Dear City Council,
I logged onto Nextdoor today and saw multiple discussions about traffic/street safety in relation to schools. The topic has been on my mind as well given the recent, awful child-vehicle collisions, and I wholeheartedly agree that we need to do more to keep kids -- and everyone -- safe as we all move about town.
The collisions are gut-wrenching to read about, and I feel like they should be so easily avoidable. But, they keep happening, and if I'm honest I can't say I'm surprised when I take a realistic look at my own street.
While the solution is likely to be multi-faceted, I do think the main root cause is the physical environment we have here on our streets. People walking or biking are currently mere inches away from cars with no protection in many places.
For instance, the street I live on has a school on the corner, but our street (a main road) doesn't have sidewalks or protected bike lanes for families and kids to use in getting to school. The road is straight and flat, and I do see many drivers picking up speed. People who aren't in a car are relegated to the narrow shoulder of the road. It's technically labeled as a bike lane, and while I appreciate it as a starting point, it ultimately just feels like a shoulder with a couple of bike stencils painted on it -- it's not wide enough for two adults to walk shoulder-to-shoulder in most places. There's very limited space for pedestrians and cyclists to contend with each other. And when this small shoulder is blocked by a vehicle, or debris, or bins all over the place on garbage day...anyone walking or biking needs to enter the busy car lane to navigate around the obstacles. Keeping a dedicated bike lane clear for kids to use (by protecting it with posts, for instance) would be a big help, and then creating a sidewalk for pedestrians in addition would be even better.
Additionally, mid-block crosswalks, especially near schools, could be improved by adding HAWK lights like Atherton has on El Camino. Maybe they could also be staffed with more crossing guards -- maybe even crossing guards who can give citations? However, as we saw recently with the horrific incident that killed a school crossing guard in Lafayette, ultimately even the most heroic efforts of our uniformed experts (I understand the guard moved kids out of harm's way as his final act) are no match for our physics problem. The physics problem is that people are inches away from vehicles -- especially big and/or fast moving vehicles -- unprotected. I know we can mitigate this -- and honestly, with the rate at which these collisions are happening, we have to.
We can reduce physics-related risk by improving our built environment. For instance, maybe bulbouts coupled with "ped x-ing" signs permanently affixed in the road could serve to funnel traffic through a narrower point that slows traffic naturally in areas where bikes/peds need to cross -- versus letting cars zoom through mid-block crosswalks at 40mph. Although most drivers slow for pedestrians, crossing guards, or police officers if or when they see them (sometimes too late), physical infrastructure that encourages the behavior we want would, if done right, appropriately slow all drivers every time.
I'm also certainly not a traffic engineer or expert here, so would love to see a study session on street safety to help get the experts involved and ensure we're deploying resources smartly and consistently across the entire City. I've been glad to see many Peninsula cities working to build more bike/ped/safe streets infrastructure and I feel like we could lead in this area as well.
I also think more bike/ped infrastructure could benefit our City in a number of ways. I found an article by the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition on how protected bike lanes increase ridership and improve safety for everyone on the road, whether they bike or not: https://www.pasadenacsc.org/blog/protected-bike-lanes-increase-traffic-safety-for-everyone. Better infrastructure is likely to help more people feel comfortable ditching their SUVs and zipping around on a bike, scooter, or by foot instead. This is great for our climate and helps reduce congestion, too, especially as we plan for more homes and our city's changing needs in our next Housing Element.
Although I currently try to get around here without a car whenever I can, candidly I have to admit that doing so feels pretty scary at times given the way our streets are set up today. But I know positive change will result from all of the attention being paid to this issue, and I'm looking forward to a better future where we have smart, safe routes that benefit everyone in town, whether they bike, walk, take transit, or drive, across all districts.
Thanks for your time in reading this lengthy note,
Brittani Baxter
District 3 resident
