Mountain View’s Council Transportation Committee is steering the redesign of Rengstorff Avenue toward keeping all four existing vehicle lanes intact, even though the 1.7-mile corridor sits on the city’s High Injury Network and has a history of severe collisions. About two dozen community members showed up to weigh in at a recent committee meeting, with many urging the city to add protected bike lanes and improve sidewalks and crosswalks along the busy street.
The corridor runs from El Camino Real to Leghorn Street, passing just south of U.S. Highway 101, and currently carries two vehicle lanes in each direction, on-street bike lanes, and roughly 250 parking spots, according to a city staff report cited by the Mountain View Voice. Rengstorff also serves as a Safe Routes to School corridor for Monta Loma Elementary, Crittenden Middle School and Los Altos High School, and it carries VTA bus lines that rely on its vehicle lanes to stay in service. Street parking is concentrated particularly north of Central Expressway, while sidewalks along the route range from four to six feet wide and the posted speed limit sits at 35 mph.
Three Alternatives, Three Different Tradeoffs
City staff presented the committee with three design alternatives, each carrying different consequences for parking and bike infrastructure. Alternative A serves as a baseline option focused on improving intersections and safety at key crossings — including trouble spots near Wyandotte Street, Junction Avenue and the Waldorf school — while retaining all existing on-street parking, per the Voice’s report.
Alternative B builds on that baseline by adding protected bike lanes, but the report notes it would require removing about 64% of street parking along the corridor. Alternative C instead adds wider sidewalks and green elements on top of Alternative A, requiring removal of about 48% of parking. Transportation Manager Lauren Ledbetter told the committee the city could not combine every element of all three alternatives without accepting tradeoffs somewhere, and she identified reducing vehicle lanes as one possible option the city considered.
Committee Members Split Over Priorities
Council members expressed clear concerns about removing street parking even as they voiced support for improving safety for bicyclists and pedestrians. John McAlister argued that removing street parking would harm the wider community and said vehicle accessibility is critical to keeping public transit running, adding that “people need to take cars.” He said he preferred better markings for the existing bike lanes rather than new protected lanes, and he opposed adding protected bike lanes to the corridor…