Dear City Council Members,  

I write to you with respect to item F2 on your April 1, 2008 meeting agenda. Specifically, I ask that you explicitly indicate in your letter to the Menlo Park School District that you do not intend to approve the encroachment permits necessary to move the current exit driveway and adjacent crosswalk on Oak Knoll Lane, as proposed in the Oak Knoll School development plans. Moving these roadway features to enable the construction of an "extended dropoff line" will negatively impact the safety and convenience of pedestrians and bicyclists, will encourage more parents to drive their children to school, and will cause unanticipated effects on traffic, including bicycle and pedestrian traffic, in the Menlo Park neighborhoods around the school.  

I would first like to draw your attention to the Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA), provided in connection with the Proposed Negative Declaration issued by the School District on March 10, 2008. The TIA reports that fewer than 1/3 of all Oak Knoll students are currently dropped off in the dropoff line, whereas nearly half of the students either walk from home, bicycle, or ride a bus to school. (See pp. 21-22 of the TIA.) It is therefore a matter of simple unfairness for the School District to redesign traffic flow at the school to benefit car drivers at the expense of those who walk, bike, or ride the bus to school.  

Second, the TIA identifies significant operational and design features that could improve traffic flow at Oak Knoll School without requiring changes in the current location of the exit driveway and crosswalk. Specifically, the school could adopt procedures to facilitate getting children into and out of their cars in a more efficient manner. Such procedures are successfully used at other schools to increase dropoff and pickup efficiency but have never been tried at Oak Knoll School. In addition, the proposed left- and right-turn egress configuration (Option "C" of the TIA) could provide all the benefits described in the TIA, without requiring that the exit driveway be moved from its existing location. This configuration would also provide all of the benefits of a "two-lane" drop-off line configuration without the excessive length of dropoff line proposed in the development plans.  

Finally, the TIA glosses over the detrimental effects that extending the dropoff line will have on walkers and bikers. As a parent who has bicycled with his children to Oak Knoll School approximately one thousand times over the last seven years, I have been heartened to see significantly increasing numbers of children walking and biking to school during this period. I am certain, however, that greatly expanding the footprint of the dropoff line, while at the same time shrinking access to the school for children and parents who don't drive, will reverse this trend. What message do we send our children when we so obviously place a higher priority on driving to school than on walking or biking?  

I implore you to do the right thing by telling the District that the City of Menlo Park will not facilitate the conversion of Oak Knoll School into the equivalent of a McDonald's drivethrough lane. The School District has many ways to improve the efficiency of traffic flow around Oak Knoll School without extending the dropoff line or moving the existing crosswalk. Please inform the School District that Menlo Park will not provide permits to allow these changes to be made.  

Thank you for your consideration.  

Sincerely yours,  

David Roise
Creek Drive, Menlo Park Received on Sun Mar 30 21:46:36 2008