Dear Council Members:

I have attended all four of the recent public meetings dealing with the bicycle/pedestrian under-crossing. Had you attended any of these meetings, you might share my concern. The process has been deficient. A growing commitment to the Middle Ave. site over others ignores the fundamentals of sound planning practices.

City council decisions involving money and construction must be made on the basis of factual analysis. If there are choices between options, each option should receive thorough scrutiny in order to make the best decision. In the case of the bicycle tunnel project, that has not been done.

1. There has been no comparison of this site with other sites in sufficient detail in order to make a cost comparison between possible sites. Council Member Heyward Robinson assures us that outside money will pay for most of this project but in my years on the Board and subcommittees of the City and County Association of Governments, I learned that outside funding agencies rank projects on cost and cost effectiveness, among other criteria. If Menlo Park chooses one site without bothering to investigate another known to be less complicated and therefore less expensive, a funding agency might not give us any money.
2. The Middle Avenue site is encumbered by an existing building, the service bay and showroom of the former GM dealership, that prevent a logical and safe connection with the Middle/El Camino intersection. Since the existing lease on this particular site doesn’t expire for at least 4 more years, must we wait until 2012 before starting a project that will properly serve residents of Menlo Park? There is another site (Willow/Cambridge) that is not encumbered by a building where the tunnel and its approaches could be designed and built much sooner.

While I am encouraged that our council has taken a step towards delivering on an element included in the General Plan 14 years ago, I am concerned that a decision on the location and design of this overdue public improvement will be based on incomplete cost and timing information. It is common for cities to undertake project planning using criteria that includes feasibility, cost and practicality when selecting the best site for a public works project like this one. So far, we have seen only a beauty contest. The $40,000+ consultant cost should have been spent on designs of the possible sites so that our council could have made an informed decision.

Steve Schmidt    Received on Thu Sep 25 09:45:11 2008