SamTrans outlines El Camino Real 'Grand Boulevard' vision; Millbrae questions costs, metrics

SamTrans and its regional partners presented a corridorwide plan Tuesday to redesign El Camino Real across San Mateo County — including a Millbrae segment — with the goal of improving safety, multimodal access and economic vitality.

"Our goal is really to reimagine El Camino to meet 21st‑century mobility and safety needs for all users," SamTrans planning director Millie Tolleson told the Millbrae City Council. She said the Grand Boulevard Initiative (GBI) is producing an action plan that will serve as a feasibility study required by Caltrans before starting a Project Initiation Document (PID).

The plan would stitch together prior local studies and create a unified framework to move projects through Caltrans’ project development process. Tolleson and partners described potential treatments including protected bike lanes, improved crosswalks and lighting, narrower or reconfigured travel lanes where appropriate, enhanced transit facilities and local place‑making elements.

Patrick Gilster, director of planning and fund management for the San Mateo County Transportation Authority (TA), told the council the initiative aims to combine municipal efforts to increase competitiveness for state and federal grants. He said TA revenue from Measure A and Measure W sales taxes could contribute toward large projects and that the county agency could provide up to roughly half of project funding in some cases.

"El Camino Real is designated as a street of countywide significance to us, which means we can provide up to half of the funding towards that $750,000,000 marker," Gilster said.

Caltrans District 4 representative Jake Buffenbarger said Caltrans will adjust its planning process for this corridor because El Camino functions more like a main street passing through multiple jurisdictions than a traditional highway. He said Caltrans plans to incorporate the GBI vision into a Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan (CMCP).

Council members pressed for more detail on proposed cross‑sections and metrics. Council member Nguyen asked for concrete examples and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. Tolleson said the action plan team is still defining KPIs but indicated the initiative will prioritize eliminating fatal and serious injury crashes for people walking and biking (a Vision Zero‑type target) and measure person throughput and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rather than relying solely on legacy Level of Service (LOS) metrics.

When asked about the local cost for Millbrae, Gilster said preconstruction and project development costs for a Millbrae segment could be in the low tens of millions, and offered an off‑the‑cuff construction range of about $30 million to $50 million for the segment; he clarified the $13 million figure on the slide referred to project development (preconstruction) phases rather than full construction.

Public commenters raised concerns about noise, prior regional projects that affected Millbrae without local mitigation, and the need to protect local interests. One resident urged SamTrans and Caltrans to consider Millbrae‑specific impacts when bundling projects countywide.

Tolleson said the PID phase is funded in part with a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and that the corridorwide PID work is planned to begin in early 2026. She said full corridor transformation will take several years, with construction potentially spanning multiple phases over roughly an 8–10 year horizon.

The presentation closed with council members asking staff to return with additional technical details, including proposed cross‑sections, draft KPIs for the action plan and clarification of Millbrae’s likely costs and phasing.

Ending: SamTrans and partners will present the GBI action plan and the PID schedule to boards and city staffs in the coming months; Millbrae staff said they will continue coordination with the project team as the PID moves forward.