NEWS: Safety Changes for Northbound Santa Cruz Ave
Our petition from last year and our pleas for action have yielded results. County has agreed to take measures to make the “Y” intersection at Santa Cruz and Alameda de las Pulgas safer. Through October 2nd, County will take measures to calm the northbound traffic flow at the Y, see below to see the issues and to show some graphics of recommended remedies. Note, the graphics below may not represent what County implements during this trial period. The graphics are there to help us all visualize the safety concepts.
Important: During the trial, the left lane on Santa Cruz (from Sand Hill) will be ONLY for Alameda traffic and the right lane will be ONLY for NB Santa Cruz traffic. The signage and road markings will help inform motorists of this change. Cyclists may have additional signage to help direct them. Please help keep it safe for cyclists by driving safely, at a safe speed, and migrate to your lane early, well before the intersection.
In short, the trial will provide many safety improvements and gather traffic data to see the effectiveness.
- Eliminates over 5,500 lane changes per day
- Moves the traffic lane away from the adjacent sidewalk, providing safe buffer
- Eliminates the primary cause of the cronic red light running at this intersection
- Provides local residents a reprieve from traffic to safely access their driveways
- Shortens a significantly long crosswalk
- Provides traffic calming to help slow excessive speeding (a 1st initial step in addressing this)
- Eliminates the chaotic traffic flow at this NB intersection, providing cyclists and motorists a calmer flow
- Traffic lights at this intersection will be ‘normal’, behaving as all other intersections in the area
- Removes that short 3rd lane that was added just prior to the intersection keeping only the 2 primary NB lanes.
County and our community’s SantaCruz/Alameda Task Force will be monitoring the trial to insure we collect valid traffic data and observations. If you have suggestions or want to share your own observations, email: Safety@UnivPark.org
This page introduces several quick, low cost actions that can significantly improve safety and provide for calmer traffic flow. These are listed here and detailed below.
- Calm Northbound Santa Cruz Traffic at Y by eliminating the cause of the chaotic lane changing, motorist distraction, and confusion
- Fix the serious Pedestrian/motorist conflict that exists at the Santa Cruz/Alameda intersection
- Fix and eliminate the cause of the scores of red lights run each day
- Address some quick – very low cost sidewalk improvements to improve accessability and safety
- Fix the issue of missing lane definition lines on that 1,100′ section of Santa Cruz
- Significantly improve safety for residents on Santa Cruz and at the Y
- Crosswalk and Pedestrian Light at Palo Alto Way
- Bus Stop Shelter at Palo Alto Way and Santa Cruz
- Reduce Alameda Buisness District speed limit to 25 mph
All of these improvements are extremely low cost and can be done now and yield a much safer and calmer roadway and traffic flow.
A question: If there are safety issues we can easily fix now, should we fix them now or should we wait several years for a whole solution?
Current Chaotic Northbound Approach to Y 
Current Intersection at Santa Cruz/Alameda — 5,500+ cars/day required to change lanes
There are several serious issues along the southern segment of Santa Cruz that fall into this category of being simple, quick, and low cost actions that could, if implemented now, make a substantial improvement in safety for everyone and result in a much calmer traffic flow.
Issues:
- Over 5,500 cars/day are forced to change lanes
- Scores of cars run red lights each day (Mar 7, almost 2 dozen in one hour!)
- Pedestrians are given a walk signal while cars still need several seconds to clear intersection
- Right (slow) lanes are not marked and undefined – serious risk to parked cars and residents
- Residents at the Y are at extreme risk when entering/exiting driveways
- Pedestrians using long crosswalks are at risk due to blind corners and restricted visibility
- NB Cyclists must cross chaotic lanes and fear distracted drivers
- Sidewalk and Crosswalk force pedestrians to use roadway, just inches from full speed traffic
A simple solution requiring paint only
The goal is to have a calmer and safer traffic flow. There are several actions that can get our community much closer to that goal immediately. We still need solutons that address the long term situation, but these actions can achieve significant progress. 
We have a short section of Santa Cruz that has un-marked – un-defined lanes, lets mark them. We are only talking that stretch of Santa Cruz between the Y and Sand Hill. All other roadways in our area currently have the right (slow) lane properly marked: Sand Hill, Alameda, the rest of Santa Cruz to downtown. Only this section of Santa Cruz have these unfinished – unmarked lanes resulting in unsafe conditions for residents, parked cars, and cyclists; additionally, this condition is unenforceable.
Rather than adding a short NB lane, lets just keep the two lanes we have and eliminate 97% of the lane switching chaos and removing the distraction that it causes motorists. This eliminates the road configuration feature that is responsible for motorists running the red light, and with scores of red light running per day its a serious problem. At the same time this change makes it orders of magnitude safer for the residents at the Y.
Here is another view, a before and after slider to interactively show this safety improvement.
Cost? Minimal, mainly engineering where paint for traffic and bike lanes will be marked.
Below, Slide the center white bar to the left or right to see Current vs Proposed safety changes.
Pedestrian safety Improvements
The current situation has some serious issues as it pertains to pedestrians and a good percentage of the people using this intersection are children and seniors. This also affects cars turning from Campo Bello.
- Campo Bello traffic and Pedestrians are given a green/walk signal, even though cars still need several seconds to clear the intersection
- The north side corners are blind and limit visibility between traffic and pedestrians
- Traffic stops right at the crosswalk, causing added visibility issue due to angle of crosswalk
- A huge number of red light runners and distracted/confused motorists
Especially in these last 2 photos, notice that the crosswalk light is on and directing pedestrians to cross, putting them in the middle of the lanes while cars are still clearing the intersection at full speed.
Sidewalk Issues that can be fixed easily
This is such a minor problem for that west side sidewalk between Oak Hollow and Campo Bello, but it needs to be fixed. The initial fix is to take a broom and shovel to clear and clean the sidewalk so that its full width can be used. It is currently over flowing with debris that reduces the width by 50% in places. While there may be a long term solution to keep debris off the sidewalk, we can at least have County maintain this sidewalk walk so it is usable.
The sidewalks along Alameda are dangerous: Not just unsuable, but dangerous. Since a full sidewalk solution appears to be years away, these dangerous conditions need to be addressed as soon as possible.
A sample of photos below provide a persepctive into the severe safety issues, for more details please see the Sidewalk Safety issues pages: #11 and #12
Issue — Problems |
Actions and Remedy steps |
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Pedestrian Signal – occurs before SB Santa Cruz cars have cleared south intersection and put pedestrians entering the crosswalk at risk |
Southbound Santa Cruz traffic can take unto 4 seconds to clear the intersection. There needs to be an all red delay on the signals to allow the cars to exit the intersection before the pedestrian signal is given to children and other pedestrians to cross. See photos |
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Traffic Light Out – Traffic light on NW corner of Campo Bello has light out <UPDATE> This light continues to be out after nearly a year and many notifications to County. |
Northbound Santa Cruz/Alameda traffic needs theTraffic lights to be maintained/fixed |
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Traffic Light Out – Two Traffic lights on the Northbound Santa Cruz sliplane are not visible and another was intermititenly out. <UPDATE> The |
The two NB Santa Cruz traffic lights on the right hand side of the road are not visible until 1 second before the crosswalk, so fairly useless. The main traffic light might have an issue as it was out for a while and then working again… Needs to be checked out (see this video) |
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Red Light Running – In 1 hour nearly 2 dozen red light runners (Mar 7 pm). Northbound Santa Cruz traffic is the main culprit with red light running and it puts the residents along that Santa Cruz slip lane and pedestrians using the crosswalk at extreme risk. |
The main cause is that this light is unlike any other light in the area, it primarily stays green and motorists become accustomed to it being green and are conditioned not to stop. The main fix for this, that would eliminate virtually all of the red light running, is to have this light behave like all other lights. When Northbound traffic stops, this northbound lane stops also. This provides the safety break needed by residents at the Y and for those residents further up Santa Cruz to have a break from the continuous flow. See videos on Safety Page |
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Improve Sidewalk – Westside sidewalk between Oak Hollow/Campo Bello is in dire need of maintenance |
This is a simple one for a quick fix. Send a person there with shovel and broom to clean. A more permanent and longer term fix could be planned, but for now this restores safety and accessibility. Keep the sidewalks on routine maintenance. see photos above |
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Paint the White Lane Marker – The only section of all the major roadways in West Menlo that does NOT have this slow lane definition line marked is the 1,100’ section of Santa Cruz between Sand Hill and Alamed/Santa Cruz Y intersection. |
Painting this white line to define the right side of the slow lanes for this southern segment of Santa Cruz has significant benefits. It helps motorists and cyclists to understand where the slow lane is. Currently this lane ranges in perceived width from 13’ to over 20’. The downtown segment of Santa Cruz has a lane width ranging from 9.5’ to 10.5’ (sometimes less, sometimes more) and this is a good reference for the slow lane width. Keeping traffic in the proper lane boundary will significantly improve safety for residents, parked cars, and cyclists, and will improve the safety of those exiting the the many driveways (including Menlo Commons). |
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Crosswalk Stop Limit lines – Certain crosswalks need but lack the stop limit line that is used throughout the rest of Santa Cruz Ave (that part going past Hillview to Downtown). Not having stop limit lines puts pedestrians at undue extra risk. This is especially the case whrere the extremely long angled crosswalks at the Alameda/Santa Cruz “Y” create a severe visual impediment between cars and people.
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Stop Limit Lines are those lines that create a buffer area before the actual crosswalk, so instead of cars stopping right at and on the crosswalk and therefore creating a major visibility problem and causing serious risk to pedestrians being hit by cars, the stop limit line keeps the cars back from the crosswalk allowing full visibility and an extra safety buffer between pedestrian and traffic. Cost: Paint, although some times there is a “Stop Here” sign recommended. |
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Speed Feedback signs – These provided all motorists with a reminder to keep their speed in check. With our current extra wide roadway lanes, it is easy to exceed the speed limit. UPDATE: These are finally installed on the for the Alameda and South Santa Cruz sections. Still hoping to get for North Santa Cruz from the “Y” to Avy. |
The North Santa Cruz segment, between the “Y” and Avy Ave. should also be considered to address the many complaints about speeders, especially where such controls could help mitigate the problematic Sharon Rd/Oak Dell/Santa Cruz Ave intersection and crosswalk. |
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Eliminate Confusion, distraction and lane changing – On northbound Santa Cruz, just 100’ before the Y a lane is added. Instead of just using the even flow of the current two lanes from Sand Hill to service the Alameda and North Santa Cruz traffic, this newly added lane creates confusing, distractions, and a extremely dangerous cycling situation. |
By keeping the existing two lanes only and not adding a 3rd lane, traffic remains calm, and eliminates all of the requirement for over 5,500 lane changes per day. Changing lanes is hectic and motorists get confused, often in the wrong lane and needing to change again. Cyclists are pushed into the middle of the fray, as they too have to be changing lanes and occupy two lanes. Keeping it simple, with just the two existing lanes from Sand Hill, calms the traffic flow, cyclists don’t have to change lanes, and its less confusing. Interestingly, during the busiest peak hour, because so many cars are changing lanes all over, the middle most lane is rarely used. The flowing traffic uses the left most lane (fast lane) primarily for Alameda bound traffic, the right most newly added 3rd lane (is used for Santa Cruz) but the geometry of the lanes basically blocks the middle lane from much use. |
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Northbound traffic stop – The stop light at the Y would now affect all NB traffic, meaning that the light will turn red for about 13 and 22 seconds. It will then remain green for nearly a minute at peak times and remain green for longer periods during the rest of the day and evening.
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This remedies a very serious and dangerous problem for those residents that live at and near the “Y” intersection of Santa Cruz and Alameda. They currently do not have a safe window to enter or exit their driveways and they only have a few seconds of visibility due to the curve. This stop provides them with much safer access and provides a short but needed reprive for the residents further north on Santa Cruz ave. A traffic break of 13 to 22 seconds allows those residents to also more safely use their properties. The impact on motorists would be that they could potentially be slowed down or stopped briefly 1 out of 4 or 5 times on thier NB Santa Cruz route. No major delay or impact for NB Alameda routes.
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Pedestrian Activated Crosswalk Light – We have asked this for over a decade since our first fatality. All along the rest of Santa Cruz, there are now such activated Crosswalk Beaons that identify to all motorists that the crosswalk is in use. Palo Alto Way is a highly desired crosswalk and adding these Crosswalk Beacons or the recommended Hawk lights (as seen on El Camino in Atherton and Redwood City) are needed now.
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This Pedestrian light would significantly improve safety at this crosswalk. Placement of these crosswalk lights at Palo Alto Way would not be impacted by long term changes to this portion of Santa Cruz, there will always be a need for this safety light signal that is only activated by pedestrians. This item is moderately more expensive, yet this is a standard feature on Santa Cruz Ave in the Menlo Park segment. It is a “to do” item that, after over a decade of waiting, needs to be scheduled and installed as part of these near term action items.
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Dangerous Alameda sidewalk Issues – These conditions along the roadway and pathway on Alameda continue to worsen. Reported back in August 2017, none of these dangerous conditions that could break a leg or ankle or worse have been addressed
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These are dangerous conditions and put all people at risk. It is unacceptable to allow these conditions to remain, they need to at least have a temporary repair, especially if actual sidewalks are a year or 2 or 3 away. These conditions are reported in the Safety Issues Report: #11 and #12
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Bus Shelter at Palo Alto Way-Santa Cruz – This southbound bus stop needs to have a shelter |
There has been some work to define where the bus stop shelter would be placed and it appears there is room. County and SamTrans need to finalize on this and schedule construction. |
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Speed Limits on Alameda – Business Dist – The speed limit is posted as 30 mph but that seems both unreasonable and unsafe |
Business districts such as there should be 25 mph and there appears some code requirements to support this. Making this business district 25mph would not only be a more reasonable speed limit, but also set the mindset of motorists to continue the 25 mph speed south into the Corriodor. See VehCode 235.
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