I reside at 150 Baywood Avenue, in the Willows. I am concerned about the accepted proposal to place a sign at Baywood and Woodland Avenues to prevent left turns from Woodland to Baywood, 3-7 PM weekdays. This restriction will greatly affect the ability of residents in this Willows neighborhood (Baywood, Clover, Blackburn, McKendry, Robin, Marmona, and perhaps parts of Gilbert) to enter the neighborhood, and the ability of services vehicles to enter the neighborhood. This is will be further exacerbated if left turns from Woodland onto Blackburn are restricted. Restricting left turns from Woodland to Baywood may be unnecessary under this agenda item if the "no right turn" signs at O'Keefe, Chester, and Durham are effective. If cars are prevented to cut through these streets, they will not take Baywood-Marmona-Gilbert-Menalto- etc. So, again, under this particular agenda item, restricting access to Baywood seems ultimately unnecessary. Of course, cut through traffic may go the routes: Baywood-Blackburn-Willow, or Baywood-Marmona-Gilbert-Willow. Perhaps these issues can be solved by restricting turns from Blackburn and from Gilbert onto Willow. These issues will be addressed further in the upcoming Complete Streets Commission meeting, Dec. 19. My interest is to allow continued, open access to residents of Baywood and nearby streets from Middlefield (both from the Palo Alto direction and from the Menlo Park direction). It seems to me that under the present circumstances - during commute hours, entry into this part of the Willows from Middlefield is easiest from Baywood, or perhaps Blackburn. And perhaps during the peak commute hours (3-7), egress from the neighborhood may be easiest via Baywood, if one is not intending to get on Willow Road north bound. Right now, I am not sure of the thoughts of most others on Baywood or the streets nearby. This agenda item was a bit of surprise to me, so I have not had time to talk with many others. I plan to attend the early January City Council Meeting. I understand this issue may be on the agenda then. And, I will, of course, addend the Complete Streets Commission upcoming meeting (12/19) that is addressing traffic problems in my part of the Willows. As I understand from city staff, signs for restricting turns on Baywood from Woodland could be installed by early next week. I hope that during next few weeks, observations about and changes in traffic will reflect the different and separate results of the various new signage and restrictions, so that we will know what is most effective and necessary, and what is not necessary. Thanks for you consideration on this. Best, Peter -- Peter Whidden Rare Books Specialist Special Collections & University Archives Stanford University 691 Pampas Lane Stanford, CA 94305-7206 (650) 723-7350 pwhidden_at_(domainremoved) Received on Mon Dec 11 2017 - 16:33:47 PST
