Dear City Council Members, My name is Caryn Wasserstein and I'm writing to you regarding your plan to delay the review of traffic patterns going through Menlo Park particularly on Coleman Avenue. Learning of this was very disturbing to me. And frankly disappointing. I live in Vintage Oaks and I'm a parent of a third and fifth grader at Laurel School. Both children are currently at the upper campus. Both children take the school bus from the Santa Monica and Coleman bus stop. For the last two years there has been an organized parent and neighborhood based effort around making Coleman Avenue safer. Much attention has been paid to that particular corner's safety. While a very small attempt has been made, by painting a crosswalk, this has had no impact on the street's safety during the school year. Back in 2014 I attended a transportation committee meeting for our city. At that time different parents were asking for safety in and around Menlo Park, and Coleman Avenue in particular, to be addressed. After much concern was expressed that night, a long time Menlo Oaks resident stood up and actually said "no one has died I don't understand why this is an issue." To my surprise no one on the transportation committee reacted to this comment as unusual or perhaps inappropriate. Perhaps that is the reaction from our city - we are not going to do anything until an innocent child or a parent or a long time Menlo Oaks resident is in a serious accident or killed? I sincerely hope that is not the case. I have attached a link to a change.org that I hope you'll take a moment to review as a City Council group. It is of a community in Pennsylvania like ours that is now, after years of requests, doing something about a traffic situation like Coleman Avenue. They are doing it after a teenage boy WAS killed riding his bike. I urge you to address the serious issues that take away from our children being able to ride and walk and scoot safely on their way to their local elementary school before the same thing happens here. It would be as simple as putting a stop sign on the north and south side of Coleman Avenue at Santa Monica. Please don't delay this any longer. Thank you. Caryn Wasserstein https://www.change.org/p/lower-makefield-township-board-of-supervisors-sidewalk-along-makefield-road Sent from my iPhone please excuse typos Received on Sun Aug 27 2017 - 22:35:14 PDT
