adding bicycle facilities on Hollenbeck Avenue at a second community meeting and answered questions from nearby residents and bicycle‑safety advocates.

The project team — led by Eric Trujillo, city traffic engineer and project manager — said the study’s goal is “to evaluate the feasibility of adding, bike lanes along Hollenbeck to close the the bike lane gap” between existing bike lanes north of Danforth Drive and south of Alberta Avenue. Shikha Jain of Hexagon Transportation Consultants summarized outreach and data collection and repeated that the team developed alternatives based on collision records, observed bike counts and on‑street parking counts.

Why it matters: Hollenbeck is a roughly 40‑foot curb‑to‑curb residential collector with a 30 mph speed limit and on‑street parking on both sides. The corridor contains homes, two schools, churches and parks. Residents use curb parking for household vehicles, visitors and service vehicles; the project would change how that parking is provided along the corridor and would require intersection modifications at Remington, Torrington and Fremont.

What the team presented

- Alternative 1: Buffered bike lanes in both directions (6‑ft bike lanes plus a 3‑ft buffer), which would remove on‑street parking along Hollenbeck and narrow travel lanes to about 11 ft. The team said buffers provide the greatest physical separation but that intersection geometry — and a VTA bus route — limit lane width at several locations, so buffers may not continue through every intersection.

- Alternative 2: Standard bike lanes (5–6 ft) with alternating on‑street parking retained on one side of the street. Travel lanes would be narrowed to about 10–11 ft. The design uses transition zones between parking segments; the team estimated that transition zones could remove about 4–12 on‑street spaces in total and displace 1–7 parked vehicles to side streets on some segments.

- Alternative 3: No change to curb‑to‑curb configuration but upgrade to a signed and striped Class 3 bike route (bicycles share the travel lane with cars). This alternative preserves the existing on‑street parking supply.

Design constraints and costs

Staff described local design standards and constraints: minimum vehicle lane widths (10 ft; 11 ft where a bus route exists), a minimum bike lane width generally shown as 5 ft but with project areas where 6 ft could be provided where the corridor allows, and a typical parking lane of 8 ft. The downtown specific plan includes a planned intersection mitigation at Remington and Hollenbeck that requires adding northbound and southbound left‑turn lanes; combined with the VTA bus requirement, that geometry reduces available space for bike lanes at that intersection.

The team provided planning‑level cost ranges: Alternative 3 roughly $5,000–$500,000 (signing/striping), and Alternatives 1 and 2 roughly $2 million–$4 million (higher costs driven by intersection reconstruction such as removal of Fremont’s “pork‑chop” islands and signal work).

Data the team cited

- Bike counts: a 14‑hour count on Hollenbeck showed about 105 bicycles; parallel north–south routes (Mary Avenue and Sunnyvale Saratoga Road) recorded roughly three times and 1.5 times Hollenbeck’s volumes, respectively. Counts were taken at point locations rather than as corridor through‑trips.

- Parking counts: on‑street parking was collected across multiple weekdays and weekend days (the team described three weekdays and two weekend days in October, including targeted periods: 2–6 p.m. to capture school pickup, 11 p.m.–1 a.m. for residential overnight peaks, and weekend late‑morning and afternoon periods near Sarah Park). The team reported maximum observed utilization per segment (color‑coded map): most Hollenbeck segments showed low to moderate utilization; several side streets exceeded 80% utilization.

- Collision data: five bicycle‑related collisions on the corridor in the most recent five‑year window, with 23% of vehicle collisions identified as speed related; two intersection collisions involved vehicles failing to yield to bicyclists.

Public concerns heard at the meeting

Residents and advocates raised recurring concerns: loss of on‑street parking and where displaced vehicles would park; impacts on seniors and families who rely on close curb access; effects on driveway access, contractor and delivery vehicles (UPS/FedEx, concrete trucks, garden services); the safety of the Remington intersection where buffers would be lost; narrow bike lanes when the gutter is included in the width; nighttime lighting and uneven sidewalks; and whether the lane‑narrowing treatments would actually reduce speeds. Sunnyvale Safe Streets representatives and other commenters urged the city to consider wider protected lanes in places and to pursue grant funding for higher‑cost options.

Staff responses and process details

- Angelo Obaso, acting interim transportation and traffic division manager, emphasized the study’s scope: “this project is being done as a study issue.” The team said the scope focuses on feasibility of adding bike infrastructure and does not model behavioral shifts such as modal change or household parking choices. The team said they used conservative assumptions for parking (they did not assume displaced vehicles would use private driveways or garages).

- Lillian Singh, principal transportation engineer, clarified a design dimension point: “it does meet, the minimum design requirement guidelines, based on the highway design menu.” The team also said where possible they would design to larger widths (for example 6‑ft bike lanes) but that constrained intersections and the VTA bus lane width (standard buses reported as about 10.5 ft) limit geometry in some locations.

- The project team described outreach and next steps: the online survey (QR code shown at the meeting) is open through the month (the team said the survey stays live through the month of March); staff will present findings to the Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) and later to city council for direction. The team is meeting with institutional/commercial property owners and will post the recorded meeting online.

What the project has not decided

There were no formal votes or policy decisions at the meeting. The city has not chosen a preferred alternative; the team will refine alternatives using public feedback, BPAC input and council direction. Traffic calming and enforcement (speed cushions, speed humps, petitions for a traffic‑calming study) are separate processes that residents may request; staff said residential collector streets were only recently added to the city’s traffic‑calming policy and that a separate traffic‑calming study would be necessary.

How to comment or follow the project

The project team is collecting public input via the online survey (QR code provided at the meeting and on the project webpage), by emailing the project manager Eric Trujillo (email shown in the meeting slides) and at upcoming BPAC and city council study sessions. The team expects to return to BPAC for a recommendation in late June and to present to council in the fall for direction.

Ending: the meeting provided detailed technical background and a wide range of resident concerns. Staff said they will compile meeting comments and the survey results to refine the alternatives and bring recommendations to BPAC and council.