Traffic agency, Belvedere back bike-lane removal in Caltrans’ final draft
- Francisco Martinez
- Sep 15
- 9 min read
Local agencies are endorsing Caltrans’ latest design plans that remove contentious bike lanes from next summer’s Tiburon Boulevard maintenance project, citing school-bus safety concerns. But cycling advocates are disputing those claims with field observations showing buses are skipping supposedly “critical” stops, picking up outside proposed lane areas and operating safely in similar conditions elsewhere.
Caltrans spokesperson Matt O’Donnell confirmed Sept. 11 that the new design plans postpone construction of proposed bike-lane segments between Blackfield Drive and Trestle Glen Boulevard from Phase 1 of the 4.6-mile, $15-million project to an as-yet-unfunded second phase. This follows suggestions in a July 22 internal document obtained and previously reported by The Ark.
The yearlong project, set to start in summer 2026, spans state-owned Highway 131 from Mill Valley to Tiburon’s Main Street.
The new plans restore a multiuse path to East Strawberry Drive and include broadband-conduit installation in Phase 1. They represent an end-stage draft before final construction plans are created. Those are expected this month, O’Donnell said.
The Tiburon Peninsula Traffic Alliance, which operates the bus program for Tiburon schools, and Belvedere City Council approved letters last week supporting the final draft. Reed Union School District Superintendent Kimberly McGrath also continued to back the removal of the lanes for student-safety reasons.
However, bicycle advocacy groups WTB-TAM and the Marin County Bicycle Coalition jointly submitted their own letter criticizing Caltrans for backing out while challenging the safety rationale behind the revisions.
Observations challenge safety claims
With school back in session, WTB-TAM observed Reed Elementary School’s morning bus route skip the scheduled inbound Cecilia Way stop on Aug. 29 and Sept. 5. The traffic alliance claims this stop is critical to operations and would be eliminated by bus provider First Student under its safety policies if the bike lane were installed. The Ark also observed the same bus route drive past the Cecilia Way stop Sept. 12.
WTB-TAM also noted the actual site of a second critical inbound stop at Blackie’s Pasture sits beyond where the bike lanes were planned to end in previous design iterations, eliminating another potential conflict.
The traffic alliance has said First Student won’t serve a bus stop that blocks a bike lane and forces cyclists into faster-moving vehicle traffic. But the bike advocates measured 22 feet between the curb and vehicle lane at the inbound stop at the 76 gas station. A standard school bus is 81/2 feet wide.
That distance provides “more than ample space to allow yellow school buses to pull over to pick up and drop off students without blocking the proposed bike lanes,” WTB-TAM Planning Director Matthew Hartzell and Marin bike coalition Policy Director Warren Wells wrote in their Sept. 8 letter.
Bicycle advocates also challenged the underlying claim, documenting that First Student buses block bike lanes while loading students at Point San Pedro Road in San Rafael. Like Tiburon Boulevard, Point San Pedro is four lanes with a physical median and 40 mph speed limit, though its existing bike lanes fill the entire shoulder.
The observed Tiburon stops account for three of the four that the traffic alliance claims would be eliminated under First Student safety policies, including all the at-risk inbound stops. The bike groups’ findings emphasize lingering questions about the need to eliminate the planned bike lane on the southern, inbound side of Tiburon Boulevard, which has been included in Tiburon, Marin County and state master-planning recommendations for more than a decade.
“Caltrans has acceded to a pressure campaign based on assertions that are questionable at best,” Hartzell and Wells wrote, later arguing that concerns “are themselves based on statements spread by actors who are either misinformed or ill-willed.”
They called for a compromise that delays only the outbound segment of bike lane on the north side of the boulevard to Phase 2, acknowledging that earlier designs show a conflict with the fourth at-risk stop at Jefferson Drive.
Traffic alliance Chair Bob McCaskill of Belvedere did not respond to three emails seeking comment. When reached by phone, he said he’d get to them when he sees them and disconnected the call without further comment.
First Student Regional Manager Andrew Good, who has previously declined to confirm the traffic alliance’s claims about the risk to the bus stops or the provider’s safety policies, declined to comment last week on the bike groups’ findings. He referred The Ark to its press office in Cincinnati, which said decisions are made by local leadership but declined to elaborate on which, if any, decisions have been to serve the stops if lanes are installed.
Project changes and timelines
The first phase of the yearlong Caltrans project, set to begin in summer 2026, includes repaving, drainage upgrades, guardrails, curb ramps, signs, traffic signals, lighting, crosswalks and intersections. It features a mix of Class-1 multiuse paths and Class-4 separated, protected bikeways.
O’Donnell confirmed that Tiburon will oversee plans to install fiber-optic internet conduit, which according to the July 22 document would likely run as a separate project in parallel to the Caltrans work but with a six-month head start.
The proposed 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. This would enhance disability access and route bike lanes behind the stops for safety. It would also look to incorporate other community feedback and elements from an ongoing traffic study of Tiburon Boulevard, such as consideration of a roundabout at Trestle Glen Boulevard.
Previously indicated for fiscal year 2027-2028, O’Donnell said last week the agency is still figuring out when Phase 2 could happen.
One notable change since Caltrans’ July 22 document is a pivot back to the multiuse path for a stretch connecting Blackfield and East Strawberry drives. The 95%-completed design had replaced it with a temporary Class-4 bikeway, but now a temporary bike-pedestrian path and barriers would be installed, and a Marin Transit stop would be temporarily relocated, with the permanent path created under Phase 2.
O’Donnell said the goal is to allow time to coordinate with Marin Transit for a new permanent stop and to modify the median, preserve landscaping and move utilities and drainage systems as needed.
Planning history and master-plan support
Tiburon’s planning documents have recommended consideration of bike lanes along the same stretch of Tiburon Boulevard since 2008. The town’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan recommended a study to convert the striped shoulder into painted bike lanes from Highway 101 to Trestle Glen, citing enhanced cyclist safety and moving faster riders off Greenwood Beach Road.
The recommendation carried through Tiburon’s 2012 Bay Trail Gap Study and 2016 bike-pedestrian master-plan update and Tiburon’s 2040 general plan adopted in May 2023. It’s also part of the 2018 Marin and Caltrans master plans.
All Tiburon plans were created through public workshops, drafts and hearings followed by Town Council votes.
Caltrans’ 2019 project-initiation report for 2020 funding further included painted lanes as a “top-tier priority,” with an option for protected bikeways from Highway 101 to Trestle Glen Boulevard and Blackie’s Pasture. More segments became protected in the 2023 draft initial study after discussions with advocacy groups including Marin Safe Routes to Schools.
Controversy over safety
However, since at least March — before any preliminary designs were available for review — the traffic alliance has asserted First Student won’t stop in bike lanes, citing student and cyclist safety. The alliance interprets this to mean the lanes would make the four boulevard stops inherently unsafe and unserviceable.
This assertion has been used as the basis for letters from the alliance, the city of Belvedere, the Reed Union School District and Assemblymember Damon Connolly asking Caltrans to pause the project until the lane segments were revised or removed. This at least in part prompted the project to be split into two phases and announced at a community town-hall forum in June.
Other concerns have included general communication and public-input opportunities, safety hazards from unprotected bike lanes, conflicts with Marin Transit bus stops, congestion at the Trestle Glen Boulevard intersection and Highway 101 interchange and the impact to emergency response if the road shoulder is converted to bike lanes.
However, Caltrans said it could not pause the project without the risk of losing funding.
At the time, lanes and bus-stop modifications were still part of the first phase, but they’d have been upgraded in Phase 2 to incorporate community feedback and add accessibility improvements at the bus stops.
The internal Caltrans documents obtained by The Ark in July then pointed to “concerns about school-bus safety” as its reason for removing the two bike-lane segments from the first phase entirely.
First Student communications representatives have twice disputed the traffic alliance’s policy 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, First Student officials said at least one option — which depicted a bus pad in a buffer zone between the bike lane and sidewalk — would be serviceable. The other renderings were of current conditions and of a potential Phase 2 design with accessibility upgrades.
In the meantime, the alliance has misinterpreted state law to assert that buses cannot stop in a bike lane at any designated bus stop statewide, falsely claimed that the lanes weren’t in the initial plan and were added under pressure from “special interests” and falsely claimed that transit vehicles have priority over cyclists and pedestrians in Caltrans’ Complete Streets directive, which requires the agency to consider all three modes as alternatives to private vehicles.
In the traffic alliance letter to Caltrans, approved at its Sept. 9 board meeting, McCaskill says the state’s decision came through consultation with local agencies, “rather than rely(ing) solely on advocacy perspectives.” He maintains that the design plans without bike lanes “preserves the operation of our Yellow Bus program,” citing the risk to the four stops. McCaskill wrote that removing them allows time to explore “setback bike lanes and (Americans with Disabilities Act)-compliant bus stops that protect all users.”
Notably, the upgraded designs preferred by the traffic alliance load students via island platforms, which move bike lanes behind the stop by routing them between the platform and the sidewalk. This requires all children to cross through the bike lanes on foot to reach the sidewalk or platform when loading and unloading.
In a Sept. 11 email, McGrath said the district supports the design plans “for prioritizing student safety” and will work on Phase 2 planning. She said “placing bike lanes in the same space as active school bus stops creates untenable operational conflicts and a risk to student safety.”
When presented with WTB’s findings, McGrath declined further comment and referred The Ark to the traffic alliance.
The Belvedere City Council’s letter, approved Sept. 8 and signed by Mayor Jane Cooper and City Manager Robert Zadnik, says the revised design provides a continuous route to downtown “without compromising school bus stops, student safety, first-responder access or creating adverse traffic impacts.”
“It also wisely defers changes at the Trestle Glen intersection until the Tiburon Traffic Study is complete, allowing future decisions to be guided by data and a broader understanding of congestion issues in the area,” it says.
Others remain mum
Some officials who previously supported the bike lanes remained noncommittal about the design plans.
In a February 2023 letter to Caltrans, Southern Marin Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters advocated for the lanes, citing master-plan documents and the Complete Streets directive. Since then, she’s acknowledged community concerns about traffic congestion and taken a more neutral position publicly.
In a Sept. 11 email to The Ark, she said discussions on the project “are not final.”
“Until they are, I am not able to comment,” she said.
Tiburon Mayor Holli Thier, who also supported bike lanes and is a primary driver of the fiber-optic plans, told the Marin Independent Journal Sept. 9 she was “pleased to see Caltrans has incorporated our community’s and other stakeholders’ concerns” in the plans.
“We now must prioritize Phase 2 and work closely with Caltrans to ensure bike lanes, bus stops and other elements of the plan are done safely with community input,” she told the IJ.
However, Thier told The Ark Sept. 12 that “Caltrans has not yet released final plans” and questioned the sourcing of project updates.
She did not respond to whether Tiburon would take an official position on the design plan or to a follow-up question about why she offered differing remarks to the IJ.
Reach Tiburon reporter Francisco Martinez at 415-944-4634.