From: Giuliano
To: City Council; x-City Clerk"s Office
Subject: Re: Agenda for City Council on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 7:00 PM PDT has been posted Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 4:41:30 PM
Hi Council,
I'm on a trip and am not sure I can attend virtually, and so I submit comments in writing.
I encourage you to skip to my comments on 11B, the Annual Transportation and Mobility Update, if you are pressed for time.
9B: 1301 Shoreway
Please, you must impose dramatic restrictions on the amount of car parking. Failure to do so for this and future such projects will result in massively increased congestion in Belmont and San Carlos. I've presented the numbers before. There has been no refutation of these facts.
Adding parking for this and future projects at the rate for this project means 30,000 more cars.
That's 100,000 more car trips per day. That is simply irresponsible of you.
Caltrain and SamTrans must be the preferred commute mode. Folks will take the fastest, cheapest, most convenient mode. Make that driving cars, but permitting free parking, and folks will drive cars. Make it mass transit, by requiring the builder with a mandatory requirement, with a covenant requiring this provision to be passed on to future owners, that the building owner require itself and every tenant to provide a free CalTrain Go pass and free SamTrans monthly passes to their employees and contractors employees.
At the last meeting, it was suggested that the proper time for such discussions was after development, and with the employers. That is simply wrong. You will have no leverage then.
Zero. Witness the fiasco with the Firehouse Square project and the current Masonic projects where poor early contract requirements led to the loss of leverage, and the developers reneging on their original promises.
If you do not start now, when will you start?
11A: Redwood Shores Sea Level Rise Protection Project Contract $208,787 to study and plan alternatives and to reach out and evaluate .. and not a dime to make real changes to cycling infrastructure that would help avoid the sea level rise. If all we do, if all anyone does, is plan, then we will fail. You need to actually do something that will prevent climate change. Foster City recently spent tens of millions on raising their sea wall. It is already recognized as being insufficient. It can never be sufficient. We are already at 1.5C above historic temperature. Another .5C and the sea level will rise at least 20 feet, more likely 50 feet. Just trying building a sea wall that will deal with that.. 11B: Annual Transportation and Mobility Update.
This report is at best disingenuous. A more accurate description is that it is a lie.
I go on at great length below. Apologies for that. But that's only because the report is so flawed. I could go on even longer by analyzing the entire staff report completely.
Every year the same report. Every year the same language. Every year the same lies. Every year the utter failure to follow through on the promises that are made. Every year no progress on adding any real safe arterial cycling routes. Every year the refusal to direct staff to actually create safe, protected/separated, continuous, connected, cycling routes to destinations folks want to go to: schools, parks, library, community center, downtown, transit, shopping, dining, chores/errands, San Carlos, San Mateo, Redwood Shores, etc.
While senior staff bears great responsibility for this reports "inaccuracies", you, the Council, bear responsibility for not holding senior staff accountable.
When will you direct staff, when will you compel staff, when will you hold staff accountable to actually make multi-modal transport a priority? When? Are you waiting for folks to die? As has happened this past year in San Mateo, Foster City, San Carlos? Time and again I've read of Councils hearing of dangerous conditions and doing nothing, literally nothing, until someone dies. And then they act. Please, you know this is important. Every year this same damnable report is presented to you because it is important. And every year you do nothing to actually effect the changes needed to make cycling safe. Until you do, folks won't cycle. Until you do, this report is just a lie. And until you do, someone is likely to die; I hope it is not me.
You've seen my videos. You know this is not hyperbole.
I'll mostly respond below to the reports text in the order, excepting for the following. You say:
Public Works advances projects that improve safety and accessibility for people walking, biking, Guided by ... community input ... to support a more connected and user-friendly street network.
What a total crock of .... What an absolutely monstrous lie. I can't believe you would permit staff to print this.
Tell me even one project that will make a primary arterial cycling route safer and more accessible, that will make even one primary arterial route connected and user-friendly.
Tell me when you have EVER responded to community input with a change that would have a real and significant impact on safety, connectivity, user comfort. I have made dozens. Zero significant changes have been accepted. Nothing to add protected bike lanes to Ralston or Alameda so students can get to school, so all can get to Caltrain, shopping, errands, connections to San Carlos and San Mateo. I can think of only two that have been accepted at all. One adding a few feet of red curb. The other adding a bike box to a plan; a bike box that was the least meaningful alternative presented, a bike box that a year later has still not even been added to a grant request.
On to the rest of this report.
You say:
A key objective under this focus area is to enhance multimodal transportation for all users. This objective is
advanced primarily through the Capital Improvement Program, Operations and Maintenance activities,
and the Parking and Traffic Safety Committee (PTSC).
You go on at length in the document about the importance of multimodal transportation. And then do nothing to really provide multimodal transportation.
You say that "This objective is advanced primarily through the ... Parking and Traffic Safety Committee (PTSC)", and when I make requests to the PTSC, and the PTSC acknowledges that the current designs are a mess, it then says that it is not the correct body.
You say that improvements:
... require careful balancing of competing priorities, including pedestrian and bicyclist safety, vehicle operations, neighborhood parking needs, and longterm infrastructure sustainability
and then do nothing for cyclist safety. How is that "balancing". In the nearly 30 years I've lived here, we have added only 200 yards of protected bike lanes. There is not one inch more in the current pipeline. We desperately need protected bike lanes on Ralston, Alameda between Ralston and San Carlos, etc. But you will not even add on more inch to any plans.
How is this "balancing".
Particularly galling is calling out the need to balance "parking". Parking IS NOT TRANSPORTATION. Parking is car storage. You prioritize car storage for a few apartment building owners, for a few dozens of apartment building residents, over the needs of thousands of residents and students who could be cycling. But will not because it is far too dangerous, and because you refuse to do anything about that.
You say:
Belmont improves traffic and mobility safety through a coordinated approach grounded in
the” Three Es”: Engineering, Education, and Enforcement.
Ask your PD: do "Education and Enforcement" work? Has it ever worked in the past? Ever? Has putting up signs begging folks to drive better ever been effective. Even once? Has enforcement ever resulted in folks driving better after the officers are gone? Even once? Ever? No. And this should be no surprise. Study after study, every bit of data and research we have shows that these are not effective at changing driver behavior. Only one thing changes driver behavior: Engineering. Change roads so that drivers feel less comfortable driving too fast, and they will slow down. Add protected bike lanes, remove lanes, remove medians, narrow lanes, etc. The engineering playbook to make streets safer is well understood. There's a ton of science behind it at this point. And we do absolutely none of it.
And as for "Education", how about cyclist education? If we can't get car drivers to drive safely, if the City continues to refuse to build safe cycling infrastructure, then what does it do to teach folks to ride safely? Unfortunately, the city does next to nothing to promote cycling education. In it's response to the 2023 Grand Jury report, the City claims to have a yearly cycling education event. It has had two. They were so poorly advertised, outreach was so poor, that there was literally no attendance by folks interested in transit cycling. The ONLY folks attending were parents bringing their 4 through 10 year old kids. Not a single transit cyclist.
The city made no attempt to have cycling education last year. I was rebuffed. It has none planned for this year.
You say:
The Public Works Department is advancing strategies to improve safety, accessibility, and efficiency
across Belmont’s transportation system while reducing congestion and supporting the City’s 2035 General
Plan, Belmont Village Specific Plan, and Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan. Key efforts include
• Optimizing signal timing to improve traffic flow
• Implementing traffic calming measures to enhance neighborhood safety • Expanding multimodal connections for walking, bicycling, and transit • Advancing Safe Routes to School improvements
So let's look at this list:
* Optimizing signal timing to improve traffic flow
Okay, so to improve cycling, we will optimize car traffic flow. That's helps cars, and makes cycling more dangerous. Seriously????
• Implementing traffic calming measures to enhance neighborhood safety What are we doing to traffic calm Ralston? Alameda? Old County? Anywhere that is a primary arterial cycling route. We do nothing. You nibble at the edges on side streets and pat yourselves on the back. You need to make it safe to cycle on Ralston, Alameda, ECR, Old County, etc.
• Expanding multimodal connections for walking, bicycling, and transit Seriously. You claim to be expanding the multi-modal network for cycling. Where? Tell me where. This is just a lie.
• Advancing Safe Routes to School improvements
The ADlP project makes cycling more dangerous. There is not a single project that provides a continuous and connected safe route to school for any school. Not one. Again, this is just a lie.
You say:
Public Works advances projects that improve safety and accessibility for people walking, biking, driving,
and using transit, with a focus on closing mobility gaps, enhancing bicycle and pedestrian connectivity,
and upgrading substandard sidewalks. Guided by City Council priorities and community input, the
Department continues implementing improvements identified in the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan,
the Ralston Avenue Corridor Plan, and the Alameda de las Pulgas Corridor Plan ...
Okay, what is the project, any project, that meaningfully improves cycling safety and accessibility? Not nibbling around the edges, but on a primary arterial cycling route. Name me even one. Y'all won't even get rid of the parking in front of Twin Pines park and remove the merge lane from Twin Pines lane so that the protected bike lane can be extended. A change that would have zero impact on car transport. The only impact would be that 10 apartment building residents would need to park in the Twin Pines or Civic Center lots rather than on Ralston. But you won't even do this one trivial change. ... enforcement efforts to help keep Belmont’s streets safe for everyone.
Over the course of 2025, the Police Department has performed the following:
• 2,713 traffic stops (up 27% vs 2024)
• 288 bicycle/pedestrian stops
Cycling and walking have about a 2% to 3% mode split. And yet had 10% of the enforcement stops. More importantly, per my recent discussions with Belmont PD, it does very little tracking of enforcement to keep cyclists and pedestrians safe. We don't even know if and where there are issues. Bike lanes are routinely parked in. Cyclists are routinely passed aggressively and dangerously. And we know next to nothing about these. giuliano
--
Drive a bike a bit more often and cars a bit less. You'll be healthier and happier, and so will our world.
On Fri, Mar 6, 2026, at 10:54 AM, City of Belmont, CA wrote:
City of Belmont
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Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 7:00 PM PDT
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