Dear John,
I am very frustrated and angry by your email response to Sidewalks on Woodland. I thought we had the council¹s support on Tuesday night to make Woodland a priority. What is it going to take to get the city to make Woodland a safe street? My child getting hit by a car? A lawsuit? The city will have a lawsuit on their hands if a pedestrian is hit and badly injured... or worse. As you remember, that happened in Palo Alto a few years back, but on a straight street. It can easily happen again on a winding dangerous street.

Please come and walk along Woodland IN the street (there is no other place to walk) with me, pulling a red wagon with a child in it. You won¹t believe how vulnerable you feel, hoping that the cars coming straight at you around the bend make the turn and aren¹t distracted with their cell phones.

What do woodland residents have to do to get a safe place to along on our street?
You have 98% approval on our end of Woodland. What else do you need?

Do you need the whole neighborhood to pull their kids out of bed to show up to a meeting? They¹ll do it if it means we¹ll get sidewalks. But they¹ll only do it once. Let me know and I¹ll organize a Woodland Ave protest.

 Right now, each and every day, we walk IN IN IN the street with 2500 cars driving INCHES away at 25-40 mph. it will only take one of those cars veering a 12 inches too far to the right and... Potential death. What more evidence do you need?

Do you know that Woodland residents load all of their kids AND their bikes in their cars to drive to a safer street around the corner to ride bikes? It¹s ridiculous.

We don¹t necessarily need cement sidewalks if the city is financially strapped. We need a safe area to walk/bike with some sort of barrier to separate us from the cars. A crushed granite path with a curb and/or trees between the pavement and walkers would suffice. WE need something ASAP. Before something horrible happens.

Dana

Dana Shields & Bob Hubbell (& Charlie too) 1231 Woodland Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Home 650 326 7999
Mobile 650 326 2316  

From: "Boyle, John C" <JCBoyle@menlopark.org> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:35:04 -0800
To: Dana A Shields <danaashields@sbcglobal.net> Cc: "Boyle, John C" <JCBoyle@menlopark.org>, "Steffens, Kent D" <KSteffens@menlopark.org>, "Rojas, Glen" <grojas@menlopark.org> Conversation: We will have sidewalks on woodland!!!!! Subject: RE: We will have sidewalks on woodland!!!!!

Dana,

Thanks for your note. I, too, am glad to see the City moving forward with trying to add some sidewalks to various streets throughout Menlo Park.

However, based on some of the emails I've seen in the last couple of days, I'm a little concerned that there may be some confusion. Contrary to implication of some messages that are being circulated, there was no decision on Woodland made at this week's Council meeting. The only thing that was on the agenda (and approved) was acceptance of the staff's methodology and criteria that they will use to HELP prioritize which sidewalks get done and when. I stress the word "help," because that was one of the important points that came out in the meeting: the formula-driven point score that the ranking model will generate will serve as a starting point and a way for staff to make some preliminary recommendations. Staff and the City Council will add "judgment" to help address nuances that the model may have under- or over-weighted. We'll then proceed to some design alternatives that will be further discussed and debated (the formal design of the sidewalks may well drive critical factors as to the attractiveness and cost of the proposed sidewalks).

As an example, note that the addition of a sidewalk on a given street COULD result in a narrowing of the road and/or giving up some or all of an existing dirt/gravel path. To the degree those types of things happen, one could argue that the addition of a sidewalk could actually make it worse for bicyclists (narrower road and/or no side path). Note that sidewalks generally aren't well suited for bikes and pedestrians to share. This possible tradeoff needs to be understood, discussed, and decided for each street and potential design.

I'm not suggesting this would be the case for any specific street, but I do think it's important to be sure we're considering the whole story before making a decision.

As such, please note that we haven't even yet received a list of prioritized sidewalks from staff, let alone made any decisions. The staff report we reviewed on Tuesday included some "hypothetical" examples of the model ... NOT final recommendations/rankings.

There was clearly a lot of support for Woodland at the meeting, but no decision has been made. IF Woodland ends up being one of the top prioritized segments, the next step, as described above will be for more detailed planning and design to happen, community review, and final budget/expense proposals to be made to Council for possible approval. The process can be found in the staff report (on-line) from the Tuesday Council meeting, or by watching the video stream thru the City website.

Please let me know if I can further answer any questions. I've cc'd Kent Steffens, our city's Director of Public Works, and I'll invite him to edit or comment as well.

/John

> Dear City Council.
> I wanted to thank you all so much for approving the criteria for the sidewalk
> project last night and for enabling the sidewalk project to even EXIST! Thank
> you.!!!!! I don't know if you understand how INCREDIBLY grateful we all are.
> It's a HUGE relief to know that we will not always have to walk/bike in fear
> on Woodland. That we will finally have a safe place to walk. HUGE.
>
> Perhaps my letter to the Willows neighborhood will give you an idea.
> Best,
> Dana Shields.
>
>
>
> Hi all,
> Just wanted to thank everyone for filling out the sidewalk survey last
> December. It worked!
> We will have sidewalks on Woodland between Euclid and Menalto.!!!!!!
>
> That means our kids can walk safely to the bus stop at menalto
> That means parents can safely bike with their kids to school
> That means we will all have a safe place to learn to ride bicycles with our
> children.
> That means maybe we'll get more than 2 Trick or Treaters next year.
> That means maybe the traffic will slow down due to narrower streets.
> That means we'll be able to push a stroller without fear of getting run over.
>
>
> Last night, Ellen Haffner and I attended the city council meeting and stayed
> until 10 pm, to hear the Sidewalk Master Plan presentation .
>
> Ellen and I both spoke AGAIN about the urgent need for a safe place for
> children to walk and ride their bikes on our end of Woodland.
>
> Well, after 6 years of screaming about how dangerous Woodland is. We have been
> heard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> We will have sidewalks on Woodland between Euclid and Menalto.!!!!!!
>
> I think it will happen in the next year. Not sure yet. But it will happen.
> Woodland will be a top priority!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> YEAH!!!!!!!!!!
>
> If you can, PLEASE send a thank you note to the city council at
> city.council@menlopark.org
>
> Kelly Fergusson, Rich Cline, and Hayward Robinson really went to bat for us
> last night. They deserve a big thank you.
>
> Also please add a sentence saying why it is important to YOU/YOUR KIDS to have
> a sidewalk. That might make things move along faster.
>
> ALSO, I'd like to invite city council and Kent Steffens to walk down Woodland
> at rush hour pushing strollers. ;-) I was thinking 7:40 - 8:00 am. When
> everyone is rushing to get to school/work.
>
> Thanks!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Dana
>
> Dana Shields & Bob Hubbell (& Charlie too)
> 1231 Woodland Avenue
> Menlo Park, CA 94025
> Home 650 326 7999
> Mobile 650 326 2316
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I'll be attending the city council meeting tomorrow night to listen to the
> presentation by the expert sidewalk consultants. The meeting starts at 7 .
>
> If you check out the last 2 pages of the staff report,
> http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_101/CAMENLO_101_20080212_e
> n.pdf
>
> <http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_101/CAMENLO_101_20080212_
> en.pdf> Woodland did not make the top of priority list for sidewalk
> implementation! ;( Santa Cruz avenue did.
>
> I may have overlooked it but I didn't see "narrow curvy street" mentioned as a
> data point anywhere on the report. Seems like the curves are what makes
> woodland so dangerous....... sigh.
>
> Will let you know what happens at the meeting if you can't join me.
>
> Dana
> PS
> Info from Chip Taylor of the Transportation committee below.
>
>
> Dana,
> The Prioritization Criteria for the Sidewalk Master Plan will be considered by
> Council tomorrow evening. The agenda for the meeting and the staff report are
> linked below.
>
> Staff Report:
> http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_101/CAMENLO_101_20080212_e
> n.pdf
>
> Agenda:
>
> <http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_101/CAMENLO_101_20080212_
> en.pdf>
> http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_35/CAMENLO_35_20080212_en.
> pdf
>
>
>
> <http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_35/CAMENLO_35_20080212_en
> .pdf> Thanks,
>
> Chip Taylor
Received on Tue Feb 19 13:18:31 2008