Hello Menlo Park City Council,
We have been waiting for decades to see changes on WILLOW ROAD, particularly between Middlefield to Gilbert, which are all residential.
From Gilbert to Bay Road, there are several potential pauses for traffic due to traffic lights, a school, park, and businesses.
On Willow Road, from Middlefield to Gilbert, is a long stretch of non-stop road, where the majority of drivers start to increase their speed up to 50 miles an hour.
We cannot cross the street safely, police have rarely ticketed for speeding, temporary speed sides do not discourage drivers.
The public transportation of SamTrans and Dumbarton Express treats this stretch of the road like a mini-freeway.
On a daily 24/7 basis, commuting vehicles and others such as Lyft, Uber, UPS, Fed EX, firetrucks, police cars, City of MP cars, all take advantage to go as fast as they please because there are no consequences.
Traffic coming from the Palo Alto side typically goes from 25-30 miles on Middlefield, but once vehicles turn onto Willow, the commuters start to pick up speed.
Going in the opposite direction, if there happens to be a red light at Gilbert, once that light turns green, the race is back on.
There have been too many occasions as I always go the allowed speed limit of 25mph, am tailgated, honked, given the "f" finger (all this with my children in the car since 1991), drivers passed me on both the BIKE LANE and on the ONCOMING TRAFFIC lane.
Is this safe? Is this what Menlo Park should sit on for another year?
This is an immediate danger for:
* pedestrians who walk on the bike lane to avoid being too close to another by-passer
* dangerous for kids on bikes coming home from school
* cyclists who use the road for recreation
* oncoming traffic who are too, going too fast, potentially resulting in a head-on collision
* the impact from a speeding car can also lead to a car bouncing onto the sidewalk, hitting a home, or the unimaginable, another human being's life
Stand on Willow Road and you will see traffic going so fast, it would honestly sway your perspective and understand why we are tired of waiting to be someone's priority.
Honestly, it's not the amount of traffic that bothers us, it's when everyone is disrespecting the law, the lives of people who live here, and treating our neighborhood like a mini Daytona racetrack.
What we want is what we see in every neighborhood:
* calmer traffic
* crosswalks
* stop signs, or speed bumps/humps, as a tool towards that goal
* more speed limit signs
I have tons of videos I can share taken at any day of the week, any time of the day, it's hard to live here.
Will anyone care enough to say, enough is enough and that we count, despite what our "label" is?
That label is correct from Gilbert-Bay Road, with mixed commercial property, but does not belong on our stretch of the road.
I appreciate your time but would appreciate your action more.
I am not exaggerating and not going for a dramatic effect, this problem is a huge problem.
Thank you,
Alice Hom
