Menlo Park City Council,
I was asked to review Sharon Road sidewalk project report and I have made a couple of suggestions shown below. My suggestions are concepts that could greatly improve safety while still keeping in the bounds of the options presented. My observations are based on my efforts for improved traffic safety in the community and along the Santa Cruz/Alameda corridor. The thinking was influenced by various traffic calming advocacy groups, safe routes, complete streets, vision zero, safety guidelines and recommendations from a wide spectrum of government traffic and transportation agencies.
I support the lower speed limits proposed in Resolution No. 6610; however, I hope the council will include a modification to the resolution to accept additional safety considerations that have been recently received by City Council (including these discussed below). These suggestions advance all proposed options by improving the safety achievements for all users of this section of road: Students, cyclists, motorists, and residents. The suggestions are in concert with the recommended lower speeds.
The tendency of using really wide traffic lanes needs to be reconsidered. For example, the new Santa Cruz lanes between Avy Ave (@cemetery) and Lemon, including the whole length of Hillview School uses 9’ wide travel lanes. The rest of Santa Cruz Ave uses about 9’3” lanes, and Oak Grove downtown has even narrower lanes. So while I can’t see the exact width of the proposed lanes by using the project report's Options graphics, it appears they are near 11’ - 12’ wide (more and less). Re-thinking that extra wide allocation to be the same 9’ widths as other locations, allows for calmer traffic, as narrower lanes are proven to slow traffic speed and increase motorist awareness.
Narrower traffic lanes also free up valuable pavement for other uses - in this case it could be a bike lane one direction or it could reduce the impact on residences as they would not need to loose much of their frontage, or it could provide wider sidewalks — or, with a bit of thinking outside of the box, all of the above.
[cid:59388D35-2D39-41A8-A0FB-E23DF017361F@attlocal.net]
Please notice in the above animated GIF that the pavement area has not changed - its the same area as proposed (A and B), just reallocated by painting the travel lanes to 9’ widths and using the remainder width for a dedicated westbound 4’ to 5’ bike lane. A bit of engineering needs to be applied (obviously), yet with engineering incentive this could be accomplished and refined to yield a slower, calmer, and potentially safer route for everyone.
NE Corner of Sharon/Altschul:
Notice that the NE corner of Altschul/Sharon in the proposals seem inappropriate and unnecessarily unsafe: It has an extra long crosswalk, the design doesn’t take into consideration that Altschul is one way, and the arc of the corner curve is extremely wide. Making this a sharper corner and shortening the crosswalk by 20’+ should be considered as it has major safety benefits for the high volume of school kids that use this corner.
[cid:946C8941-AA87-4628-BC32-AAFB96414B4E@attlocal.net]
Both of these graphics are animated GIFs. If they are not animating, please let me know.
I am hoping that these suggestions are helpful and can be considered, especially in that they aren’t making major changes to options A or B. I think the concepts here could be used in Option C.
Cheers,
Ron
\_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_
Ron Snow
199 Stanford Ave
Menlo Park, CA 94025-6325 USA
Direct: 650-949-6658
Re: staff report: https://menlopark.org/DocumentCenter/View/27212/G1-20210126-CC-Sharon-Rd-sidewalk-project?fbclid=IwAR084TcBEevo6s-xRbuu5DnfN-dPNUb6Qu55dDOM5o7tE8nic_DBd1o8ZQ8
