Cupertino council presses staff for clearer metrics, vehicle impacts in active transportation plan

The Cupertino City Council on Tuesday received an update on the city’s Active Transportation Plan and gave staff direction to refine project‑prioritization criteria after council members and residents raised concerns about data gaps and vehicle impacts.

City transportation manager David Stillman and consultant Christopher Kidd of Alta Planning and Design presented Phase 1 outreach results and the team’s data‑driven approach, which combines a level‑of‑traffic‑stress (LTS) analysis and an active‑trip potential model using anonymized Replika cell‑phone data. Kidd said the outreach reached nearly 1,400 people and generated about 3,000 comments and that roughly 30% of driving trips in Cupertino are under 5 miles — distances that may be candidates for biking or e‑biking.

“Those are trips that, while not every single 5‑mile driving trip could be replaced with a biking trip, some of them could,” Christopher Kidd said, summarizing the team’s stress‑adjusted short‑trip analysis.

The presentation outlined draft scoring tied to plan goals: safety (collision history and LTS), access (school proximity and transit connections), sustainability (active‑trip potential and gap‑score analysis) and balance (parking and congestion impacts). Kidd described typologies for pedestrian improvements — low‑cost paint/marking fixes, geometric changes, and signal/timing changes — and said recommendations were developed using state and local design guidance including the California Highway Design Manual and Caltrans design bulletins.

Council members repeatedly pressed staff for more vehicle‑focused analysis. “Where have we considered the impact to vehicular congestion?” Councilmember Wong asked. Stillman replied that about $220,000 has been spent so far — about 70% of the project budget — funded entirely from TDA Article 3 grant allocations, and that a Q1 budget request will seek funding for a citywide vehicle/pedestrian/bicycle count and updated speed and engineering surveys.

On De Anza Boulevard, staff said they ran before‑and‑after travel‑time studies and found PM peak travel times “roughly similar” before and after a lane reduction, and that collisions recorded in the first six months of 2025 along the affected section were about half the number in the comparable period in prior years. “It’s early because you need several years to really establish good statistical significance,” Stillman cautioned.

Multiple residents and commissioners urged integrating the Planning Commission’s unanimous prioritization recommendations and questioned the weighting of public input in the draft scoring. Peggy Griffin, a resident, urged staff to pause the prioritization until full Q1 counts are available and to add metrics for pedestrian network obstacles and motorist stress.

Vice Mayor Moore and other council members asked staff to produce test cases showing how the draft score would rank previously proposed projects — for example a Stevens Creek protected bikeway or a proposed shared‑use trail — and to add a cost‑efficiency or grant‑leverage factor so high‑scoring projects can be quickly readied for funding applications.

After debate, the council voted to direct staff to advance criteria consistent with the mayor’s and vice mayor’s priorities, incorporate planning commission input as a working basis, and return with scenario tests and a recommended project list. The motion passed with Councilmembers Fruin and Mohan voting no.

What’s next: staff said the outreach period will close at the end of the month, the team will run prioritization scoring and produce “implementation packages” (conceptual, low‑level designs and feasibility checks for top projects), and a draft plan will be circulated for public comment ahead of a final plan brought back to council for adoption next spring.