Burlingame businesses worry new bike lanes could cut off customers
BURLINGAME - A planned reworking of a major thoroughfare in Burlingame has some business owners preparing for a serious decline in customers.
The lunch rush at Maverick Jack's in Burlingame means all hands on deck, which has owner Micheal Mallie running orders throughout his restaurant.
But Mallie thinks these kinds of moments won't happen as frequently in the near future, as the city plans to completely change the roadway design in front of his restaurant.
"It's just another challenge that we really didn't need coming out of COVID," he said. "It doesn't take a mathematician or statistician to say that's probably not going to be good for my business."
The city plans to re-work the road to put in bike lanes along California Drive, including the stretch between Broadway and Carmelita, where Maverick Jack's is. As a result, around a dozen parking spaces will be eliminated, and cars traveling on California won't be able to make left-hand turns into businesses, like Maverick Jack's.
"The bike lane is effectively going to be here, so there's no way to cut across four lanes of traffic to come into my parking lot," Mallie said. "The option that I've been told is happening is that folks will have to go to the light at Carmelita, make a U-turn into the egress at the parking lot, and then come north again to enter."
Mallie says he takes issue with how the city moved forward with the project. Despite it being in the works for a few years, he says neither he nor numerous other business owners who'd be directly impacted by the project were even aware it was happening until recently. By the time they could voice their concerns to city leaders, the project had already been green lit.
"We were completely uninvolved," he said. "Surely there should have been a moment where at that consultative meeting, there was no business representative there who was directly affected by this plan."
Mayor Michael Brownrigg acknowledges there was a communication issue during the process.
"I know that we sent out two different mailings to 600 addresses that were affected by California Avenue. I also know that some number of business owners never got those notices," Brownrigg said. "We need to learn from that going forward. We need to do a better job."
Still, the Mayor says the project is moving forward. Goals include making the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, as well as slowing traffic on California.
John Kevranian, the president of the Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District, says the plan as is will hurt numerous businesses.
"Retail businesses, service businesses, depend on parking. Without making left turns, without going into driveways, no parking, it will devastate them. They'll shut down," he said. "We have to give and take, and we have to find a compromise."
The Mayor says the city is now exploring ways to do that.
In an email shared with business owners, obtained by CBS News Bay Area, he says their concerns are heard loud and clear, and the city hopes to correct the problem with the final construction of the project, which is yet to break ground.
"We are now looking at a further tweak to allow left-hand turns into the businesses if you're on the other side of the street," Brownrigg said.
The Mayor also says moving forward, the city will not rely solely on the U.S. Mail and newsletters to alert people of upcoming projects. The city's efforts will include drop-by's at affected businesses, and the introduction of other visual means into a neighborhood to let people know a project is underway that they may want to comment on.
Mallie hopes the city reconsiders the plan, and finds a way to move forward in a way that will be less impactful to his and his neighbors' businesses.
"It's a headache that I really did not need," he said. "Obviously, I'm concerned about my business. But I'm also concerned about my neighbors."