Dear Mayor Newsom and SM City Council,

Please do not remove the new bike lanes around San Mateo High, College Park/Fiesta Gardens Elementary, and San Mateo Adult Schools - the most dangerous streets in the City. We need to make our streets safer for kids who walk and bike so that we can reduce the increasing number of fatalities and the traffic congestion that plague our streets.

The bike lanes offer several benefits to residents of North Central and others who attend school, recreate, or commute in the area. Bike lanes:

- Save lives for kids and parents who bike
- Make the streets safer for pedestrians (through more narrow auto lanes and improved crosswalk visibility)
- Make our kids healthier and help them do better in school
- Foster a sense of independence among our children
- Encourage people to leave their cars at home, reducing congestion, global warming, and air pollution
- Increase property values
- Make our streets more beautiful
- Create a sense of community and and encourage people to shop locally
- Reduce taxpayer expenses through lower road maintenance and public health spending
- Facilitate safe, low cost travel for those unable to afford the skyrocketing cost of car ownership

Too many people are dying on the streets of San Mateo while we debate whether to remove recently installed safety infrastructure. We ask that our scarce taxpayer dollars and staff time instead be spent looking forward, not backward. This debate is delaying construction of safe routes to school projects on Delaware, Norfolk, 19th/Fashion Island, Alameda, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the number of tragedies is increasing and too many parents are scared to let their kids walk and bike to school.

Thank you for putting the safety of our kids and families first, keeping the San Mateo High bike lanes, and accelerating other safety projects in San Mateo. We look forward to seeing you the evening of 2/3/25 when the Council reviews this matter.