Dear Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, and honorable staff,
It’s me: Jenny Michel from D3.
Personal comments:
As you know, we live in the apartments next to the Korean BBQ joint on
Willow Road at Coleman Avenue. We have helped advocate for the recent
changes to Coleman to accommodate safety for bikes or non vehicle traffic.
Thank you again for the collective years of investment to get us to this
point!
Last week, the pilot program was completed and became ‘live’.
Our son is attending summer camp at Peninsula School, just down the street
from us off Coleman. Most business mornings and early afternoons, we walk
to help escort him for exercise, for fun, and because on most days, we can.
On Thursday, July 10th, at 12:30pm, I left our place for my first solo walk
after my surgery to grab him. I was excited to make the trek in 80 degree
weather on my own!
Sadly, as I was passing 840 Coleman at about 12:45pm, a new black Mercedes
SUV pulled up next to me and parked in the bike lane. When the mom and her
two children got out of the vehicle, I spoke to them and pointed at the
only bike lane and no parking signs. I clarified the new pilot program was
just rolled out, so perhaps they did not realize they could no longer park
on the apartment side of Coleman. The mother spoke back and stated she
lived here, and declared absolutely they could park there at any time
except during school transport hours, which obviously won’t happen until
mid/late August. I looked back at the signs that clearly read: no parking
and bike lane only. I responded: that is not my understanding, especially
because I helped advocate for the new bike lane. I introduced myself as
Jenny and clarified that I live on Willow Road, that I am her neighbor,
hello and nice to meet you. She told me to keep walking away and decided to
take her recommendation.
Was I wrong? I called the City to clarify. I stated the reason for the call
with city staff, and they immediately confirmed that no vehicles can park
in a bike lane and transferred me to the police. In speaking with Chelsea
from dispatch, she asked for the address and license plate. I walked back
to obtain that information. After reading the plate number to dispatch, the
mother made her presence known and got VERY upset. I don’t need to
reiterate the comments, (which are recorded with dispatch), but she clearly
felt targeted by me and was unappreciative of my involvement in her
affairs, parking illegally in a bike lane. To be clear, I am a white
person, and she is non white. You know me. I have publicly shared that my
family are white supremacists and have been on Turtle Island since the mid
1700’s. They were not abolitionists and benefited from the ill treatment of
fellow human beings. I allowed her to give me what my family deserves to
hear. I also listened to what she said. She felt that I threatened her
children. To me, this was now an extremely serious matter as a fellow
mother. She also stated that the apartments are filled with working class
people who are just trying to get by. She assumed that I was not in that
class of folk.
From a public institution perspective, we cannot allow neighbors, who are
the same and have almost everything in common, to be set up against one
another. That is not the goal of this program or any program!
I have some specific ideas for improvements or remedies to address the
experience last week:
1.
Owners of Multi-Family Units: Send notice to each landlord and their
management/manager for each multi-family dwelling within 300 ft of Coleman
Avenue. (This could be two notices as the landlord entity is located
off-site from the manager.)
1.
The verbiage should include instructions to the owner and their rep
to post a notice on each unit informing/clarifying that the
Coleman Avenue
pilot program is now active and there is NO parking in the bike
lane at any
time for any reason within a week of their receipt of the notice.
2.
I would include information about the pilot program and how to reach
the City in case anyone has any questions or feedback. Adding in the
traffic enforcement information would be useful to help neighbors
understand that the City is available and staffed to ensure non-vehicle
safety.
3.
Ideally, this notice includes an acknowledgement that is signed by an
authorized signer and physically sent back to the City in a postage paid
envelope you provide.
1.
This helps cover your bottom to demonstrate you did all that you
could to ensure all parties were given proper notification,
education, and
information to obtain answers to any questions.
2.
Maybe even ask for a copy of their correspondence to the tenants
just to ensure they have completed the instructions.
2.
All neighbors: Reiterate this information about the program and how to
reach the City by also sending a mailer to each housing/unit within 300 ft
of Coleman Avenue, including the unincorporated SMC lands.
1.
The apartments and townhomes on Willow Road should be included in
this radius, so if 300 ft. isn’t enough, I’d expand it.
3.
More signage: Additional signage posted would be ideal. I’d recommend
quadrupling the signage.
4.
The stop sign isn’t clear: The new stop sign should have prep to stop
a-frame signs posted well before a vehicle is required to stop.
5.
Non neighbors notices: Finally, I’d include notices for the USPS as well
as delivery drivers, like Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and USPS.
1.
Double bonus is to reach out to the various schools, in advance of
the upcoming school year, such as MPCSD, Peninsula, Sequoia Union High
School, Silicon Valley International School, and any other registered
daycares not listed here.
The goal is to ensure public safety for all users and foster a lifestyle
where we can choose to take other means of transport outside of a vehicle.
As we have seen with Dylan’s death on Middlefield, the City could have
exposure for not covering all bases in the pilot program to ensure you have
demonstrated to the best of your ability to inform all parties of the new
program. This neighbor mom, with two young kids, clearly did not get the
message about the program, when it became live, what the impacts to her
are, and what else to expect. This is a program failure that needs to be
quickly corrected.
God forbid, a cyclist/scooter has to take the lane because a vehicle is
parked in the bike lane. If that rider is injured by a vehicle who isn’t
expecting that necessary and intrusive action, based on what I am seeing,
they could make a strong case against the City for not taking every
precaution to ensure their safety. Even the vehicle could make a case for
why they did not see the bike lane obstruction and hit the cyclist/scooter.
Long term, again, I ask you to consider upzoning single family only
districts. By having our apartments concentrated in certain areas, we see
concentrated needs to park additional vehicles in public spaces. Us working
folk do feel targeted or unsupported each day, and the City can help ease
this pain in small and inexpensive ways.
Thank you for your consideration! I am confident in the program’s long term
success, including minimizing risk to the City, we just need to take some
additional steps to help ensure that outcome.
Jenny from the Coleman Place block
--
Jenny Michel
DRE #01900228
