Hi City Council, I don't know if the assessment below is accurate (about traffic potentially increasing on Central/Laurel/Pope), but I'm super concerned about any more traffic coming down especially Laurel, but on behalf of the many parents on Pope and Central, those streets as well. I've emailed several times asking for the steps needed to have you consider putting stop signs on the corners of Central and Elm and Laurel and Elm (where we live) so that kids can safely cross to and from Laurel Upper walking down Elm. There are kids living in nearly every house on these blocks and the streets are getting less and less safe for kids to cross. Thank You, Suzan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: suzan szollar Date: Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 5:56 PM Subject: Yikes! City proposed street changes that will put MORE traffic on Pope, Laurel, etc... To: Adam Hawley rynoinsmokies_at_(domainremoved) Willows Traffic Shock - Look out Gilbert, Pope, Laurel, Central, etc … ! https://nextdoor.com/news_feed/?post=71745087 > The City has posted proposed temporary street changes to protect Chester, Durham and O’Keefe from the spike in cut-through traffic caused by the Willow/101 interchange re-work. The proposed changes will divert outgoing afternoon rush traffic from these three streets to Gilbert - all residential as well as cut-through traffic. Collateral damage on streets feeding Gilbert: especially Pope (200 - 500 blocks), Laurel and Central (300 - 500 Blocks). [go to www.menlopark.org/AgendaCenter > City Council agenda 12/5/2017, see agenda item H1, > Staff Report 17-303-CC] These changes are supposedly temporary, but residents of several Willows streets have agitated for 25+ years to, essentially, privatize their streets. This is a big foot in the door and they won’t give it up without a fight when the interchange work is finished. If you’re concerned how this will affect your quality of life, you should express your concerns to the City Council before Next Tuesday’s meeting [city.council_at_(domainremoved) following points would be helpful: 1. Measures taken at this time should be explicitly temporary, to be removed by the date the interchange re-work is actually completed. 2. After completion of the interchange re-work, sufficient time should be allowed for establishment of new stable traffic patterns before proceeding with any Willows traffic studies. The intent of the current proposal (and its expected collateral damage) is similar is similar in effect to the Willows Area-Wide Traffic Study terminated with no permanent street changes in 2011. For information on that project and the Willows sorry traffic calming history back to the early ’90s see www.SafeOpenStreets.net http://www.safeopenstreets.net/ > https://d3926qxcw0e1bh.cloudfront.net/post_photos/b7/b9/b7b9da8a0fb08259c095ec6aa7b43695.jpg > https://tracking.nextdoor.com/ct/nM41f3EyVw97KkyAB7KpI83q36N7SIonR2w8tlOZZuxSiEJ9HrfmvRfKIfi41bwLWRHYtFOR7nt-IE-uVgRhwg ==> Received on Fri Dec 01 2017 - 18:06:20 PST
