With the future of the ban on big buses on Kings Mountain Road still uncertain, members of the cycling community are sharing videos and stories of near-misses to show how perilous the narrow, winding Woodside street can be for bikes riders.
Woodside’s recent ban on buses longer than 35 feet impacts a key entrance to Huddart County Park, the site of group activities including Peninsula Day Camp, an two-week summer camp run by the Peninsula Girl Scouts. The group, which hires buses to transport hundreds of children and volunteers to camp from all over the Peninsula, got into a high-profile dispute with the town over the ban.
Those in favor of allowing buses on Kings Mountain Road — which weaves through both Woodside and unincorporated areas of San Mateo County — argue that passenger vehicles, not buses, are the real problem, and that bus drivers’ professional training makes them safer than other drivers.
Members of the cycling community counter that no matter how careful a bus driver is, vehicles that big cannot drive safely on a road as narrow and twisting as Kings Mountain Road.
Woodside Mayor Chris Shaw believes it’s unlikely the town will reverse its vehicle length ordinance for Kings Mountain Road, which was passed last year in an effort to improve safety. However, he’s hopeful the town will be able to come to a longterm solution with the Peninsula Girl Scouts and other groups that rely on buses to get children to organized activities at Huddart Park.
Near misses and collisions on Kings Mountain Road
Craig Davis is the founder of Cyclist Video Evidence, an online platform where cyclists can submit video footage of near-miss or collision incidents that they experience while riding. On July 11, Davis penned an article in which he shared multiple videos of near-miss incidents between a local cyclist and cars that have occurred on Kings Mountain Road over the past couple months.
“Each of these five extremely dangerous incidents were caused by relatively small vehicles, illegally passing on blind curves, even when a highly visible yellow cyclists’ turn out sign was visible a few feet ahead,” Davis wrote. “… If relatively small vehicles regularly cause these egregiously dangerous threats to cyclists’ lives, imagine the devastation 40-foot buses could wreak.”
Davis said there haven’t just been near misses on Kings Mountain Road, but also collisions resulting in major injury and death. In August 2020, cyclist Frank Masterson was killed in a collision with a Prius as it passed another cyclist around a blind curve on Kings Mountain Road.
Earlier this year, cyclist George Burkhard was riding on Kings Mountain Road when a school bus going in the opposite direction came around a blind corner, Davis added. In video footage captured by Burkhard, the middle of the bus can be seen crossing the double yellow lines on the road as it comes around the corner, due to its length. This causes a Mazda driving in front of Buckhard to come to a grinding halt to avoid hitting the bus. The sudden stop doesn’t leave enough time for Buckhard to brake and he collides with the car, causing him to fall off his bike. He was injured in the incident.
Davis said there’s a severe lack of enforcement when it comes to laws that protect cyclists, such as the 3-feet rule, which requires that vehicles give cyclists 3 feet of space when passing.
“Law enforcement could change dangerous drivers’ behavior before collisions occur by enforcing existing laws,” he told this news organization.
But Davis also believes that no matter how safely drivers are behaving, some roads are just not meant for vehicles over a certain size. From his perspective, Kings Mountain Road is a prime example.
“(Burkhard’s) video irrefutably shows a bus trying to navigate the narrow roads and how the midsection of the bus went into the other lane,” Davis said.
Bus ban
The Woodside Town Council agrees that buses present a safety hazard. Last October, it adopted an ordinance banning vehicles longer than 35 feet on Kings Mountain Road. Mayor Shaw told the Almanac that this wasn’t the first time the town has adopted rules regarding long vehicles on tight, winding roads.
“We addressed Old La Honda Road several years ago, when the town manager came to Town Council and said, ‘Look, we’re having a lot of reports of near-misses,'” Shaw said. “Our proposal to this (was), we want to shorten the vehicle lengths that are allowed on Old La Honda Road. At that time, the residents came out with nothing but praise and hallelujahs for it.”
Shaw said passing the ordinance for Kings Mountain Road was “just a natural outgrowth” from the rules that already existed for streets like Old La Honda. When it first passed, he said, the new rule didn’t cause much of a stir.
But in late May, the Peninsula Girl Scouts learned that the ordinance would prohibit their day camp buses from reaching the entrance of Huddart Park, which is accessed via Kings Mountain Road. The Scouts quickly mobilized against the rule, which Day Camp Director Monica Curtis said would “severely impact” the 500 children and volunteers taking part in the mid-July camp.
After a meeting between camp directors, Woodside town staff and the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office on June 21, Woodside granted the Peninsula Girl Scouts a temporary bus permit on June 26, allowing them to use their hired buses this summer. The town also used signs to notify drivers that buses would be coming up and down the road, and the San Mateo County Parks Department and Sheriff’s Office placed staff members at the entrance of Huddart Park to alert drivers.
Camp Director Curtis said this temporary solution went smoothly and allowed camp to proceed as planned, buses and all. But the Girl Scouts are still going to fight for a longterm solution to allow buses on Kings Mountain Road. Curtis said there are plans for another meeting with the county and other stakeholders in August.
“It’s literally limiting access for youth to the park,” Curtis said of Woodside’s bus law. “Our permits were originally denied until we were screaming out to the community for help.”
Debate over safety of buses
Mayor Shaw said that while he can’t speak for the entire Town Council, “it’s unlikely that we are going to modify or remove the vehicle length ordinance controlling Woodside’s portion of Kings Mountain Road.” However, he said he is hopeful that the town can work with the Girls Scouts to find a solution so they can continue to access Huddart Park.
“Whether the solution that was deployed this year can go forward, I don’t know,” Shaw said, referring to the temporary permits for their July summer camp. “That’s a lot of resources to have the sheriffs and the rangers involved with doing that.”
Another possible solution Shaw suggested is that the Girl Scouts use shorter buses that comply with the town’s rule. But Camp Director Curtis said that this idea is financially infeasible.
“The next bus size down is 30 feet. That is significantly smaller,” Curtis said. “We would have to more than double, probably, our transportation costs, which we are already paying nearly $100,000 for. We’re a nonprofit. So in order to make up that money I would have to charge my campers twice as much to even attend, and that is just not something we’re comfortable doing.”
And from Curtis’ perspective, replacing the current buses with smaller ones only adds more vehicles on the road.
“Thirty-foot buses still would have to swing wide on a hairpin turn,” she said. “They drive very similarly to a 40-foot bus.”
Curtis agrees that Kings Mountain Road is a treacherous place for cyclists. But she believes it’s passenger vehicles that present the greatest danger.
“While I do agree there is a safety issue, we personally think it is speed and driver attitude,” Curtis said. “If everybody slowed down, everybody could share the road safely. … I don’t think limiting access to a county park was the appropriate action to jump to when they haven’t even explored other options (that) truly address the concern of safety and speed.”
From cyclist Burkhard’s perspective, the collision he experienced while riding on Kings Mountain Road wasn’t caused by poor driver behavior — it was the mere presence of a bus that created a dangerous situation.
“No one thought anyone else was personally at fault,” Burkhard told NBC Bay Area in a June interview. “The driver in front had to slam on his brakes and go off the road. The bus driver, his cab was on the right side of the road — I don’t think he could have done any better, other than not being on the road.”
Finding a solution
This year’s summer camp at Huddart Park finished last week, but the group is still eager to reach a long-term solution ahead of next year’s Peninsula Day Camp.
Mayor Shaw is hopeful that the meeting slated for mid-August will do just that. He said the Peninsula Girl Scouts, Woodside’s town manager and engineers, representatives from Huddart Park, the San Mateo County Parks Department, the Sheriff’s Office and county Supervisor Ray Mueller are all slated to attend.
“There’s been no decisions about the next season whatsoever,” Shaw said. “I know that Supervisor Mueller is interested in finding a solution. … That’s where things stand currently.”
San Mateo County Parks Director Nicholas Calderon said that while it’s been “a very rocky start to the process,” he’s confident the various stakeholders will find a solution.
“I think there needs to be a lot of coordination between the county and the town of Woodside and users to make sure that we are able to balance public safety with public access to public lands,” Calderon said.
He added that it’s unlikely there will be a “one-size-fits-all solution.”
“Every group’s circumstances are going to be different,” Calderon said. “Not every organization is going to have the financial resources to rent two smaller buses, they may only have the financial resources to rent one large bus.”
Calderon said his goal is to ensure that no one is denied access to Huddart Park.
“We want to make sure that no one ever has their request (for a bus permit) denied, and people don’t get charged a fee for that permit,” he said. “If this is truly about public safety, then we should be able to come up with a process that ensures everyone can access Huddart Park.”
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