Menlo Park's Future

The Willows, The Budget, Willow Road, Traffic and Crime

Fellow Residents,

Your City is about to embark on a “year-long “  traffic study in the Willows neighborhood.
Why is this a problem for all of us?

·         It will cost an estimated $120,000 for consultants and staff for a study.  This does not include PR, environmental reviews or any “traffic calming” hardware installation.

o        Right now the study is assumed to last a year, but past studies in the Willows have morphed from one year to three.

o        One of the consultant duties will be to dig up and review all past Willow studies.

·         There is no traffic congestion in the Willows (as confirmed by past traffic studies).

o        Willows traffic is in line with the Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation rates for residential areas.  [NOTE: read former Transportation Commissioner Eric Doyle’s letter to the City Council in the official City Council email log.]

o        Reducing the number of entry points as demanded by Willows traffic activists will simply concentrate this fixed volume of traffic on unchanged streets.

·         If entry ways into the Willows are eliminated (as advocates of this traffic study want), the traffic on Willow Road, which is the most congested road in our City, will increase. 

·         Other Neighborhoods including Linfield Oaks and those north of Willow Road and around Menlo-Atherton High School which depend on Willow Road will be negatively affected.

Traffic in the Willows has been studied several times, and in the end, the majority of residents are not willing to accept increased traffic on some streets when other streets are blocked off.  In the 1990’s many traffic devices were put up on trial—and then removed –because the affected residents objected.

Could there be a better use of taxpayer funds?

·         Crime is the real problem in the Willows.

·         Crime is increasing everywhere in Menlo Park, but, in the Willows, crime seems to be more acute and residents are understandably frightened.

·         So, let’s not study the wrong issue.  I suggest that the City Council work with our police force, not a traffic consultant, and deal with the real issue – crime.

Your comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated at [email protected].

If you would like to read my past emails, please go http://menlofuture.weebly.com/index.html

Thanks,

Lee Duboc