Dear City Council Members, I am writing to you today about a topic that is very important to myself and my neighbors, traffic in the Willows neighborhood. As many of you are aware, due to congestion on Willow Road and University Avenue, many commuters use the neighborhood streets in the Willows to cut through the neighborhood and shorten their commute by avoiding some of the worst of the congestion. This results in cars speeding through the neighborhood in excess of the posted speed limits, running stop signs and causing backups on our streets that have a very negative impact on residents. There are two proposals that are coming before city council to help mitigate these issues. The first, on the calendar for tonight, is the approval of the speed humps in the western area of the Willows neighborhood. These are meant to help slow down the traffic that has been speeding through that area. I know that this has been a project of Susu Ribaudo for almost 4 years. She has relentlessly driven this request through the long arduous process to get to this vote before the City Council. I hope you will follow the Complete Streets Commission in unanimously approving these speed humps. I also hope you recognize the huge effort by Susu in making this happen. The second proposal, to come before a future meeting, is to make permanent the turn restrictions on O'Keefe, Durham and Chester in the eastern part of the Willows neighborhood. These restrictions have made a very large, very positive impact on traffic in this area. While we were seeing traffic backed up for several blocks waiting to turn right onto Willow Road before these restrictions that line of cars now consists of only a few cars that are willing to violate the restrictions. While this was put in place to help mitigate the construction impact of the new overpass, there problems predate that construction and will likely continue into the future. This is especially true with the new construction taking place in Menlo Park and the likelihood that it will add cars to Willow Road. I strongly encourage you to vote to approve making these turn restrictions permanent. Thank you Brian Gilmer Willows Resident Received on Tue Mar 03 2020 - 13:46:20 PST
