To the Honorable Mayor, City Council Members, and Planning Commissioners of Menlo Park,
I’m writing this letter because my street has become a parking lot, a break room, a trash can, and even a toilet. This is the result of the City Council’s budget decision in 2020 to eliminate daytime parking enforcement which effectively ended a two-decade-old resident parking program in Allied Arts.
As we emerged from the pandemic, El Camino businesses and construction workers quickly identified they could now park on our streets all day without fear of being ticketed. The street parking begins before sunrise with loud work trucks and workers lining the street. Construction workers take parking spots along the street and push business and our guest parking halfway down the street. Street sweeping has been nonexistent on the El Camino end of the street as the weekly sweeper is blocked by parked cars. The street being lined with cars also makes the street dangerously narrow and double-parked delivery trucks are common since the businesses on the corner of El Camino have no available parking or loading zones. At lunchtime workers stream back to their cars to have lunch and lounge along the sidewalks. The street has become crowded, noisy, dirty, and less safe for the residents.
If 20 years ago this council believed that Allied Arts needed a permit program then it certainly must recognize that such a permit program is needed even more urgently now. The unprecedented development on El Camino is generating overflow construction, resident, and business parking onto our streets. My street is the canary in the coal mine that foreshadows what Harvard Ave and Cambridge Ave will face as mix-use development projects begin on their corners of El Camino.
Every development project along El Camino in Allied Arts has been approved with the residents’ belief that a parking permit program remained in place. We understand that development is inevitable but just because we live near El Camino does not mean we surrender an expectation of limiting noise, calm streets and a good quality of life. In fact, our proximity to El Camino means we rely more than other neighborhoods on good planning and diligent enforcement of codes and laws to maintain our quality of life. Permit parking is a simple and effective tool to help achieve this.
I ask the City Council to clarify the status of the Residential Parking Program. Is there a permit program in Allied Arts or not? Simply not enforcing the permit program is like not having it at all. If the program still exists then please direct the Police Department to enforce the daytime permit program in Allied Arts with or without dedicated parking enforcement headcount. If the City has no plan to enforce the permit program then the Council should do what it should have done last year and notify every Allied Arts household by mail that the program will be cancelled and solicit feedback from the community so we have a voice in this decision. I thank you for your attention.
Respectfully,
Peter Cook
628 Partridge Avenue, Menlo Park
