Pedestrian safety at the "Y" is in dire need. While some improvement was achieved when the 3rd lane was removed in spring of 2019, some of those safety gains have been lost due to minor changes that did not consider safety for pedestrians
Problem
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Safety
March 11, 2020
One of the highest safety gains for the lowest cost tasks is achieved by painting the shoulder line for those 1,400' of Santa Cruz Ave starting at Sand Hill Rd, especially for the NB direction. This simple action will define the right most lane (slow lane) for Santa Cruz.
March 9, 2020
The intersection at Palo Alto Way and Santa Cruz is a major crosswalk that connects to the Palo Alto Way bus stop and allows the various communities (Menlo Commons, Oak Hollow, University Park) to connect with each other, including those students accessing the school bus stop near Palo Alto Way. It has been a continual site of traffic accidents including a pedestrian fatality.
February 20, 2020
In June of 2019, Prospect residents submitted a petition to County Public Works (PW) to improve line of sight when exiting Prospect. The application requested that some parking spaces on northwest side of Alameda de las Pulgas at Prospect be removed. The discussion now that County sent a proposal (Feb 2020) is to weigh this request against the mitigation County has done thus far (trimming over-growth for improved visibility) and the major new Alameda configuration of a 4-3 Road Diet. That road diet will address this issue and similar problems along both the Santa Cruz and Alameda roadways.
February 17, 2020
County recently removed a significant amount of parking on Alameda, near Harkins and Prospect. This is very problematic as the County design of the Alameda at this location is extremely dangerous, has longer crosswalk, strange - abnormal left turn lanes, medians inline with traffic lanes causing a need for cars to swerve, and all this on a geographic problematic area of Alameda that causes this short area of Alameda to be hidden by the hill and undulations until just seconds before a motorist can see.
While County had promised that there would be no significant loss of parking for the County Alameda/Santa Cruz improvement plans, they actually are proposing to remove 25+ parking spots. This added with the parking loss on Sharon Rd and the loss of parking in the business area around the Dutch Goose will be a problem.
February 5, 2020
Lane width on Alameda de las Pulgas is a major factor if we are to have reduced speeds and have all of the safety improvements in place. Why? Well there are really two aspects:
1) Motorists naturally drive slower in narrow lanes, even slightly wider lanes have a dramatic increase in motorist's speed. So narrower lanes are required to reduce motorist speed.
January 26, 2020
This section is a work in progress. Please use the comment section at the bottom of the page to ask questions, state concerns, ideas, or any other constructive feedback.