Southern Santa Cruz segment – at Sand Hill Rd to “Y”
This webpage pertains to the Southern Santa Cruz Ave segment, between the “Y” intersection and Sand Hill Rd.
There are many safety issues along this segment, high on the priority list are the high rate of speed, the high accident rate, safety for Palo Alto Way crosswalk. All of this directly affects the safety of residents, pedestrians and cyclists, as this segment handles the full volume of traffic for both Alameda and the northern segment of Santa Cruz Ave to Downtown MP.
Pros:
- Reducing the width of the current extra wide (freeway wide) lanes will help speed issues
- Significantly safer roadway for all pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and residents
- Much calmer traffic with fewer distracted drivers
- NB traffic lane much further away from driveways and sidewalk – better visibility
- Improves safety for Residents to enter/exit driveways (by moving traffic lane away)
- Greatly improved cycling safety with added buffered bike lanes
- Retains parking
- Corrects the issue that causes west sidewalks to be blocked by debris (retaining wall)
- Finally puts in safety features for the Palo Alto Way crosswalk
- Alt C (Safety Option 8.3) doesnt not restrict volume of traffic – same amount of traffic flows, just calmer and lower speed
Cons:
- Traffic signal duration and number of cycles at Sand Hill need to be smarter to clear SB traffic
- The expense of road diet is low — however, corrections for improving sidewalks adds $$
- Upgrading the sidewalks to be ADA complient – can be big or small effort – need to decide
- Design lane widths are too wide to effective slow traffic speed, need to be closer to 9′
- Design lane widths being wider, remove width for safer bike buffers and parking spaces
There are 2 main Alternatives for this southern most section of the corridor:
Alternate B – is a 5-3 road diet, changing to 1 lane each for north and south lanes.
Alternate C – is a 5-4 road diet, removing 1 SB lane, keeping 2 NB lanes
Both alternatives provide for improvements in safety and add buffered bike lanes. Both alternatives would keep the multiple SB lanes at and south of Menlo Commons at Sand Hill Rd (needed for ‘queuing’ cars at the stop light).
There are individual Pros/Cons for each alternative:
Alternative B – 1 lane each direction