Caltrans poised to delay Tiburon Boulevard bike lanes over bus safety
- Francisco Martinez
- 23 minutes ago
- 7 min read
In what would be an abrupt about-face, Caltrans appears poised to delay controversial plans to install bike lanes along Tiburon Boulevard from Trestle Glen Boulevard to Blackfield Drive until fiscal 2027-2028, a win for local officials who assert the segment would disrupt school-bus service.
Bike advocates, however, said Caltrans is “poised to cave into a misinformation pressure campaign.”
According to a July 22 internal agency document obtained by The Ark, Caltrans cited “concerns about school bus safety” as its reason for removing the lanes from the first phase of its planned 4.6-mile preventive maintenance project spanning state-owned Highway 131 from outside Mill Valley to Tiburon Boulevard’s intersection with Main Street.
The document also indicates Caltrans plans to delay a Class-1 multiuse pathway along inbound Tiburon Boulevard between East Strawberry and Blackfield drives, in unincorporated Marin County, until the project’s second phase in fiscal 2027-2028. For now, it would be replaced with a Class-4 bikeway, in which cyclists are protected from traffic by a barrier. The document says Caltrans “will complete the remaining bikeways … after the scope is finalized with community and stakeholders.”
Project timeline and funding pressures
The agency had previously insisted the bike-lane project had to proceed during the first phase of the larger $12.7-million pavement job, planned for early 2026, citing funding deadlines and concerns that winter storms could further damage the deteriorating roadway.
Caltrans spokesperson Matt O’Donnell declined to comment on the internal document or the potential project changes between Trestle Glen and Blackfield, saying he could not speak about ongoing talks with the town of Tiburon and other stakeholders.
“We have been considering several options for the project that we hope will work best for the community” ahead of a late August deadline to have the plan finalized, O’Donnell said. He noted a draft version of the completed design had been sent to Tiburon and Marin County officials and was pending feedback.
He confirmed plans to swap the multiuse pathway with the protected bikeway in the first phase, saying that installing the path between East Strawberry and Blackfield drives would require reconstructing the landscaped median and relocating utilities and drainage inlets. Additional design work is also needed to rebuild a Marin Transit bus stop on inbound Tiburon Boulevard at East Strawberry Drive.
Broadband project coordination unlikely
The July 22 document also appears to dash Tiburon’s hopes that the maintenance project could be coordinated with the town’s broadband efforts. It indicates the work would be done separately due to “very high” risks to funding and scheduling if both projects were attempted in conjunction. The town had requested a fiber-optic broadband conduit be installed as part of the Caltrans work.
As planned, the yearlong first phase includes repaving, drainage upgrades, guardrails, curb ramps, signs, traffic signals, lighting, crosswalks and intersections. It also calls for a mix of Class-1 paths and Class-4 bikeways from Mill Valley city limits to Blackfield Drive.
The second phase would address safety concerns by upgrading some planned Class-2 painted bike lanes to Class-4 and improving bus stops with island platforms, which would enhance disability access and route bike lanes behind the stops for safety.
Community pushback and school bus concerns
The apparent pivot toward delaying the lanes from Trestle Glen to Blackfield comes after community pushback over what many called a lack of public input.
One of the primary concerns raised by local agencies was the potential loss of four school bus stops along that stretch: inbound at the 76 gas station, Cecilia Way and Blackie’s Pasture, and outbound at Jefferson Drive.
Officials with the Tiburon Peninsula Traffic Alliance, which oversees the school-bus program serving Reed Union School District students, have said bus provider First Student will not allow buses to stop in bike lanes to load and unload students, citing student safety and concerns that cyclists would be forced into traffic.
Since at least March, the alliance has interpreted this to mean the stops are inherently unsafe and will be eliminated under Caltrans’ designs, though no renderings of potential designs were available to the agency or to First Student at the time.
This assertion was then used as the basis for letters from the alliance, the city of Belvedere, the Reed Union School District, Southern Marin Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, asking Caltrans to pause the project until the lane segments were revised or removed — at least in part prompting the project to be split into two phases.
However, First Student has twice disputed the traffic alliance interpretation, saying “state law allows school buses to enter and block bike lanes to load and unload students” and that the company will evaluate the stops for safety.
After Caltrans released its first renderings of potential stop designs during its June project-phasing announcement, First Student representatives said at least one option, which showed a Marin Transit stop on Tiburon Boulevard, appeared it would also be serviceable for school buses. That rendering depicted a bus pad between the bike lane and sidewalk, allowing students to load directly at the curb without forcing cyclists to move out of the lane and into traffic.
Further, under similar road conditions in other Marin jurisdictions, First Student does allow its buses to fully block bike lanes while loading students at the curb.
When The Ark sought direct policy clarification from First Student regional manager Andrew Good in June, he said he would first need to confer with the company’s location manager, senior location manager, location safety manager and area safety manager, but he has since declined to respond.
The traffic alliance has made other disputed claims, misinterpreting state codes to question the legality of any bus blocking a bike lane at a designated bus stop statewide while falsely asserting in public forums and op-eds that public transit has priority status over pedestrians and cyclists in Caltrans’ Complete Streets directive. The directive requires the agency to consider all three modes alongside private vehicles.
O’Donnell did not comment on whether Caltrans was aware of the disputed claims.
Bob McCaskill, chair of the traffic alliance board, did not respond to requests for comment about the apparent delay of the bike lanes by The Ark’s press deadline.
Town Council involvement
The Tiburon Town Council in June sent a letter to Caltrans urging it to address the impacts of the planned bike lanes on safety, transit, school buses and traffic. The vote was 3-2, with Mayor Holli Thier and Councilmember Jack Ryan dissenting.
Thier said at the time the letter didn’t address all her safety concerns. Ryan said he wanted it to explicitly request Caltrans proceed without the bike lane between Blackfield and Trestle Glen.
Thier said she has been “working very closely” with Caltrans “to ensure our community’s and stakeholder’s safety and (that) other concerns were heard and made part of the plan.”
While noting the internal document was not a finalized plan, she said she was “pleased to see Caltrans is working to incorporate our community’s concerns.” She also said she would continue working with Caltrans and town staff on the broadband project.
Ryan, one of Tiburon’s two representatives on the traffic alliance, said he had not seen the Caltrans document and first heard about it when contacted by The Ark.
He said he was “not counting any chickens until they hatch” but was “glad (Caltrans is) going to be more thoughtful about the infrastructure for the project and its elements.”
“In subsequent phases, I hope that we can work together to get a solution that works for everybody,” he said.
Bicycle advocates respond
Meanwhile, Matthew Hartzell — planning director at bicycle-advocacy group WTB-TAM, which has disputed the school-bus stop concern and criticized the project for not going far enough on bike infrastructure — said he opposed delaying the lanes.
“It is disappointing that Caltrans appears poised to cave into a misinformation pressure campaign,” Hartzell, said.
He co-wrote a July 21 letter to Caltrans supporting the bike-lane plans and urging that if lanes were removed between Blackfield and Trestle Glen, only the outbound side should be dropped, with inbound lanes remaining.
Hartzell also called it “extremely concerning” that Caltrans planned to delay the multiuse path between East Strawberry and Blackfield, calling it an important segment that “would be the first and only pedestrian connection” between Mill Valley and the rest of the Tiburon Peninsula.
“This is not something that anyone was asking for,” Hartzell said.
Complete Streets directive and project history
O’Donnell previously said in June that heeding local requests to remove bike lanes from the project would be difficult because of the Complete Streets.
Caltrans’ 2019 project-initiation report for 2020 funding included painted lanes as a “top-tier priority,” with an option for protected bikeways from Highway 101 to Trestle Glen and Blackie’s Pasture.
The report cited Tiburon’s 2012 Bay Trail gap study, its 2016 bicycle-and-pedestrian master plan update and the 2018 Marin and Caltrans master plans. Later, in 2023, Tiburon approved protected bikeways as part of its Create Tiburon 2040 general plan.
The lanes became primarily protected after discussions with advocacy groups including Marin Safe Routes to Schools and were included in the 2023 draft initial study.
All the Tiburon plans were created through public workshops, drafts and hearings followed by votes of the Town Tiburon Council.
Reach Francisco Martinez at 415-944-4634.