Honorable Councilmembers,
 
I am writing to complain about excessive traffic in The Willows, and to indicate my concerns with NTMP policy and development along the Middlefield/Linfield Oaks corridor.

 In late 2003/early 2004, data based on a joint resident-city license plate counting survey performed on May 2003, were provided to the City illustrating that certain Willows streets – Woodland Avenue among them -- were experiencing high cut-through rates. The figure for Woodland Avenue was ~35% at the Woodland/Middlefield intersection; similar values were tallied for Chester/Willow and other intersections.
 
The survey from which these values are taken was an outcome of an all-Willows neighborhood meeting sponsored by the City; attendance at the meeting was high, and it was promised that the results of the survey would be reported at a subsequent meeting. The follow-up meeting never occurred, and the survey results were presented almost incidentally by Staff at a regular councilmeeting. There was no opportunity for wide dissemination of results within the neighborhood.
 
Further, the Winkler/Jellins/Duboc majority on the prior council appointed to the Transportation Commission, anti-traffic-limitation sympathizers drawn from the SOS ‘Safe Open Streets’ special interest group. The resulting commission crafted a Neighborhood Traffic Management Plan which raises an insurmountable bar to limiting traffic in our neighborhoods. The ‘public comment’ sessions associated with the NTMP plan were conducted as a formality only: the plan took little if any public comment into account. In fact, one commission member stated that ‘sometimes the minority knows best’, a not-so-subtle reference to the commission bloc installed by the then-majority on the Council.
 
As Council also is aware, there has been a major rash of crime in the Willows area of Menlo Park; the latest incident, I believe, was a drive-by shooting in which serious injury occurred. It is known that large-scale presence in a neighborhood, of outsiders having no vested interested in that neighborhood, is conducive to increased crime.
 
As a long-term resident of the Willows, I would like to request that Council convene the long-overdue all-Willows neighborhood meeting, to address the traffic and crime concerns of the neighborhood; and to assure residents that commercial development on Middlefield will not result in further erosion of quality of life in the neighborhood. Moreover, as a concerned citizen interested in improving
safety and liveability of my neighborhood, I ask the council to undertake a full review and revision of the NTMP policy with the goal of empowering residents to protect their own streets.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
Ross Wilson
Woodland Avenue, Menlo Park
Received on Tue Apr 10 19:30:19 2007