Dear City Council,
We are residents of Middle Avenue and would like to comment on the proposed measures for the street, Agenda Item I1.
1. We vehemently oppose the elimination of street parking altogether on Middle. We need to be able to occasionally park in front of our house if need be, not be sent across the street and to have to unload things in a way that is inefficient and cumbersome. Guests need to have convenient parking that does not require them to cross a busy thoroughfare just to come to the house. As a household with two kids and car seats, it is untenable to suggest we park across the street behind Nealon Park (assuming there is an open spot), unload two small children, cross the street to our house, leave the kids with some kind of supervision, then cross the street again back to the car to unload items if need be. Also, many residents employ people who provide services like gardening, housekeeping, etc, and those people need a place to park when they come to work. If anything, residents of Middle Ave need to be eligible for permanent street parking permits. We support the addition of a bike lane.
2. The proposal to block traffic on Blake was undertaken without any consideration of residents on Middle. Somehow the residents of that tiny little side street got a personal audience with a decision-maker at the city and lobbied for this measure for themselves. Effectively, we will now be segregated from the rest of the Allied Arts neighborhood simply because those residents had an opportunity to push for an intervention that only benefits them and their property values. That allowed them to insulate themselves from whatever the council decides will take place on Middle. Moreover, you gave those residents street parking permits after the initial meeting at Nealon Park. As a side note, street parking is already so hard for us sometimes that we often park on Blake because there is so much need for parking on Middle.
You claim that the proposed measure is designed to calm “corridor traffic” but it’s effectively just shuttling the traffic more towards Middle to protect those on Blake. We feel this is ill-advised and, frankly, unfair, as we on Middle already bear the brunt of the thoroughfare traffic that we strongly doubt will be significantly “calmed” by the measures proposed here. If Blake residents are concerned about traffic speeds we suggest a 3-way stop sign at Blake and Middle.
3. We absolutely support the raised crosswalks, speed bumps and continuous sidewalk measures - it is ridiculous to have to walk one’s children in their stroller in the bike lane, constantly weaving on and off silly little 10-foot stretches of fake sidewalk. Cars drive very fast down Middle and adding speed bumps can help slow them down. Functionally, driving down Middle at 25mph will get you honked at, even though it is technically a residential street with two parks/playground, a preschool and a church, and that 25 is the posted speed limit. The current crosswalk at Blake and Middle across from Nealon Park is a well-intentioned improvement, but in practice, only about 1 in 4 cars actually stop for pedestrians when we push the button. A pedestrian was hit on Middle just in the last two weeks because it functions as an expressway.
4. Regarding the roundabout proposal: while we generally love roundabouts and understand their utility over stop signs in urban planning, we find that the current 4-way stop at Middle and University is the only thing that helps slow traffic on that block and is the only thing enabling us to cross safely at that intersection. We are concerned that removing this obstacle will only exacerbate the current speeding issue in the absence of other control measures like speed bumps and very obvious, glaring pedestrian crosswalks.
5. An additional issue the council should be aware of is that, given how Middle is effectively a main thoroughfare into the neighborhoods, semi trucks use it frequently and we have personally witnessed multiple incidences of them downing power lines just by driving by. Addition of raised crosswalks and speed bumps and general traffic redesign should take that into account and include raising the lines to allow for more headroom, or moving them underground as live main wires have fallen into Nealon Park and the surrounding homes’ yards.
It seems like the city’s intention is to turn Middle Ave into an expressway given the new plaza and developments, but it is a residential street with a 25 mph speed limit. This effort and funding should be directed more towards making Sand Hill Road, the actual thoroughfare between Menlo Park and Stanford, more usable for that purpose. As people who have lived on Middle for years, we wish the city had reached out to us as proactively and supportively as it did to residents of Blake, rather than giving us limited time to review this proposal and limiting its dissemination to people who happen to be on the right email list. Realistically, most people who live on our street probably are still not aware of these plans and this meeting. For future initiatives and further meetings regarding these plans, we would recommend the city undertake more comprehensive outreach measures.
