Increased crowding is weapon of choice.
Published Wednesday, June 8, 2005, in the Redwood City Daily News

Plan weighed for El Camino

By Sara Gaiser
Daily News Staff Writer

The San Mateo County of the future could be a string of dense,
pedestrian-friendly communities connected by a transformed El Camino
Real and transit corridor, according to a vision outlined last night
in San Carlos.

A project bringing together public and private agencies is aiming
to redesign the county's oldest and most central thoroughfare,
the benighted El Camino Real. Now a showcase for suburban sprawl,
the state highway could become a "Grand Boulevard" that helps
reinvigorate the communities it runs through and encourage in-fill
development, said Ian McAvoy, chief development officer for Caltrain
and the San Mateo County Transit District.

"There's nothing worse than a freeway in the middle of town," McAvoy
said. "You can create a place, not just a place to move through."

The Grand Boulevard project, which includes city, county and
regional government bodies as well as local business groups, aims
to remake El Camino and reduce sprawl by creating attractive
development projects at key points along its length. Dense, mixed-
use projects with housing, retail and other attractions such as
cultural institutions close to public transit will help create
pedestrian-friendly areas and improve access to housing, McAvoy
said.

The project, which aims to reduce sprawl and the traffic it creates,
remains in its early stages, although it has received some seed
funding from Congress. Cities including San Carlos, Belmont, Daly
City, Redwood City and San Bruno are expected to serve as testing
grounds for the concept with projects near their rail stations or
at grade separations.

Affordable housing advocates added their support to the proposal
for denser housing at last night's meeting, which was presented as
part of Affordable Housing Week.

Architect Dan Ionescu <http://home.diap.com>, a Belmont resident,
said the Peninsula had no choice but to increase density along the
El Camino Real and Highway 101 corridor, unless residents wanted to
see the open space many had fought hard to preserve destroyed. He
advocated the development of a regional policy and individual city
plans that include transit-oriented development, including increased
density and building heights close to transit.

"Height and density and mixed-use and good design are your only
friends in creating a sustainable future," Ionescu said. "Right
now it's clear we don't really know what we're doing."

Ionescu said his concern for the Peninsula was motivated in part by
the realization that his own daughter could not afford to live in
the area.