Dear Members of the City Council,
As residents living on Middle Avenue for the last 14 years, we would like to strongly endorse the option to remove parking on both sides of Middle to create the safest bike lanes. Middle Avenue is listed as a “safe route to school”. Wide bike lanes on both sides would finally make this true for riders of all ages. Our daughters ride bikes to Oak Knoll and Hillview. I commute on a bicycle to Stanford each day. We will lose parking in front of our property, but prioritize safety for all residents over this convenience.
We are frustrated by the persistent complaints of those neighbors who claim to not have been informed. The City Council has made extraordinary effort to inform the public and seek engagement-- fliers, meetings in the park, front page articles in the Almanac, Zoom calls, multiple city council meetings, flashing illuminated signs on Middle… Certainly, these cries of ignorance can no longer garner sympathy. It is their responsibility as citizens to be informed. We have been very involved in this effort—attending many City Council meetings that extend until as late as 10pm to speak up about the need for safer measures and encouraging other residents to show their support for the removal of parking to promote greater safety—so it is disappointing when neighbors of the opposing view claim to have been excluded when they too had ample opportunity to get informed and get involved.
Timed “no parking” is regrettably not sufficiently respected. Even in front of schools where there are “No Stopping” signs during drop-off and pick-up, parents (who should be most engaged in concerns for safety) too often succumb to temptation when they are running late. There is little doubt that many drivers will not comply with timed restrictions along Middle Ave, especially because the Menlo Park PD does not have the bandwidth to enforce parking violations. Every car in the bike lane forces riders to veer into the car traffic lane (Please see pictures attached and feel free to share).
The arguments of some neighbors who are pleading for the status quo are disingenuous. Last week a neighbor on the Wednesday Feb 8 community Zoom claimed to have a single driveway spot and that parking was a hardship. That individual (his face was fully visible and he lives quite close to us) regularly parks multiple cars in his driveway and has a boat parked alongside of his house. Other neighbors on side streets voice very thinly veiled (if veiled at all) complaints that they may see additional parkers on their streets. The streets belongs to all of us. A number of neighbors have claimed on various Zooms that their children once rode their bikes along Middle and it was never unsafe… Because their child (now grown) wasn’t hit, we should feel safe? Times have changed. There is more traffic, more distractions (cell phones), and added modes of transport (e-bike and scooters). With the opening of the development on El Camino Real, the number of commuters on Middle will immediately grow, including the bike traffic heading toward Stanford across the bike bridge from San Mateo Drive. The promised underpass under the train tracks at Middle will increase that volume even more (we anticipate that our daughters will be riding to school toward El Camino to go under the tracks to Alma to get to MA High School).
Please do not delay this further. It is time to take this strong step forward for Menlo Park and make Middle Avenue safe. It will encourage the use of bicycles, promote safety for Menlo Park residents of all ages, and demonstrate Menlo Park’s commitment to reducing our environmental impact. City Council members, please vote to remove parking on both sides of Middle Ave to create two wide and buffered bike lanes.
Brendan and Carmen Visser
