"Identify the bike-lane option with a painted, rather than physical, buffer on El Camino as the city's preferred alternative – to be considered for implementing as a pilot program at a future date."

What does this vague statement actually mean?

Someday the City will revisit the idea of bike lanes on El Camino? Why?

Does this mean no significant city staff resources or City Council time will be devoted to this "project" in 2016?

I thought that the City Council had previously asked city staff to evaluate a possible field trial of buffered bike lanes which are essentially paint without a strong physical barrier separating bikes and vehicles. Was I mistaken?

The City Council needs to be much clearer as to its intentions. Otherwise, they are simply kicking this can down the road.

Wow, a breathtaking capitulation on the ECR bike plan. What carries more weight in this discussion, a few reactionary people constantly posting, or all the data suggesting that bike lanes would not increase traffic and make the ECR corridor (and the city in general) more bike and pedestrian friendly? An extremely disappointing performance by the city council.

Having watched this entire segment of the meeting with great interest, I have to say that the council made a reasonable choice. And I'm a cyclist who is enthusiastic about new bike facilities in Menlo Park.

a) the staff have limited bandwidth. Creating safer routes to our schools (east-west) helps more people and is less controversial. They weren't going to be able to do both at the same time, so why not start with the project that will be higher impact and have broader support? The staff requested a postponement on the El Camino experiment and that's ultimately what the council decided to do.

Also, b) there's soon going to be massive construction along the El Camino corridor. We really don't know what the longer-term impacts of those developments will be but it's safe to say that running an experiment of bike lanes through a construction zone is probably not a great idea. And a failed experiment of this sort will not help our cause.

On El Camino, you're designing for a couple of different constituencies:
a) people who bike through Menlo Park on their way somewhere (mostly commuters, who are mostly skilled adults) and
b) people who might want to ride from Linfield Oaks or Allied Arts to the movies or Safeway or Menlo Velo or the yogurt shop. You're going to have a wider range of ages and skill levels in this group.

For Group A, Peter Ohtaki mentioned a potential work-around involving Alma and Garwood. But it's in the interests of Group A for us to coordinate better with adjacent cities. For Group B, again, it's best to wait and see what happens with construction. A well-designed East-West bike route will probably result in more casual cyclists around Menlo Park, which will ultimately yield more community support for lanes on El Camino. All in good time...

Other takeaways: there's really a range of comfort level on city council with the concept of biking in traffic. They wrestled collectively with this decision. This might actually be a fair microcosm of the diverse opinions within the city and the ways in which we will collectively evolve.

I was surprised that no one mentioned that getting ride of parking and going to a six-lane thoroughfare is probably way more damaging to the El Camino merchants than bike lanes.

I was glad that the animosity in evidence from a couple of speakers didn't seem to overly influence the council decision. They are being prudent, not weak.

Agreed with CCB, but why is the answer always another study with some overpaid consultant?

Maybe they can start working on the Santa Cruz sidewalks and bike lanes they promised us.

What was a odd was that Council Member Keith didn't even get a second to her motion. It seemed that she didn't try to line up a colleague to second her motion if, for no other reason, to have a discussion on the merits of her motion. I wonder if she didn't know all along there wasn't a remote chance to move an el camino real bike lane project along. Was she just placating bicyclists to keep her long endorsement list intact? Why does the council continually spend money on consultants and studies when it's clear there are not the votes to approve whatever the consultants show will be a working concept. Happy talk. It's what this council is great at. The most decision adverse council the City has had in a long time. Listen to the language. "Let's look at. Let's study. Let's prioritize. Let's come back to this. Staff doesn't have the bandwidth." Blah Blah Blah.

" It seemed that she didn't try to line up a colleague to second her motion "

That just means she was complying with the Brown Act. It's hard to line up support beforehand when discussing agenda items with more than one other person is against the law.

And Mark L, the bike lanes have been in on Santa Cruz for quite a while. The sidewalks take longer because they need to be properly engineered for drainage issues.

Daily Post (May 5, 2016) - : "(The) Menlo Park City Council wants bicycles throughout the city, but has voted against putting such lanes on El Camino Real."

This is an accurate statement according to our mayor. This decision took a lot of city time and effort but is the right one

Pivotal issue: bike lanes on El Camino do not make it safer so encouraging more bike riders is fundamentally a dangerous idea and creates moral and legal liabilities for Menlo Park. (my view)

Now let's improve east-west bike connectivity - at the north, central and south ends of Menlo Park. That is a critical need for both young and adult bike riders.