Half Moon Bay Transportation and Transit Equity Pilot Study
Half Moon Bay, CA (June 2020 - August 2020)
Project Goal
To identify needs and assets in transportation access in Half Moon Bay and surrounding unincorporated areas, in order to ultimately encourage greater use of non-car transit.
Guiding Question
What makes it easy or hard to get around without a car in Half Moon Bay?
Project Description
While tourism is part of the fabric of Half Moon Bay, the increasing amounts of visitors to the coastside has put significant strain on the three roadways that lead into and out of the City. This increasing strain on the roadways, in addition to the traffic, influenced the City Council’s decision to prioritize transportation demand management (TDM) as one of the City’s top five priorities. In response to this priority-setting, staff developed a Transportation Strategies Implementation Plan (TSIP) that identified policies, programs, and projects the City could pursue to address transportation concerns on the coastside.
Strengths Identified
- A good number of bus stops and public transportation options
- Many trails for residents to explore
- Great bike paths in some areas
- Several bike racks throughout the Half Moon Bay area
Areas for Improvement Identified
- Identifying low-cost and maybe temporary ways to create separation between bikes and cars on downtown Main Street
- Adding benches and shelters at major bus stops (e.g., shopping center)
- Systematizing community retail maintenance and monitoring
- Pilarcitos Creek Trail (Highway 1) - brush maintenance, etc.
- Coastal Trail
- Naomi Patridge Trail
- Publishing maps of existing pedestrian/bike trails, safe bike routes, location of bike racks, tool stations, and bicycle shops.
- Creating safer crossings at Highway 1, to ensure pedestrian safety while crossing busy streets
Activities and Outcomes
- 6 participants completed walk audits. Representatives from Half Moon Bay Latine community, biking/walking advocacy groups, senior advocacy groups, and Coastside youth groups
- Collected local data over a 10-days, 44 geotagged photos and audios/captions
- 4 participants presented data to Transportation Subcommittee
- Presented 5 themes and 17 recommendations
- Generated specific recommendations for improvements to promote active transportation and transit equity
- Renewed communication and collaboration between Half Moon Bay City and San Mateo County
- San Mateo County identified potential funding sources for suggested bike safety and trail maintenance recommendations
- SamTrans agreed to review recommendations for increasing bus stop accessibility and schedule visibility (Recently installed a bench and trash can shown below)
- SamTrans added Half Moon Bay to contact list for ReImagine SamTrans effort, which plans to evaluate and survey the current bus system in San Mateo County
- Half Moon Bay expressed interest in pursuing scaled-up pilot in 2021