For Zareen Khan, the benefits of car-free living are plainly visible and painfully obvious.

Even on a late Tuesday afternoon, when the lunch period wraps up and much of Palo Alto's California Avenue is sleepy and sparsely populated, the tables outside her namesake restaurant are filled with diners.

"People still feel comfortable sitting outside, that's the fact. And I think it's going to stay that way for a while," Khan said during a recent interview.

Like just about every business owner in the city's "second downtown," Khan has been pivoting and adjusting over the course of the pandemic, all the while bracing for further changes down the road. In the early days of the pandemic, she greatly expanded the dining area outside Zareen's, adding spaces for dozens of diners. Even with the expansion, it's not unusual to see long lines of people snaking outside the restaurant's front door.

And while California Avenue has seen businesses leave during the pandemic — a list that includes The Counter, Subway, Pastis, Peking Duck and Avalon Art and Yoga Center — Khan has no plans to go anywhere. She recently leased the building next door that was vacated by Starbucks earlier this year. She is now planning to move the restaurant kitchen to that building and create more space inside the original Zareen's for indoor dining.

As a business owner who is invested in California Avenue, Khan is also eagerly awaiting to see what the city does with the street, which was temporarily closed to cars in June 2020 to encourage outdoor dining at a time when gathering indoors was deemed a health risk.

But the program that was initially treated as a temporary measure (as evidenced by the program's original name, "Summer Streets"), has since calcified into something permanent and amorphous. Since 2020, the City Council has repeatedly extended California Avenue's car-free status even as it delayed making a final decision about the street's long-term future. Most recently, it extended the street's closure to cars until December 2023.

Like many other restaurant owners on California Avenue, Khan supports a permanent closure to cars — a position that she shares with Franco and Maico Campilongo, brothers who own two restaurants on the strip, Italico and Terun. The street closure has been good for business, Franco Campilongo said in a recent interview at Italico. Revenues at the two restaurants are up 40% since the pre-COVID-19 days. With more outdoor tables, the restaurant can serve more people and allow diners to avoid wait times of more than an hour. Having no cars whizzing by also helped, he said.

"More people came to this area because of the street closure because you don't have to worry about cars hitting your children while they're running around," he said.

But the street looks quite different down the block, where Stephen Oberhauser is repairing shoes at The Cobblery, a family-owned business that has been a California Avenue stalwart for four generations. Retail sales at The Cobblery have been down by about 35% since before COVID-19, Oberhauser said in an interview.

The closure of the street is probably not the only cause of this downward trend. Societal shifts toward greater online retail shopping and remote work, which significantly reduced the workforce population in the California Avenue business district, certainly played a role. But the city's decision to get cars out of California Avenue, its failure to beautify the street since then and its chronic indecision about the street's future certainly haven't helped, Oberhauser said.

"It's just a few restaurants that are really killing it down here with the street closure and the rest are just trying to get by," Oberhauser said.

The city's actions — or rather inaction — only add to the sense of frustration that many retailers are facing. December 2023 is now just two months away and the city hasn't told the businesses what it plans to do beyond that date.

"It's frustrating just waiting and not knowing what the city is planning," Oberhauser said.

Like many other retailers on the strip, Oberhauser believes it's time to bring cars back to California Avenue. Last week, Jessica Roth, co-owner of The Cobblery, penned an opinion piece with owners of four other California Avenue businesses — La Bodeguita del Medio, Vino Vin Wine, Mollie Stone's and Protege — that pushed for a new alternative: opening one lane of the street to vehicle traffic from El Camino Real to Birch Street.

"While permanent street closure would benefit some restaurants, it would devastate the district's other businesses," the opinion piece in the Palo Alto Weekly stated.

"We mustn't reduce California Avenue to a restaurant row. We need to protect the vibrancy of the area to attract customers, encourage new business development, and support the needs of residents and the local community."

The two philosophies will collide on Nov. 6, when the council considers a new recommendation from city staff to keep California Avenue car-free for at least another year while a consulting firm develops alternatives.

If the council approves this plan, the street will retain its current configuration until December 2024 while a firm called Urban Field Studio conducts a 12-month analysis that explores options for improving California Avenue's streetscape design, traffic circulation, signage and outdoor dining areas.

In the meantime, city staff plans to pursue "demonstration projects to enhance the experience on the streets and further encourage people to visit the area," states a new report from the city's Office of Transportation.

This could include extending the miniature golf setup that was recently installed near the El Camino side, creating new play areas and getting rid of the orange plastic construction barriers that block cars from entering California Avenue, which to many residents and visitors epitomize the city's half-baked approach to planning for the street's future.

In need of a little love

The two sides in the California Avenue debate have different visions of the ideal future, but they generally agree on a few things. One is that the street desperately needs a little more love from the city.

Even though recent surveys commissioned by the city show that about 80% of respondents prefer to keep the street car-free, not too many people think it should look the way it does today, with parklets and outdoor tables randomly scattered up and down the thoroughfare.

California Avenue still includes pockets of whimsy and amusement: a giant chess set on the north side of the street, across from Zareen's, and the Putters mini golf course next to the El Camino barriers. But on a typical weekday afternoon, the bustling dining areas outside Zareen's, Italico and Terun and a handful of other establishments stand out like pearls on a fraying string.

Outside the lunch and dinner hours, one can probably roll a bowling ball down the avenue without hitting a single pedestrian or a bicyclist. And the hodgepodge of temporary dining areas has created an appearance that some business owners characterize as a "circus" or, less charitably, a "tent city."

Then there's the issue of cleanliness. Mark Shull, a regular visitor to California Avenue, complained to the council at a recent meeting about the street's "accelerating neglect and deterioration."

Shull cited the city's recently constructed parking garage and the soon-to-be-completed public-safety headquarters as "gold-plated city buildings," and urged the city to come up with the resources to maintain California Avenue properly.

"No long-term plans are going to mean anything if the city doesn't keep the streets cleaned up, orderly and inviting, particularly inside the barricades," Shull said at the Oct. 23 meeting.

Others believe the city should encourage more events that bring people to California Avenue. The Campilongo brothers, of Italico and Terun, started weekly street music during the pandemic.

And Maico Campilongo said he and his brother had considered several other possible attractions that could make the strip more attractive, including an exhibit celebrating Palo Alto's history of technological innovation and a showcase spot for fancy and exotic cars. Franco Campilongo said that when he asked the city about the car display, he received a 14-page application with a set of fees. The idea fizzled.

Sahlik Khan, Zareen's son, pointed to Castro Street in Mountain View and Santana Row as examples of what California Avenue can look like if the city invests in better lighting and landscaping.

"You can see a lot of places that started off by saying, 'It's not just a downtown; it's more of a destination.' And we have the opportunity to really be that spot," Sahlik Khan said.

Other business owners believe that more widespread changes are needed to address California Avenue's current appearance. In July, California Avenue businesses debated in an email exchange the recent changes on their street.

While Zareen Khan, expressed her support for keeping the streets-car free, many others made it clear that they don't share her position and pointed to the street's deteriorating aesthetics and sleepy vibes.

Al Ghafouri, owner of Printer's Cafe, said his business is still down 50% from before the pandemic and likened it to a "ghost town" during day time. Anthony Secviar, chief and owner of Protege, which is located just outside the car-free portion of California Avenue, lamented the "zero aesthetic integration of the street with the outdoor dining spaces."

Steve Ugur, founder and director of operations at Sekoya Lounge & Kitchen, said he wants the city to retain parklets and reopen the street "to enable a more aesthetic integration with the restaurants they serve."

"I am definitely not against outdoor dining, but it just isn't pleasant right now on Cal Ave.," Ugur wrote. "It definitely does look like a temporary street fair."

Running out of patience

Another thing that the two camps agree on is that city leaders should stop punting and make a decision. In spring 2022, the Palo Alto council took a quintessentially Palo Altan approach to the problem when it agreed to fund a study that would gauge public opinions, talk to stakeholders and identify the parameters of a broader study — the one that the council is expected to approve in November.

Business owners have indicated that they're losing patience with this prolonged planning purgatory, particularly at a time when the retail sector is reeling from high rents and high vacancies. A report that the city's consultant, Streetsense, released over the summer noted that California Avenue's vacancy rate of 15% is the highest among all of the city's shopping districts.

A separate study, which conducted by the firms Fukuji Architecture and Planning and Fehr & Peers, pegged the vacancy rate on California Avenue at about 25%, which includes "shadow" vacancies in which lease payments are made but there are no storefronts occupying the space, according to the report.

Both of these studies came out before the grocery store Country Sun announced that it will close by the end of the year, creating a vacancy at a prominent location on the car-free blocks. (Despite this impending departure, many of the storefronts vacated earlier in the pandemic have now been filled by other businesses, such as Local Kitchens, Ume Tea, Namaste, Ramen Kowa, Victoria Ballet and Art Studio and Imperial Treasure.)

During a recent meeting with Council member Greg Tanaka, which was streamed on his Facebook page, Jessica Roth of The Cobblery complained about the city's process for working with businesses on developing a solution for California Avenue.

"City staff has done a poor job at outreach to the businesses on Cal Ave and getting a true representation of what businesses want the street to be closed and what businesses would like the street to be reopened," Roth said at the Tanaka meeting.

Franco Campilongo said that the city's indecision may be making the situation worse because it deters potential business owners and investors from coming to California Avenue and steers them to downtowns in other cities.

"They are kind of scared to come here because they don't know what's happening. So when you're in doubt, you don't really want to come and invest," he said.

Michael Ekwall, co-owner of La Bodeguita del Medio, also strongly supports outdoor dining, while also favoring the one-lane compromise. Without the council's emergency measures, his restaurant wouldn't have made it through the pandemic, he said in an interview. Since then, however, he has been frustrated by the city's process and its failure to clearly communicate with the business owners.

"I don't think people are necessarily resistant to change, but we need some clarity," Ekwall said. "We can't just keep waiting for another year and then another year to make a decision."

In supporting opening one lane of California Avenue to cars, Ekwall argued that it would still allow restaurants to have parklets and outdoor dining (albeit, not in the middle of the street). It would also help the merchants who have argued that the car prohibition and parklet proliferation have made their businesses both less visible and less accessible to visitors.

"I think it makes sense to try something different in the interim," Ekwall said. "If the neighbors would listen to each other and understand that if you have a restaurant and have outdoor dining, it's probably not gonna be significantly impacted by opening one lane of traffic."

He also noted that the city will not be able to gather any additional data by keeping the street closed to cars for another year. The only real reason it has to maintain the status quo is to avoid the work of reopening it to cars, he said.

"What matters is what we see on the ground, and that is that a lot of businesses continue to struggle," Ekwall said in an interview. "When they say it's about access and visibility, why aren't we listening to them?"

The complexities of cars

While Ekwall and other members of his business coalition see the creation of a one-way street on California Avenue as a compromise, they are facing an uphill battle when it comes to convincing city leaders to pursue this idea.

The new report from the city's Office of Transportation identifies a series of challenges that this would entail, including costs, inadequate staff capacity and the length of time it would take to implement. The process would almost certainly (and most predictably) include more consultants, another new traffic study and an environmental analysis.

The report also notes that if the city creates the one-way configuration while pursuing the 12-month study, it may find itself reconfiguring the street again once the council identifies a preferred alternative. If that happens, businesses and the community "may get confused and discouraged with continuous and frequent changes."

While transportation staff are recommending retaining the current setup on California Avenue, the council has other options as well.

It may revert to pre-pandemic mode, with both lanes open, a move that can be done relatively quickly, given that the current car-free program is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023 anyway. That's the upside.

The downside is that businesses would have to remove all outdoor dining areas that are on city streets and the community would "lose the gathering spaces available now and may be discouraged to visit altogether," the Office of Transportation report stated.

The council could also choose to prohibit cars on California Avenue only during certain seasons, on weekends or during special events. That option could, however, "turn away the community and confuse would-be visitors who are unsure of the street conditions and environment."

For the restaurants that support a car-free California Avenue, this is a key point. They acknowledge that they benefit more than other types of businesses from the car-free alignment. But reverting the street to its pre-2020 setup will attract fewer people to the area, they argue. This will not only hurt them; it will also hurt the very retailers that are already struggling and who blame the closure of California Avenue for the business district's broader challenges.

Zareen Khan believes that California Avenue's big challenge is high rents, not car-free streets. Removing street dining will certainly create a drop in business to some restaurants. The benefits, however, are hard to predict.

"You might gain something, you might not — it's up in the air, right?" Khan said. "People say, 'Well, let's just try out something,' but the opportunity cost is high."

What the council, community think

Palo Alto council members, for their part, have been reluctant to make any major pivots since the car-free program was established in 2020. During a May 2022 public hearing in which they agreed to keep California Avenue car-free, Council members Pat Burt and Greer Stone both expressed support for improving the design on California Avenue and creating a more cohesive and permanent feel.

"I think it's really important for us to move beyond the very temporary haphazard situation we have and improve the design and the support for pedestrians," Burt said just after making the motion to retain the closure to cars.

Stone said he can't imagine a scenario where the council closes the street, reopens it and then closes it again — a position that would be hard to reconcile with the new one-lane proposal from the business coalition.

He also cited the feedback that the city has received and concluded that the community "really loves these closed streets."

The report from Fukuji and Fehr & Peers also underscored the popularity of car-free streets among the broader public. In January, the firms completed an online survey that asked respondents which "flexible interim street designs prior to permanent improvements" they want to see tested.

Of the 356 respondents, 79.3% selected "closure to all traffic except emergency vehicles" and 71.3% chose "pedestrian promenade." Two-way vehicle access received support from just 10.3% of the respondents and one-lane access just 8.9%.

Palo Alto has also received generally positive responses to its "flexible community spaces" program, which placed tables, chairs and game play areas like corn hole and chess in parts of California Avenue. The city placed QR-code survey stickers in these spaces and asked for feedback.

According to the new city report, the responses include "Keep doing more of these," "Less paving are more parklike," and "Yasssssssssssss #love" (the only negative comment quoted in the report is a complaint that the games are a mess and that they get "scattered all over the street and sidewalk").

It's hardly surprising, however, that residents who responded to surveys while playing games on California Avenue would have positive association with configurations that encourage the street's closure to traffic. Some residents, however, feel the experiment with car-free streets has gone on long enough.

Shannon McEntee, who lives in the Mayfield neighborhood close to California Avenue, is among them. In her view, the car-free street isn't just unattractive, it is also "awkward and inconvenient." McEntee serves on the board of the Palo Alto Transportation Management Authority, a nonprofit charged with getting people to shift away from cars in favor of using other modes of transportation. But when it comes to California Avenue, she believes it's time to bring cars back.

The current setup, she noted, redirects vehicle traffic to the narrower streets in her neighborhood. It also makes it less convenient for people to get to the Caltrain station at the end of California Avenue, near Park Boulevard.

"We're working really hard to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation and yet here we made it so awkward for them down to the train station whether you're walking or biking, but especially in your car," McEntee said in an interview.

David Matheson, who lives in Evergreen Park, on the other side of California Avenue, sees it differently. The street closure "brought new life and vitality to the area," he wrote to the council last week. He pushed back against the idea that the lack of car traffic is causing the struggles among retailers.

"To think opening the street to cars will address underlying business challenges for businesses like these is naïve and nostalgic," Matheson wrote. "We must not let their distress destroy the vitality that the street closure has created and threaten to revert Cal Ave to another dying downtown area."