Dear City Council,
College Avenue is a City-designated bicycle boulevard used by roughly
200 people on foot and bike every day. Lacking continuous sidewalks,
our street is shared by pedestrians, children heading to Nealon Park
or school, students and commuters traveling to Stanford from Middle
Plaza (215 units increasing both bike and pedestrian use on College),
and neighbors pushing strollers or using mobility devices.
It just takes 5 minutes being on College as a pedestrian to experience
first hand how dangerous this situation is. According to The National
Association of City Transportation Officials risk of fatality in a
crash is 10% when the vehicle is going 20 MPH and that jumps to 50% at
30 MPH and of course higher at the higher speeds we see at every hour
between 7am and 7pm on College Ave.
Because of this shared use, the current traffic conditions are
demonstrably unsafe. Recent daily data shows unacceptable vehicle
speeds on a corridor filled with vulnerable road users:
• 85th-percentile speed: 29 mph
• 95th-percentile speed: 35 mph
• 99th-percentile speed: 42 mph
• Top speeds recorded: up to 52 mph
Most concerningly, peak pedestrian times in the morning and early
evening align exactly with the highest traffic volumes and *speeds*,
drastically increasing the risk of serious or fatal collisions.
Residents have reported numerous near-misses, and we have already seen
an injury collision on Partridge Avenue.
The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)
states that when a street lacks dedicated infrastructure for people
walking or biking, it functions as a "shared street" where the target
speed is 20 mph or less. We are grateful that the Slow Streets draft
is up for approval tonight to help us reach this safety standard.
I am requesting that you approve the Slow Streets Program tonight, and
include a clear directive to staff to immediately launch a pilot on
College Avenue. I fully support implementing a low-cost, reversible
test case here and on surrounding network streets (like Partridge and
Arbor) which also lack continuous sidewalks and have heavy bike and
pedestrian use. By using proven quick-build tools—such as signage,
delineators, and gateway narrowing successfully demonstrated by the
SFMTA and other Bay Area cities—we can immediately protect our
community and the proven low cost and quick build model means that
hundreds or more Menlo Park residents can be made safer soon, before a
tragedy occurs.
Thank you for your time and your commitment to our safety,
Janet Poses
Allied Arts
