Dear City Council
As a 9 year resident of the Willows on Woodland Avenue, I have seen traffic change from a quiet trickle PRIOR to the Four Seasons/traffic intersection development, to a fast rushing river AFTER the Four Seasons development (lots of cut through traffic), to the current stream (fewer cars - less speeding) due to our new speed bumps.

Still, during rush hour on any given day, I would guestimate that 70% of the traffic is not composed of woodland/oak court/emma lane residents. Since Woodland and Gilbert are TWO MAIN entrances to the Willows, most of the cut through traffic enters/exits on these two streets. Straight away Gilbert was designed to carry a large traffic load. Winding Woodland was not.

Most of the cut through traffic on Woodland appears to be: kids going to EPA schools on Willow/Coleman and commuters heading to Middlefield/Menlo Park or downtown Palo Alto.

If you look at a map. Woodland roughly parallels University Avenue and is a convenient short cut if University is backed up. Unfortunately, Woodland is bearing the brunt of most of the northwest bound cut through traffic for the ENTIRE neighborhood. O¹Connor used share the NW bound traffic, until the Four Seasons development changed the street layout.

I am in favor of a traffic study in the Willows that will, hopefully, determine if our streets have higher speed and volume than they were designed for, during what times of day, where the traffic is entering and exiting the neighborhood etc.

Dana

Dana Shields & Bob Hubbell (& Charlie)
1231 Woodland Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Home 650 326 7999
Mobile 650 326 2316 Received on Tue Mar 25 21:20:36 2008