To Members of the City Council, Subject: Designate Willow Road between Middlefield Road and Gilbert Street as a RESIDENTIAL Street We are home owners and residents of the section of WillowRoad between Middlefield Road and Gilbert Street. We’dlike to take this opportunity to bring to your attention our views of trafficconcerns for this section of Willow Road. We want to first of all express our deepest gratitude to members of theTransportation Master Plan (TMP) Oversight Commission for deleting Project #48from the proposed TMP. Project #48 wouldhave destroyed our neighborhood street by turning it into an expressway. This section of Willow Road has consistentlybeen neglected by the city staff and consultants. We believe it is time for the City topay some attention to the residents on this section of Willow Road. There has been a large outcry to stop cut through trafficfor the Willows. The City responded byconstructing speed humps recently in the inner Willows to slow downtraffic. Bulb outs have been proposed toprovide traffic calming and increase pedestrian safety for East MenloPark. We can see that traffic calmingand pedestrian safety are important concerns to the City and solutions havebeen provided, but why haven’t the same concern and care been applied to our street? As a matter of fact, we see the opposite being applied to ourstreet. As evident by Project #48, thestaff has proposed taking out bulb outs and traffic islands on the section ofWillow Road between Middlefield and Gilbert to essentially creating anexpressway on our street. It would have increasedthe speed of the vehicles on the road and put traffic closer to pedestrians. It would have been detrimental to theneighborhood without being able to relieve the congestion on Willow Road duringthe commute hours. Thankfully Project#48 didn’t happen. Still, we are applaudedthat such ideas would even be proposed – Where is the mindset for safety andtraffic calming? We believe one problem is that this section of Willow Roadis being designated as “Avenue-Mixed Use”, the same designation for Willow Roadsouth of Gilbert. The correct classificationof this section of Willow should be “Neighborhood Collector”. Perhaps with the correct designation the citystaff and consultants will treat this section of Willow as they do with otherresidential streets in Menlo Park. Please help us and our neighbors get the proper attention we deserve asresidents of Menlo Park. Thank you for your time and consideration. Joseph Afong and May Yick216 Willow Road Property Owners and Residents Received on Mon Apr 22 2019 - 22:38:26 PDT
