BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
The loss of parking on El Camino Real to make way for bike lanes is hurting a small business along the thoroughfare in Redwood City.
Rajesh Cheethirala, the owner of Togo’s Sandwiches and Baskin-Robbins next to the Franklin Street Apartments in Redwood City, said he has seen a decrease in customers, causing him to struggle to give employees hours and pay his bills.
“Parking is vital to my survival,” Cheethirala said.
Cheethirala said he hardly sees any bikers pass by. He said he has a camera facing the street that starts recording when it senses any motion.
“Maybe one biker a day goes on this road,” Cheethirala said.
In 2023, from March to May, Cheethirala would have as many as 3,000 customers visiting his shops. In May 2023, he had 3,940 customers.
In 2024, Cheethirala had the same number of customers, with the highest amount being 3,742 in May.
Cheethirala would only see a decrease during January and February, with around 2,500 customers.
This year, Cheethirala has seen numbers as low as 1,866 since Caltrain added the bike lane. This May, 2,406 customers visited his store.
“I spoke to several of my guests, and the first complaint was that they couldn’t find parking,” Cheethirala said.
He said he’s had to reduce hours for his employees, forcing them to take on second jobs.
The only parking spots available for his customers are on the side alleyway, which has nine parking spots, and the garage, where residents who live on Franklin Street park.
The parking area isn’t very visible to customers, Cheethirala said. When customers do find it, it’s full of residents who are parking there.
In the garage, there is a separate section for retail parking, but it is always used by residents, Cheethirala said. There are times when residents have visitors over and there are even fewer spaces.
“I see all the retail spots are taken up, and not a single customer is in my store,” Cheethirala said.
Cheethirala said there was no parking enforcement to help separate retail parking from residential parking.
There are two vacant spots next to Cheethirala’s businesses that haven’t been filled due to the lack of parking, he said.
Cheethirala said he has seen people visit the empty spaces, but they have lost interest once they see the parking situation.
Cheethirala said he has also struggled with paying his rent. His rent was $8,300 but was lowered to $7,600 when he reported his monthly sales.
Cheethirala is hoping Redwood City Council helps address his situation, improve parking, or help him relocate.
“Imagine buying a house, but no parking. You wouldn’t buy that house,” Cheethirala said.
Cheethirala said he has measured the size of the bike lane and car lane in front of his businesses. He found the bike lane to be 11 feet wide and the car lane to be 12 feet wide and thinks it’s possible to accommodate more parking.
“I don’t know if the bikes just got big. But they did say that before they put the parking restriction, they spoke to all the residents along the stretch, including business owners. I didn’t get any call from them,” Cheethirala said.
Other cities such as Los Altos, Mountain View and Palo Alto have approved the removal of all parking on El Camino in favor of bike lanes as a result of Caltrans repaving the road.
Several business owners protested the decision to Palo Alto City Council last summer because they didn’t want to lose parking. Mayor Ed Lauing said at the time that the city would go “block by block, business by business” to find parking solutions.
Roughly 500 parking spaces in Palo Alto are in the process of being removed and replaced by a green plastic curb that is raised a few inches from the ground.
Of course businesses are hurting. No rocket science needed.
We went out for dinner in Palo Alto and squeezed into the last parking space in a back lot. The restaurant was only half full and there was nowhere for takeout customers to park. We watched 2 workers struggle to push a huge trash dumpster into the bike lane for curbside pickup.
Vehicles pulling out of driveways are still jutting into the bike lanes.
How does any of this make biking safer? How many are really biking on ECR?? I’ve driven ECR a few times and have only seen 5 people stupid enough to bike under such dangerous conditions.
Did PA manage to go block by block yet to miraculously find parking???
Of course not, just like PA couldn’t be bothered to do ANY outreach to the ECR businesses before putting the the bike lanes.
How much money are we spending on this insane virtue-signalling and how much sales tax revenue are we losing? How much more will they hike our utility rates to cover the shortfall?? Obviously we need to spend a few million dollars more on retail consultants. MORONS.
When these council members who supported the bike lanes run for re-election, and they tell us they support small business, we’ll know they’re liars. None of them will get my vote.
jam is right! It’s all about virtue signaling. Bicyclists have a powerful lobby and cities want to look “green.” Our city councils labor under the delusion that people will get out of their cars to ride bikes on El Camino. They don’t care about business owners trying to survive.
“Mayor Ed Lauing said at the time that the city would go “block by block, business by business” to find parking solutions.”
I wonder why NONE of the council members went with me or helped me go block by block, business by business to FIRST! inform them of what CALtrans & the bicycle lobbyists were proposing, SECOND! ask for the business owners for their opinions???????????????
One council members scoffed at me and said ..”I’m not going to go to all these businesses, there’s 60 +…”
I have a better idea, street closures! bam, that is making a lot of our local businesses thrive in the bay area, please close more streets.
Close more streets???? How would closing El Camino help businesses or anyone trying to get where they’re trying to go? Have you thought about emergency vehicles which are already slowed by traffic?
Oh silly me. You only want to spew illogical virtue-signal nonsense without regard to the businesses you’re killing, the neighborhoods you’d destroy when parking gets pushed there AND the people harmed or killed because fire engines and ambulances can’t reach them in time — something Menlo Park Fire Chiefs have warned about for DECADES.
Remember that Council Member Pat Burt was the council member who so vehemently criticized her for daring to suggest outreach while other council members AND our highly paid planning and transportation staff did and said nothing! Remind me why we pay them AND their consultants with no local knowledge!!
Re the restaurant I mentioned above, it had about 12 or 14 parking spots in the back lot with a tight turning radius, a waitstaff of 4, a kitchen staff of 4? and a seating capacity of around 80 — WHERE are staff, customers and Uber/Lyft delivery guys supposed to go???
Obviously Georgio T has a great future in Palo Alto politics and/or as a $250K+++ city staffer or a gravy train consultant.
Can we get an update on how many parking spaces our “leaders” have found?