Fair Oaks Avenue: A Deadly Blood Alley
- Tim Oey
- Feb 7
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 8
On a Saturday evening last month, January 18, 2025, a person was walking near the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Columbia Avenue when he was struck by a car. He died. Two years earlier, on another Saturday evening, April 22, 2023, another person was walking across Fair Oaks at Taylor Avenue, just one block away, when he was struck by a car. He died too. These brutal deaths, spaced so close in time and place, are clear evidence that Fair Oaks Avenue is one of the most dangerous roads in Sunnyvale to walk and bike on. Fair Oaks desperately needs pedestrian improvements as it is very wide and very hard to cross. Many intersections have no traffic signalization to protect pedestrians, as is the case at the two intersections where the pedestrians died.
Fair Oaks is dangerous for bicycling as well. Most bicyclists find Fair Oaks to be a death trap. The only reason there aren't more bicyclist deaths is because almost nobody dares to bike on it. Fair Oaks has been recognized as needing improvements for a very long time. In 2013, the Sunnyvale Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) wanted bike lanes on Fair Oaks but staff and the Council at that time decided that sharrows were enough. They were wrong. This bit of paint does not make Fair Oaks safer or more attractive for bicyclists. The sharrow bicycles painted on Fair Oaks are what bicyclists look like after being run over by cars. Fair Oaks currently has too many fast motor vehicles for sharrows to work. It needs bike lanes, and much more, to become a complete street.
Unsurprisingly, Fair Oaks is on the High Injury Network. In a recent 10-year period ending in 2023, Fair Oaks had 82 reported crashes of pedestrians or cyclists hit by cars, many of them resulting in severe injuries and 3 of them ending in death. This doesn't include the death last month.
Despite how dangerous it is for pedestrians and cyclists, people still walk and bike on Fair Oaks out of necessity. Fair Oaks has many parks, schools, retailers, and residences along it that both pedestrians and bicyclists need to get to including the new Magical Bridge playground and new athletic fields at Fair Oaks Park. With just 2 bikeable north-south routes in Sunnyvale (Mary Ave, Sunnyvale Ave/Borregas Ave), it is even more imperative that we make Fair Oaks bikeable. Fair Oaks is simply the only route within a 1/2 mile that serves the many destinations on and near it. People can't avoid it because there is no practical alternative route.
To better serve and protect bicyclists and pedestrians, Fair Oaks needs a complete streets redesign along the entire corridor. Coincidentally, Council is considering an important study issue at the Study Issue and Budget Proposals Workshop next week: "DPW 24-02: Complete Streets Re-design of Fair Oaks Avenue". We must advocate for this study issue. Improving Fair Oaks will be too late for the pedestrians who died in 2023 and 2025, but it will prevent future deaths.
We do not recommend advocating for a related study issue, "DPW 25-01: Fair Oaks Avenue Signalizations at Three Locations". This study issue is a small subset of DPW 24-02. It was proposed in an effort to work on Fair Oaks incrementally. However, improving Fair Oaks using a piecemeal Frankenstein approach is inferior in several significant ways:
The piecemeal approach will not be able to optimize safety along the whole length of Fair Oaks. It will take longer and result in lower quality improvements than if planned altogether. When planning traffic improvements, it's important to consider the whole corridor altogether.
The piecemeal approach will require the City to pass a new study issue for every piece, expending valuable City resources to create, debate, and rank the study issues, and there's no guarantee that any of them will pass.
DPW 25-01 focuses on 3 intersections that are not the most dangerous ones. The most recent pedestrian fatality happened at none of these 3 intersections. The 82 crashes along Fair Oaks were not at just these 3 intersections, but instead were spread out along the whole corridor.
We need to stop acting in a piecemeal manner and instead proactively plan the entire corridor. The $750K cost of doing the comprehensive study is nothing compared to the lives of the people who have died and will die on Fair Oaks Avenue.
Call To Action
In order to get Fair Oaks fixed properly, tell Council you support study issue DPW 24-02. Email them and/or speak at the upcoming Study Issue and Budget Proposals Workshop.
Email Council (council@sunnyvale.ca.gov) by Tuesday, February 11, 2025.
Speak at the Study Issue & Budget Proposals Workshop on February 13, 2025 at 8:30 AM sharp. Attend at City Hall or by zoom. You will likely have only 1 minute to speak.
In your advocacy, specifically name "DPW 24-02: Complete Streets Re-design of Fair Oaks Avenue". Tell them Fair Oaks is a deadly road with 82 crashes involving pedestrians + cyclists and 3 of those crashes ending in death, as measured over a 10-year period ending in 2023. A fourth person died just last month walking on Fair Oaks. Tell them to optimize Fair Oaks along its entire length, not do piecemeal improvements.
About the Author
Tim Oey is a 36-year resident of Sunnyvale and bicycles everywhere. He served 10 years on the Sunnyvale Bicycle and Pedestrian Commission including stints as Chair and Vice Chair. He is currently the Chair of the Santa Clara County Roads Commission.
