Dear council members,
East Palo Alto public works is now actively working on Kavanaugh Drive rehabilitation and improvements.
With the multiple planned Menlo Park development projects along O’Brien and Adams including the connections with Willow Village, comments have been provided in the last several years to improve pedestrian/bicycle/safety street improvements. It would be great to see a comprehensive detailed plan and execution timeline for the Menlo Park O'Brien/Adams/Kavanaugh/Willow/University area at an upcoming relevant commission or city meeting.
I would say that at minimum the continuation of the sidewalks between Kavanaugh Drive East Palo Alto and Kavanaugh Way Menlo Park is long overdue and urgently needed. This should be pursued as soon as possible especially that the Polytec building at the corner of O’Brien and Kavanaugh is now vacant.
Below is also a detailed list of several improvements suggestions for O'Brien Drive, Kavanaugh Way/Drive between Menlo Park and East Palo Alto and Willow Road.
Thank you very much in advance for your support.
Romain Taniere
A. O'Brien Drive, Kavanaugh Way/Drive
1. It would be great if a red/no-parking zone could be painted on both side of Kavanaugh Drive/Way and on both city sides at the curve junction between East Palo Alto and Menlo Park (from the Menlo Park Polytec driveway to the East Palo Alto city sign and from the 1395 Kavanaugh EPA driveway where there is a bus stop sign to the Menlo Park city sign). With cars at high speed/low visibility, this curve is very dangerous when two cars are coming heads on as people almost drive on the middle of the road to avoid cars parked on the sides and at high speed way above the speed limit most of the time.
See example here: https://vimeo.com/704367839 (if you just examine the section on foot you do not see what the problem may be).
In conjunction with the red no parking extended zones it would help to add some botts' dots and/or rumble strips on the double divider lines to provide tactile and auditory feedback to alert drivers starting from the Polytec driveway to the 1396 Kavanaugh driveway.
2. To limit vehicle traffic, the Willow/O’Brien/University area should be redeveloped with pedestrian/bicycle traffic in mind. As such, sidewalks with ADA compliant crosswalks/curbs/ramps, which at present are mostly nonexistent, should be constructed on both sides all along O’Brien Drive (as a continuation and similarly to what has been done at 1035 O'Brien Drive for example when it was rebuilt) and Kavanaugh Way in Menlo Park (especially now that the Polytec building is vacant) to connect with existing sidewalks on Kavanaugh Drive and University Avenue in East Palo Alto. Better/increased lighting should be installed and bicycle lanes should be also developed on O’Brien Drive.
B. Willow Road
1. Red/no-parking zone request in front of 965-985 O'Brien Drive, Menlo Park to ease the flow of vehicles to Willow Road. This would allow vehicles on O'Brien to be in 2 lines, up to the traffic light (right now the 2 lines, no parking zone is not even barely from 965 O'Brien to the light but just a few feet from the corner Willow/O'Brien intersection). Vehicles that are parked on the street around 965-985 O'Brien make the congestion even worse and the 2hr parking zone is not even enforced in this area. This should be very easy and fast to implement (just relocating the existing "no parking here to curb" further down the street and extending the painting strip to divide the lane further).
2. Installation of a new sign on the far right of the large overhang Newbridge traffic light mast arm coming from US101 towards O'Brien Drive with "lane ends - through traffic merge left" would ease the traffic for locals who make a right on Willow Road to Alberni Street and O'Brien Drive. At present, through traffic on Willow Road stay on the very right lane from US101 overpass to O'Brien Drive, blocking the lane for local traffic turning right. Having a "warning" early posted sign ahead of time will help vehicles merge ahead of time instead of seeing the signs too late and blocking the lanes where local residents need to exit/enter.
3. The Willow Road and side street traffic light synchronization needs to account and take place also East of US101 right away, not just West of US101. Vehicle counts and traffic patterns on O'Brien/Ivy/Hamilton should be done/included on the on-going synchronization (also on side streets such as Kavanaugh Way (Menlo Park) and Kavanaugh Drive (East Palo Alto) in anticipation of the META Willow Campus).
4. As a complement to #2, going East on CA 114 towards the Dumbarton bridge, the sign next to the sidewalk indicating that Willow through traffic must merge left near the intersection of Willow Road and O'Brien Drive is too close to the intersection/traffic light. It does not give cars enough distance to move to the left if going straight. This gives the impression that there are 3 lanes instead of 2 and at peak commute hour creates a bottle neck for people who want to turn right on O’Brien Drive. The “Through traffic must merge left” sign should be moved before Alberni Street EPA to give enough time for drivers to get off the right lane and not block it. Again, having a "warning" early posted sign ahead of time will help vehicles merge ahead of time instead of seeing the signs too late and blocking the lanes where local residents need to exit/enter. Some additional “Right arrows” should also be painted just after Alberni Street EPA on the right lane to reinforce the message.
5. Similarly to #2, a new sign can be installed on the far right of the horizontal large overhang Newbridge traffic light mast arm coming from O'Brien Drive towards US101 "Right lane must turn right - US101 North SF only".
6. As a complement to #5, going West on CA 114 towards US 101, the new Willow configuration at/after Newbridge is a very nice improvement (except for the Dumbarton express bus stop footprint/location, see #7). However, the signs on the right side indicating that through traffic must merge left and that the right lane is for San Francisco US 101 are not really well placed and from a driver perspective cannot be seen very well (maybe OK if you see them from a pedestrian’s perspective or inspect the intersection on foot, but they are partially hidden by traffic light/trees if you see them from a driver’s perspective on the right or middle lane before the traffic light). May be the placement of the various sidewalk signs between Newbridge and US 101 can be revisited and also some “Right arrows” can be painted just before or after the “SF North” white road marking on the right lane.
7. Going West on CA 114 towards US 101, the Dumbarton Express bus stop on Willow Road, right at the corner of Newbridge MP is badly posted and very dangerous. Unlike the bus stop on the other Willow/Newbridge EPA side going East, and despite the new large sidewalk just been redone, no footprint/easement was accommodated for the bus to pull out of the "turn right 101 North Only" lane. Therefore, drivers following the bus on Willow and who are unaware of the bus stop corner location, get stuck in the middle of the Willow/Newbridge intersection until the bus moves out. Some drivers will then try to get out by partially moving in the middle lane by sharing lanes with cars currently on the middle lane and get into near accidents. At the same time there are also vehicles trying to make a right turn (on red) on Willow from Newbridge MP which makes the situation worse. The bus stop sign should be relocated in a more visible location and a pull out space should be accommodated on the large sidewalk to make a real bus stop aside from trough traffic. Relocating it before the Willow/Newbridge traffic light on the side of Mi Tierra Linda would be best. There is more space and it would be almost at the same location of the other bus stop on the opposite direction/side of the street. This is not simply a problem of responsible drivers but really a poor location of the current bus stop location.
8. In addition to the already difficult situation described on #7, and to avoid people coming from Newbridge MP from blocking Pierce Road and also creating accident situations with drivers coming from Newbridge EPA or Willow Road, there should be a “do not turn right on red” for the light at Newbridge MP. Cars should be forced to stop before Pierce Road and wait for the green light to turn right on Willow Road West.
9. Maintenance wise, several light bulbs are burned off at the O'Brien/Ivy traffic lights and many round shape light covers are missing at several location which makes some lights hard to see depending on the sun exposure. The "Do not block the intersection" sign facing O'Brien Drive at Willow Road fell of the middle traffic light and is now missing. Also the island traffic light to make a left on O'Brien from Willow has been missing and not replaced for several months.
10. Implementation of an all-red interval for vehicle clearance and traffic safety at all the Willow intersections traffic lights between US101 and Bayfront expressway (Newbridge, O'Brien, Ivy, Hamilton) to increase safety and prevent such dangerous/accident prone situations that happened previously on Kavanaugh/University and Willow/O'Brien (see examples here:
https://vimeo.com/231583589
https://vimeo.com/231583590
https://vimeo.com/231583682 )
11. Repainting of all missing/faded directional doted lines at all the Willow intersections between US101 and Bayfront expressway (Newbridge, O'Brien, Ivy, Hamilton) to guide the vehicles turning.
12. Look into safety improvement for the US101 Willow entrances/exits (e,g, minimize traffic lights confusion, traffic lane dividers on Willow, etc,)
