Honorable members of the Menlo Park Planning Commission:

As you well know, traffic on El Camino from
Encinal to the northern city line is
progressively getting worse. Both entry and exit
from all side streets are a major challenge.
Traffic on El Camino moves at about 40 to 50 mph
up to the Atherton light.

Watkins is one of two rail crossings for
Atherton. It is a major access to Marsh and 101.
It is naïve to anticipate grade separations. The
Watkins/El Camino intersection, north and south,
is a fatal accident waiting to happen.

Since you are all participants in the "Planning"
Commission, I respectfully ask you, rhetorically,
what is your plan?

Is it your plan to avoid and suppress traffic studies as much as possible?

Is it your plan - shall we call it the "sin of
omission" - to permit whatever consequences may
result for the negligence which the lack of
traffic studies on El Camino implies?

Is it not possible - indeed your civic and
ethical responsibility - for the Planning
Commission to require a traffic study and seek
traffic mitigation solutions as a condition for
development along all of El Camino in Menlo Park,
whether the ordinance technically requires it or
not?

If you do now know about possible consequences
for your decision to resist the implementation of
traffic studies, are you not, individually and
collectively, liable for the harm that can result
in that context?

I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to
require a traffic mitigation study for the 1906
El Camino project as a condition for approval.

Respectfully,

Martin Engel

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Martin Engel
1621 Stone Pine Lane
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650:323-1670
martinengel@earthlink.net
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