Peninsula Ave. Upgrade$$$?

Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

October 23, 2025

I often scratch my head at the amount of money thrown around by various levels of our government. Dan Walters at Calmatters.org had a piece in yesterday’s DJ about the state’s “$165 billion error in revenue projections in 2022 that fueled Newsom’s boast of having a $97.5 billion surplus”. That led to our “structural deficit” that gets papered over every year. Closer to home, I was struck by the amount of money being requested to improve Peninsula Ave.

San Mateo and Burlingame are applying for a $1.25 million San Mateo County Transportation Authority grant, largely bolstered by Measure A and W funds. The funds, which would require a 25% local match, would fund a study — including community outreach and preliminary engineering work — and not the construction of the project itself. San Mateo and Burlingame propose sharing the local match portion, with the former contributing San Mateo providing $245,000 and Burlingame providing $130,000, as San Mateo owns and operates a longer portion of the Peninsula Avenue corridor.

That 25% local match brings the total to $1.563 million dollars–for designing (not building) what is likely to be minimal changes to a 15 block long section of a local street. There is no new space available so any changes will either be minimal or they may try to replicate the disaster that is California Drive.

Elsewhere around the streets of B’game, I heard on Friday that the California Transportation Commission voted to approve $100 million for the ECR Little Big Dig. We should get word soon from the city about what is likely to be a three- or four-year massive disruption to traffic through town. Buckle up.

Posted in City Finances, Sacramento Stupidity, San Mateo, H’borough & Millbrae, Streets of Burlingame

5 responses to “Peninsula Ave. Upgrade$$$?”

Peter Garrison

October 24, 2025

Here’s my observations about some dysfunctions in the junction:

Number one is those little plastic poles that they put up on the corner to protect pedestrians when we still we need to look left and right anyway before we step off the curb. We’re being condition to lower our awareness of traffic.
(I think I should invest in those little plastic poles because they’re just gonna get mushed and replaced again and again.

Number two is that people in cars have learned (from also being pedestrians) to step on the gas when the white pedestrian light comes on before the greenlight for the cars to legally move. I’ve had to step back off the curb for people turning right thinking that they were permitted to do so because they’re conditioned to see the white pedestrian sign as “go.”

End of morning rant- too much coffee.
Jennifer Pfaff

October 26, 2025

This absolutely has to be done. I rarely let my kids cross the street over there when they were growing up, and I still hesitate to cross there. I know of people having been badly injured in crosswalks, too. It’s treacherous.

The palm tree islands were removed from Peninsula very early (circa 1930s) to make room for more car lanes. ‘Same with Bayswater 30 years after that. It’s too bad. At the time, many thought that these projects would be a great way to spend the allotment of gas taxes, just a few decades after Burlingame’s Park commissioners had them planted. Back to the present, if “we” (San Mateo was the lead on this) hadn’t wasted so much time (and money) on studying the (now defunct) Peninsula Avenue full interchange project, this could have been finished long ago and probably for less money.
Joe

October 26, 2025

I’m not disputing that major improvements for pedestrian safety need to be made or could be made. I’m just saying that you (Jennifer), me and an average traffic engineer could sit down and figure it out in a couple of hours. One Point Five Million Dollars is ridiculous! That’s all.
Just Sayin’

October 30, 2025

If the city wanted to improve pedestrian safety it could direct the police to issue “Reckless Walking” tickets to people who cross the street with earbuds on and immersed in their phones. Just sayin’
Jennifer Pfaff

October 31, 2025

That is true, too.

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