Public comment information
From:fred de sauvage
To:City Council; Foster City Public Comment
Cc:Rob Lasky; Aaron Siu; Austin Walsh; Priscilla Schaus; Sandy Loi
Subject:City Council 6.7, 6.8, 7.1: Street rehab project in CIP
Date:Monday, June 1, 2026 1:36:34 PM
Dear Members of the City Council,
As a Foster City resident of over 30 years and a dedicated bike commuter for more than two
decades, I am writing to you today with a deep sense of urgency regarding our community's
street safety. Over the years, I have shared my concerns with this Council multiple times, yet I
continue to witness routine, highly unsafe situations on Foster City Boulevard and our other
major thoroughfares.
Routinely, I see commuters and children on bikes, or parents steering cargo bikes with their
kids in the back, largely ignored by drivers. The danger is not theoretical; it is a daily reality.
Just last week, I experienced two terrifyingly close calls: one with an Amazon delivery truck
and another with a fancy sportscar driver treating Foster City Boulevard like a racetrack. Both
drivers blatantly violated the law, passing within less than three feet of my bicycle. While near-
misses like these go unreported, actual tragedies do not. I was heartbroken to hear at the
March 16 meeting that two children were recently struck by vehicles on Foster City Boulevard.
Given these ongoing dangers, I was deeply disheartened to see that the proposed "Street
Rehabilitation (2026-2027)" project focuses almost entirely on vehicle-related improvements.
This mirrors the auto-centric approach of CIP 301-726 back in March. We cannot achieve the
goals of our own Sustainable Living Guide—which actively encourages walking and biking for
short trips—if our largest capital projects default to mere like-for-like asphalt replacement.
When this Council adopted the Complete Streets Policy in 2012, it recognized that safety for
walking, biking, and rolling must be a continuous, cross-departmental effort. Principle 3 of that
policy explicitly states that routine pavement resurfacing, restriping, and maintenance are the
prime opportunities to improve safe, comfortable travel for all modes.
To honor this commitment, I respectfully request that the Council take the following actions:
· Mandate Complete Streets Evaluations: Give explicit policy direction to include a
mandatory Complete Streets evaluation for all future street rehabilitation projects.
Staff should evaluate multimodal safety features and look at how bundling street
rehabilitation with safety upgrades reduces long-term costs.
· Implement High-Visibility Basics as Baseline Specs: When applying new
thermoplastic paint, the city should automatically switch from standard transverse
lines to high-visibility continental crosswalks, which costs virtually nothing extra.
· Utilize Quick-Build Infrastructure: Cost-effective, adaptable quick-build materials
—such as plastic flex-posts, modular rubber speed humps, and bolt-down pedestrian
refuge islands can be quickly installed to protect bike lanes and tighten wide
intersections.
· Engage the Community: Direct staff to notify the public of upcoming
rehabilitation projects and distribute safety surveys via listservs and social media.
Residents possess invaluable lived experience ; they know where cars speed, where
drivers cut corners, and where children cross.
By combining the technical expertise of Public Works with the daily insights of residents, we
can deploy low-cost, high-impact solutions to protect our children, pedestrians and cyclists
without blowing the budget.
Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued commitment to making Foster
City safe for everyone who uses our streets.
Frederic de Sauvage
From:Evan Adams
To:Foster City Public Comment
Cc:Rob Lasky; Aaron Siu; Austin Walsh; Priscilla Schaus; Sandy Loi
Subject:Public Comment 6/1 - Item 7.1 (street rehab budget)
Date:Monday, June 1, 2026 11:27:10 AM
I was disappointed the council didn't stop and think about the FC Blvd Street Rehab earlier
this year. It was a missed opportunity. From bid to design to budgeting there were many
missed steps.
Please require staff to design all future street rehab projects following the 2012 FC Complete
Streets policy. When I was on the traffic review committee, as an example, both me as a
planning commissioner and the citizen on rep both said the edgewater re-paving was going to
need safer complete streets design. The consultant disregarded and staff stated a lack of
budget.
If you don't mandate it as part of the budget, it will not happen.
I worry about planning for planning's sake. If complete streets are no longer the FC Policy,
please amend the stated policy from 2012 so people can have some clarity as to our future.
Finally, I hope we can have some clarity presented soon as to the budgeting future of CIP's.
Perhaps I am wrong; but, it feels like CIP's (like repaving) are being funded by spending down
reserves. FC needs a plan on how to fund CIP's without raiding reserves. I can't support raising
taxes and fees on homeowners when we have had a decade to find a solution. It feels like you
are being backed into a corner for 5+ years out to raise taxes when the CIP can't be funded
through reserves anymore.
----------------------------
Evan Adams
Foster City CA
p.s. There is a LOT of grant money to be had to help pay for complete streets design. Just last
Friday a grant was due that had hundreds of thousands available. C/CAG also.
From:Yiming Luo
To:Foster City Public Comment; City Council
Cc:Rob Lasky; Aaron Siu; Austin Walsh; Priscilla Schaus; Sandy Loi
Subject:City Council 6.7, 6.8, 7.1: Street rehab project in CIP
Date:Monday, June 1, 2026 7:27:41 AM
Good morning Mayor Kiesel and councilmembers,
I wanted to thank the council for listening to my concerns and including the two
additional priority projects in the Bike Ped Master Plan. The segment on Beach Park Blvd
that was added will greatly benefit everyone living in this pocket of Foster City and is a
step forward in increasing the safety, comfort, and accessibility to the Bay Trail for us.
Please approve the additional allocation to the BPMP efforts.
Regarding the preliminary budget, I urge the Council to amend the CIP to explicitly
require Complete Streets engineering evaluations and proactive public consultation for
all future Street Rehabilitation projects before design plans are finalized.
As this Council recognized in 2012 when adopting the Complete Streets Policy, safety for
people walking, biking, and rolling is a continuous effort across all departments, not
something that is relegated and confined to a single master plan. Principle 3 of that
policy explicitly states that routine pavement resurfacing, restriping, and maintenance
are the prime opportunities where the City must advance and improve safe,
comfortable, and convenient travel for all modes. Furthermore, our Sustainable Living
Guide actively encourages residents to walk or bike for short trips. These goals that
cannot be achieved when our most crucial and expensive capital projects default to
auto-centric, like-for-like asphalt replacement.
I am disappointed to see that the "Street Rehabilitation (2026-2027)" project description
before you focuses almost entirely on vehicle-related improvements, just like in March
with CIP 301-726. When I and others opposed an identical, standard repaving plan on
Foster City Boulevard, the Public Works Department defended the omission by claiming
the project was "just about pavement quality", that altering active bids would cause
severe cost fluctuations, and that a Bike/Ped Master Plan was not adopted, so staff
didn’t consider the design.
These excuses are completely invalid today. The project list before you has not yet been
designed, engineered, or put out to bid. Once this budget is adopted, the next time these
street rehabilitation segments come before you, the engineering plans will be fully
drawn. Then, staff will tell you that modifying the scope at that stage would cost the City
dearly and delay construction. It is never too early for the Council to suggest process
improvements to a system that multiple community members have voiced their concern
about, and which concerns so many of the City's policy efforts in sustainability,
transportation, and land use.
I request that the Council give explicit policy direction to include a mandatory complete
streets evaluation for all future street rehabilitation projects. Staff should evaluate the
inclusion of multimodal safety features, as well as look at how bundling together street
rehab and new street safety features can reduce costs long-term for the city. These
should be incorporated as baseline specifications. When the City applies new
thermoplastic paint and markings, it costs virtually nothing extra to switch from standard
transverse lines to high-visibility continental crosswalks. Furthermore, instead of
permanent concrete infrastructure, staff can utilize inexpensive quick-build materials,
such as plastic flex-posts, modular rubber speed humps, and bolt-down pedestrian
refuge islands, to immediately protect bike lanes and tighten wide intersections, and
change the configuration as needed.
Additionally, Council should direct staff to notify the public when street rehabilitation
projects are occurring in the City and send a survey out through listservs and social
media. Residents know best about what happens on their local streets, whether that’s
speeding cars, people cutting corners when turning, or where children cross the street
all the time. By learning where residents feel unsafe, engineers can strategically place
these low-cost flex-posts or painted paint-outs to pinch wide corners where cars turn
too fast, protecting our kids without blowing the budget. Public Works would then be
able to combine their skilled technical expertise with the lived experience of local
residents of that particular block, ensuring a context-sensitive, balanced, and iterative
street design process.
Cheers,
Yiming
From:Michael Crocker
To:Foster City Public Comment; City Council
Cc:Rob Lasky; Aaron Siu; Austin Walsh; Priscilla Schaus; Sandy Loi
Subject:Pleases consider (Item 7.1 Preliminary Budget CIP (Street Rehabilitation))
Date:Friday, May 29, 2026 9:58:03 AM
Attachments:image.png
Dear Mayor Kiesel and Foster City Councilmembers,
When I heard about this item on the agenda I immediately thought about the road outside my
front door (Beach Park Blvd). Beach Park has recently been repaved, and the processes of our
government and this council failed to provide even minor progress towards a street that is safe
and usable for everyone. In fact the new, wide asphalt encourages people to drive through my
neighborhood at even more extreme speeds than previously. Attached is a photo of how
myself and my neighbors have to cross the street. I took it from my kitchen window within 5
seconds of waiting for an example to crop up. I spend every morning while I make my
breakfast terrified for the stream of children, elderly people, cyclists, and community members
crossing the street here.
The choices that produced this situation not only affect me right now, but will haunt our
community for an entire generation. Because repaving was done without consideration of
Foster Citie's Complete Streets Policy there is next to no hope that my children exist in a place
designed with basic safety considerations much less multimodal transportation in mind. What
street is outside your front door; if it's safer and more child-friendly than what I live with, why
do you think that's ok?
In a more optimistic, personal anecdote; I work on Foster City Blvd (specifically in the scope
of this budget/street project) near 3rd Ave and live near the Foster City/Beach Park
intersection. This means the total distance between my home and office is <2 miles by Foster
City Blvd (~8 minutes by car or bike). Despite this, when I bike to work I take a route that is
>4 miles long in order to avoid Foster City Blvd (despite a 100-200% increase in travel time).
When I'm in a hurry I just drive the shorter distance contributing to traffic, pollution, and the
chance for deadly accidents. If this council does its duty to make our streets better than they
are now, I'll one day soon feel safe enough to bike directly to work even under a time-crunch.
Now is the point when we can avoid the same mistakes on additional streets. Repaving is the
natural and convenient time to make the changes our communities need to be safe, healthy,
and robust. Please amend the budget to require complete streets infrastructure considerations
be included in any design and work on these streets.
Thank you,
Michael Crocker
