Dear Members of the Menlo Park City Council,
I have been a resident of the city portion of Coleman Avenue for ten years, living with my husband, James, and our three school-aged children, who bike and walk this corridor daily. My oldest, now in 11th grade, was in elementary school at Lower Laurel when the Coleman Avenue study began. Our family has long been invested in this issue, and we have witnessed how dangerous the street has become due to a lack of speed reduction measures.
With the recent recommendation to turn the county portion of Coleman Avenue into a one-way street, we are pleased to see steps taken to improve safety. However, it is crucial that the city side of the street incorporates matching safety measures to ensure the entire corridor is secure. Without consistent precautions on both sides, the imbalance will continue to pose significant risks to cyclists, pedestrians, and residents alike.
Now more than ever, no proposal should proceed without implementing maximum speed reduction measures across both sides of the street. While the county portion may benefit from the one-way configuration, the city portion remains vulnerable to speeding, erratic driving, and frequent traffic violations. I urge you to consider implementing speed bumps, flashing speed limit signs, and sharrows across Coleman Avenue to create a safer environment for all users. I also encourage you to spend time on the street at any point during the week to witness firsthand how fast and aggressive drivers behave due to the absence of any speed reduction measures like stop signs, speed bumps, or speed limit reminders.
I believe a multi-use pathway is an excellent solution for the entirety of Coleman Avenue, but it can only be achieved if the street is made one-way along its entire length. The road is simply too narrow to accommodate parking, a multi-use pathway, and two-way traffic. One proposal suggests maintaining parking on one side of the street to allow for a multi-use pathway, but this poses additional dangers.
For residents, parking on the single-family home side of the street severely limits visibility when backing out of narrow driveways. It is almost impossible to see oncoming traffic when cars are parked on either side of the driveway. Additionally, speeding cars often rush through the corridor to catch the light at Coleman and Willow. On the multi-unit apartment side, while driveways are wider and offer better visibility, the increased number of cars moving in and out of these parking lots dramatically raises the risk for pedestrians and cyclists.
Given the narrowness of the street, making Coleman Avenue one-way for the entire corridor would provide everyone with more space and enhance visibility for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. This solution would greatly improve safety for all who use the multi-use pathway.
Making Coleman Avenue safer has been a topic of conversation for nearly 20 years. It would be a mistake to implement changes on only one portion of the street without corresponding speed and safety measures on the other side. I strongly urge you to pilot speed reduction measures on the city side as well, to bring immediate improvements to the safety of our community.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter.
Sincerely,
Cassandra and James Loftus
651 Coleman Avenue
