Kevin (and Menlo Park City Council),
Thank you for hosting the Zoom meeting on the 19th. It was great to get an update on the Middle Ave project, and I appreciate you listening and responding to everyones comments. I live on Middle Ave right across from the tennis courts, so I am affected by all of these changes. I didnt comment during the meeting, but I wanted to follow up with an email to share with you my feedback of the pilot. I did agree with a lot of what was said during the meeting, and here are my comments:
1.
I am very happy with the changes to Middle Ave with the bike lanes from University to Olive. My daughter bikes to/from school every day and she says biking on Middle is easier and seems safer with the bike lanes.
2.
I am not happy with the situation between University and El Camino. I have seen the bike lanes, new parking situation, and blocking off Blake Street introduce a lot of new problems with that stretch of Middle Ave. Here are a few issues I have seen and experienced:
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Cars consistently park in the bike lane on the south side of Middle, and there is no parking enforcement. My driveway often gets blocked by people parking in front of my driveway (which is also right next to one of those new "No Stopping Signs"). I have called the police multiple times when I have not been able to get my car in or out of my driveway. I have been told by the police that there isnt a reason to ticket those cars because there isnt enough "No Parking" signage, people fight the tickets, and they never have to pay them. I asked why the city didnt put up more signs, and he said there is a process to get that approved, and it takes a long time. So, all of this work has been done for the pilot, and nothing is being done to actually keep the bike lane between University and El Camino clear of cars.
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The parallel parking on the North side of Middle with the addition of blocking off Blake, has also caused new issues. Without being able to drive through on Blake, the only way to get on the correct side of Middle to parallel park is to either come from El Camino, loop around Morey/Kenwood (which isnt designed to be a thru street, and I have heard multiple residents say that traffic is higher on those streets now), or make a U-turn on Middle Ave. I am seeing people making U-turns all of the time now on Middle if they are coming from the direction of University and wanting to parallel park on the North side of Middle. When parallel parking was introduced and Blake was still open, people could turn on University, take a left on College, left on Blake, left on Middle and be able to easily park on the North side of Middle.
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For me, and my neighbors (who both spoke up during the meeting - Neil and Tanya), blocking off Blake street makes it extremely difficult to get out of our driveways and get our kids to school in the morning. The traffic can be very heavy around that rush hour time in the morning, and it can be very difficult to back out of our driveway across two lanes of traffic to end up going towards University. In the past, I would just back out into one lane, go to Blake, then College, then University, so I could take a left on Middle and go towards school. I heard during the meeting that Tanya is actually pulling into the bike lane, then making a U-turn on Middle to get going in the right direction now since Blake is not an option.
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Another issue I have seen with the parallel parking on Middle is when people are pulling out of driveways on the South side of the street or when people are making U-turns on Middle (which is very common now), I am seeing near collisions with cars that are pulling out of parallel parking spots. Previously, with the perpendicular parking, you could always see the cars reverse lights and know they were planning on pulling out of a parking spot. Now, when someone is pulling out of a driveway across from those parking spots, without warning, a car will pull out of a parking spot at the same time and almost cause an accident.
I also agreed with many of the suggestions that were offered up during the meeting:
1.
Painting the curbs red
2.
Parking enforcement
3.
Improving "No Stopping (or Parking)" signs
4.
Potentially allowing commercial vehicles to stop (or park) on Middle when needed
Thanks again for all of your effort on this, and feel free to reach out to me if you need any more feedback.
-Angie Kenny
849 Middle Ave, Menlo Park
