Make Santa Cruz and the Alameda de Las Pulgas safer for bicycling
This blog and alert was written by SVBC member, John Langbein, who also chairs the SVBC Peninsula Committee and sits on the Atherton BPAC as well as the Task Force for this corridor. Additional editing by Sandhya Laddha.
To make riding through west Menlo Park using Santa Cruz Ave and the Alameda de las Pulgas, please fill out this survey by February 23, 2020 as this will guide future improvements to the corridor.
Brief Background:
Many people bike along the corridor consisting of Alameda de las Pulgas and Santa Cruz Avenue to connect from San Carlos, Redwood City, Atherton, and Menlo Park to points south via Junipero Serra, Foothill Expressway, or Alpine Road. This corridor is, at best, extremely stressful and at worst, deadly. It also falls between Sand Hill Road and Avy, or the Dutch Goose, in the small business district of west Menlo Park. Not only have people biking complained, the local residents aren’t happy with the corridor’s heavy traffic with high speeds.In response, over the past two years, Supervisor Don Horsley of San Mateo County assembled a task force to work with the San Mateo County’s Public Works Department to agree upon a set of plans in an attempt to make this corridor a “Complete Street”, one that allows for safe passage of all users including people walking, biking, and driving. That task force consists of several user groups including County officials, residents, pedestrians, motorists, fire department, and John Langbein (SVBC member and representative). To date, the task force has conducted one survey to gauge the demand for modifications of the corridor among the users, and they are conducting a second survey to gauge support for a number of alternative configurations. If you are reading this before Sunday, February 23, 2020, and importantly, bike on this segment (Alameda and Santa Cruz Ave in west Menlo Park), then please take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SCA_ADLP
Recommendations:
There are several choices, but we recommend to opt for lane diets (reducing the number of car lanes) for both Santa Cruz and the Alameda, allowing for the installation of new bike lanes through this corridor.
There are two other questions that relate to the intersection where the Alameda splits-off from Santa Cruz, known as the “Y”. One of these questions provides three alternative configurations of the “Y”, and the second one addresses the phases of the traffic light at the “Y”. None of the three alternative configurations for the “Y” is a clear winner for biking, but the alternative of “no right on red” for the traffic light should help with calming motorists through this intersection.
In short, here are suggestions for the four questions :
Alameda – Road Diet
Santa Cruz Ave. – Alternative B, followed by Alternative C
For the ‘Y’ – it is a toss-up between Alternative A and Alternative C
Traffic Light – No right on Red
For more detailed analysis by John Langbein, go here.
Fill our the survey by Feb. 23, here.