I did not mean to imply that my complaints to the city have been treated with contempt. My complaints to speeding drivers have been. Sorry about any possible misinterpretation.

DB

On Thu, Jan 12, 2023, 17:29 David Boyce > wrote:

On Creek Drive on this dry this afternoon, we — me and the several other pedestrians walking in both directions — were passed by at least two SUVs exceeding the 15 mph speed limit.


Did they know the speed limit there is 15? Probably not. There are just two signs to that effect: at Arbor Road and at El Camino Real, where the driver’s attention is on making the turn safely. This paucity of signs despite five — count ‘em, five — T intersections between Arbor and ECR where signs would be facing drivers and hard to miss or ignore.


Would the drivers care about the speed limit? A better question is does the government of Menlo Park care about whether drivers care about speed limits. Where would Menlo Park be on a spectrum of adequacy and prominence of speed limit signs? Not in a reassuring position, I’d warrant.


Another better question: Is Menlo Park government preternaturally afraid of antagonizing voting residents with a reminder about the actual law in a city rife with moving violations?


But back to whether the drivers care … in a community of conspicuous wealth while nestled, all but anonymously, inside a well-appointed tank designed by professionals highly, highly skilled in appealing the id of drivers. And the roads are dry suddenly after a week of wet weather, with more to come. In a period not far removed from an election in which some 74 million Americans, some of them surely living here, voted to endorse a go-to-hell culture as to the law. So, do they care???


I care. If I had chalk and the right stencils, I would write the speed limit on the roadway! I doubt that is a crime, but you tell me.


The city has time to attend to mud puddles (at Creek and ECR), put up safety cones (at East Creek and Alma), and attend to one Council agenda of items after another week after week, but no time and apparently no ambition to put up a few officially designed signs stating THE EXISTING SPEED LIMIT on an alley — 15 mph is the California speed limit for alleys — to address a situation of pedestrians and bicyclists versus fast-moving psychologically-empowering wheeled objects weighing thousands of pounds barreling down the road and the people operating them thinking they’re acting safely because they see us (one resident repeatedly made that argument to me during an encounter). My complaints have been treated with contempt.


Which is what I now feel towards the city government, I am sorry to say.


David Boyce

Allied Arts neighborhood