Mayor Cohen and Members of the City Council:

I'm writing as a 35 year resident of the Willows and as a witness to the Willows traffic calming debacle of the early '90s.

Please remove project T4, Willows Area-Wide Traffic Study, from your list of priority projects. It is designed to benefit a small but very vocal segment of the population, who live on streets which we all use to access our homes. It will totally disrupt our traditional traffic patterns to the detriment of the majority.

The promoters of this so called "study" have very specific goals, as presented by Transportation Staff to the Transporataion Commission in December: "closure of certain roadways", traffic circles and a "maze-like experience" for the Willows. This "study", at a cost of more than $120k, will generate intense and prolonged conflict in the Willows, as an identical proposal did in '93 - '95. Traffic circles and a maze-like experience were soundly rejected by residents when they were finally given the vote in 1995.

To remind you of the scope of the previous conflict, I've attached a collage of newspaper headlines - a few of many dozens of such clippings. For more than two years, Menlo Park was in the spotlight of the local press as well as the Chronicle and the Mercury News. The Palo Alto Weekly judged the Willows conflict to be the 9th top story of 1994 - and that was only year one of the debacle.

The promoters of the current project claim over 100 signatures on a vaguely worded on-line petition ("take action to address traffic concerns"). For reference, about 3600 people reside in the Menlo Park jurisdiction of the Willows. The total population is about 6000 including the East Palo Alto jurisdiction. The supporters of this plan are at most a tiny fraction of the population, yet it will affect everyone.

Based on past experience, you won't hear from the majority until you install the first street obstacles. Then the residents who receive the neighborhood traffic diverted from the activists' newly created cul de sacs will be hopping mad. And residents whose traditional routes home have been blocked. And residents whose emergency services are most adversely affected. And residents who cringe at the maze of ugly concrete throughout the neighborhood.

Menlo Park has a tool, The Neighborhood Traffic Management Plan (NTMP), which would overcome the flaws in the proposed plan. It requires buy-in by a majority-plus of residents before expenditure of significant City resources. This requires the promoters of such projects to calibrate their goals to the needs of the neighborhood. Why is the NTMP not being used here? It was inspired by the Willows debacle of the '90s and is based on an interim Willows traffic management plan in effect since then.

Why was a reasonable NTMP project, already in progress, involving five new Willows stop signs abandoned in favor of this plan?

A maze like experience was rejected by the Willows in the '90s. Do we really have to spend $120k to re-learn the same lesson - that it's not wanted?

Inclusion of this project in your priorities would be a disservice to the Willows and to all residents of Menlo Park and an insult to our neighbors who are the real target of this frenzy.

Sincerely,

Eric Doyle
322 Laurel Avenue