BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Planning Commissioner Keith Reckdahl, who is running for Palo Alto City Council, says the city needs to keep cars in mind when making changes like closing California Avenue to traffic or converting parking spaces to bike lanes on El Camino Real.
If cars are overlooked, then small businesses will lose customers and be forced to close, Reckdahl said in an interview.
“It’s still a car-centric world, unfortunately. Most people are still driving,” Reckdahl said. “We can’t tell everyone that they have to bike, because retail needs both biking customers and driving customers.”
At California Avenue, the city should put up signs along the side streets so people know where to park for the restaurant they’re going to, said Reckdahl, one of nine candidates running for four open spots on council.
Reckdahl, 59, lives about two miles away from California Avenue and walks there, but he drives to University Avenue.
He doesn’t like how the orange construction barriers look at the end of Ramona Street where it’s closed to cars.
On El Camino Real, Reckdahl said he didn’t like the pressure Caltrans put on the city to approve the bike lanes. The Planning and Transposition Commission had only one chance to weigh in.
“That was really a bad event because normally if you want to pull something like that it would take two years. The city would study it to death,” Reckdahl said.
Reckdahl wants to know how many businesses are affected, and how far away people will have to park now. The Chamber of Commerce did some outreach but it wasn’t enough, Reckdahl said.
“We’re going to have to keep on this. Because these small businesses, if they lose half their customers, they’re done. And almost all those people are going to be driving on El Camino,” Reckdahl said.
