Dear Council and City:
Regarding the recommended modifications to the trip cap for Facebook East Campus:
You also should institute an overall trip cap across Facebook sites, including the Facebook-leased Menlo Gateway office buildings. Our community suffers when traffic increases, regardless of from which site it originates. Facebook can - and should -measure and manage trips to each, and all combined, of these. The City must obtain that.
Remember that the Menlo Gateway EIR assumed a prior standard office worker density of 300 sf/worker , which is 1/2 or less than Facebook’s standard (150 sf or less per Facebook worker). Additionally, the Menlo Gateway measurements were not to be done as frequently as is now required for Facebook’s campus.
While Facebook is actively working with the City, some future tenant of these buildings might not be as cooperative and could play games by having employees park at one site or the other to avoid penalties -- without reducing overall traffic — unless something is set in place across sites in the CDP and DA or other lasting agreement. Facebook has expressed intention to be a good citizen of Menlo Park, but we must remember that SUN Microsystems, Tyco, etc. probably said the same things and are no longer here.
Many approvals run with the land, so tightening up a potential loophole across Facebook sites, and including the Facebook-occupied Menlo Gateway offices seems prudent as protection for the Menlo Park community. After all, the total trip caps for these 3 project sites (2 Facebook and the entire Menlo Gateway site) allow 32,611* daily trips in just this part of town! Even a minor percentage increase in traffic means our small city is further negatively affected.
You have the opportunity to better monitor and manage Menlo Park traffic.
Please do not miss this opportunity.
Respectfully,
Patti Fry
* calculation of 32,611 daily trips, based on respective project trip caps:
15,000 Facebook East, 9,242 new +2,019 existing Menlo Gateway trips (total - could separate out hotel from office buildings), and 6,350 Facebook West
Sent from my iPad
