Sharrows for the Santa Cruz-Alameda de las Pulgas “Y”
This post was contributed by SVBC member and Menlo Park resident, Dave Gildea. To get more involved in local advocacy, check out SVBC's Local Teams.New green bike “sharrows” (shared-lane markings) have been installed on Santa Cruz Avenue and Alameda de las Pulgas in the vicinity of the “Y”. These roads are a primary bike route between Stanford on the south and mid-Menlo Park on the north that is well-known as being extremely hazardous for people biking. The sharrows are a result of the work of an ad hoc Menlo Park advocacy group of Bill Kirsch, John Langbein, Cindy Welton, and myself as well as the support of San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley and the County’s Department of Public Works.Our ad hoc group formed in April 2016, with the intent to make biking a little less hazardous on Santa Cruz Avenue in the vicinity of the “Y”. We started by inviting San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley for a site visit. Horsley was super responsive to the bike hazard issue and he asked Joe Lo Coco of the County Department of Public Works (DPW) to work with us for solutions. Lo Coco explained roadway standards to us, answered every email we sent to him, examined our ideas and proposed ideas of his own. We asked for separated bike lanes, lower speed limits, and bicycle green treatments. Over the next 18 months we had many site visits and over 500 correspondences and meetings with bicyclists, residents, committees, and government officials. If solutions were easy they would have been done long ago.There were several misdirections but in March 2017, the County agreed to install green treatment bike sharrows for Santa Cruz Avenue. Lo Coco and Diana Shu of the DPW designed a sharrow plan that was better than the sharrow plan we had asked for. We originally asked for sharrows between Sand Hill and the “Y”. Their plan extended the sharrows across both arms of the “Y” - Alameda de las Pulgas and the Santa Cruz continuation into Menlo Park - to their intersections with Sharon Road. There were long contracting delays but eventually most of the sharrows hit the pavement in October 2018. I ride northbound Santa Cruz about once a week. For my small sample size I believe that passing cars are giving me more space since the sharrows were installed.A second result of the ad hoc advocacy was the formation of a residents task force, Santa Cruz Alameda For Everyone (SAFE), that has made a strong relationship with the County for addressing the more difficult safety-related issues of parking, speeds and traffic lanes. Go to Santa Cruz Avenue Corridor Study to find out more details and view upcoming meetings.I want to express my wholehearted thanks to Supervisor Don Horsley and DPW Joe Lo Coco and Diana Shu for their support and work. In particular I appreciate their general understanding of the issues and their answering every email we sent to them.
