Just the other day I wanted to turn in to Los Palos coming from El Camino. I moved into the middle turn lane and then a truck moved into the same middle lane: we were heading straight at each other. The truck moved over again -- I was so startled. If we had crashed, who would have been at fault? There is no dedicated turn lane there, just two arrows pointing left/right that make it look like first come, first served. I was in that lane first before the truck moved over, but obviously this is confusing to drivers. Not a good design.

The constant merging two lanes to one, then back to two, then back to two is bad design. Not safer at all.

And the steady stream of traffic makes it difficult to get out onto Arastradero. How much more pollution and wasted gas with cars waiting to move?

> Excessive speeding and accidents along the route have
> decreased by half as a result of the trial

What exactly is "excessive speeding"?

And any claims that "accidents have been reduced" can not be proven, since the police do not respond to accidents unless someone is injured, or vehicles are disabled. There is no way to know how many "fender-benders" occur along this segment of road. Therefore, the only truthful claim that the City can make is that "responded accidents" have been fewer than before. Many of the accidents along this roadway have nothing to do with speed, and more to do with illegal vehicle movements (illegal U-Turns, entering roadway improperly, etc.)

By-and-large, the report by the Traffic engineering people have not been particularly truthful, nor have they made the data available to the public upon which they make their claims.

I called the PA Traffic Dept weeks ago and spoke to a traffic engineer, suggesting that the "No Right Turn on Red 7:30AM-8:30AM" sign from southbound El Camino to Arastradero be limited to school days, or at least Monday-Friday. There is no reason to restrict right turns on red at this intersection on weekends and holidays when traffic is very light. In other areas that are impacted primarily by weekday/school traffic, the rule is relaxed on weekends/non-school days.

He stated that he would look into it but I haven't seen any action on this yet. It would keep traffic flowing more smoothly, avoiding unnecessary stops and wasted gas.

Not studying the traffic on neighboring streets effectively is akin to not testing the lane reduction on Cal Ave.

Also, residents are using the turn left lane and the median to turn into/out of their homes. When landscaping goes into the median they are going to have a different opinion.

The first poster poses a good point. Suicide lanes on residential streets make no sense.

Overall, the traffic commission show lack of sense in approving this lane reduction in light of these salient points many have pointed out.

I found the tone of this report more negative than the actual commission hearing. There was a lot of support for the project because it fundamentally transforms Arastradero away from a expressway - which it should not resemble. I suspect that any proposed change would have its critics, this being no exception. Whether or not traffic has been diverted onto Maybell will be evaluated. Even if this is an issue, it was announced that there is a separate initiative to make Maybell a "Bike Blvd" which would solve this particular problem of cut-through traffic.

All I know is after taking my kids to school for years, around 8am is a complete disaster for the Arastradero/Charleston thourghfair. Gridlock is the word. Now it was not this way before this 'study'. To conclude that this study of change is effective is erroneous, not dealing with the morning/afternoon school related gridlock. This is not acceptable for any final plan. Changing from two lanes to one always produces backups, especially during high use times related to school schedules. The Transportation Commission needs to deal with this. Otherwise they are missing the boat, so to speak.......

Well having bicycled with my children to school for many years I can say these are definite improvements for children's safety.

We should watch for traffic cutting through the neighborhood and try to mitigate that if it appears to be a problem - no question there.

And "Excessive speeding and accidents along the route have decreased by half" is a huge win.

terrible decision. Huge impacts on drivers trying to reasonably get across town. Causes confusion when lanes suddenly merge.Poor use of taxpayer money and staff time.

The trumpeting of the reduction of speeding is indicative of how disingenuous this process has been. The speeding predominantly occurred outside the hours when pedestrian and bicycle safety were a serious concern. For example, drivers doing 50mph or more at 1am is not a threat to children biking to school.

From what I could tell from the data, the speeding occurred predominantly during times that traffic was sparse, and was a predictable response to the sparseness of that traffic and the width of the road.

Is such speeding a problem? Yes. But the degree of that problem needs to be balanced against the problems created by the "solution". And that has not happened.

The claim of accident reduction is open to question. In the three years before the trial (2008-2010), there were 11, 13 and 11 recorded accidents. In 2011, there were 18. In 2012Q1 there were 3, which is 12 annualized.

However, if you look back further, there is larger variability, but when working with incidents this infrequent, you should expect that simply from the statistical distributions.

Most of the pre-trial accidents were attributed to lane changes caused by the 4-lane configuration. Yet during the trial, complaints about near accidents caused by the lane changes created by that configuration have been treated dismissively.

Thank you, planning commission. As a direct beneficiary of the traffic calming measures, I applaud this decision. What will be a huge help for the families on Los Palos and Glenbrook will be the left turn holding area to be placed where there are now double bumps. The morning traffic is between 7.30 and 8.30. If the commuters came through at 7 or 9, they would not have the same level of traffic. If parents stopped driving their children to school, there would not be any congestion during these hours.

RE: Philip Melese, a resident of the Green Acres

This attitude is typical of what has made this change so contentious. Although he acknowledges that the Arastradero changes have created significant problems on Maybell, he precludes Arastradero being part of the solution to those problems (by delaying addressing the Maybell problem until after Arastradero changes become effectively permanent).

Consequently, the Maybell "fix" is almost certain to push even more cut-through traffic onto other residential streets.

A classic example of "beggar thy neighbor".

The Arastradero traffic plan is one of the worst thought out, terribly planned projects I have experienced in Palo Alto. And the proponents of the plan on the City staff, and the minority of residents who support the plan in the neighborhoods, have been incredibly disingenuous in their efforts to defend the plan against clear evidence that it is not responsible for the few positive results achieved and have swept the numerous problems with the plan under the rug. For the most part, the positive results I have experienced occurred only after the staggering of school start times. The traffic backups and blocked intersections for local residents continue unabated. But no problem for City staff, they'll be moving on to resolving all the other traffic problems in the City...real and imagined.

There are no unsafe roads, only unsafe drivers.

Here are a couple examples of the backups that can occur on the East Charleston segment of the C/A Corridor--

Web Link

Web Link

And of course, having to endure comments from various P&T Commissioners that "Palo Altans ride bicycles" (or words to that effect), we have to wonder where all of these bicycles are?

Web Link

RE: Safe as you wanna be: "There are no unsafe roads, only unsafe drivers."

Traffic engineers routinely talk about unsafe road elements. Not to mention that a primary motivation for the C/A project was that the 4-lane configuration was seen as unsafe (with substantial justification).

God save us from people whose intellectual capability is limited to bumper sticker items, but are so arrogant that they don't hesitate to befoul the public discourse with their ignorance and stupidity.

Relax Douglas, sometimes people use bumper sticker-isms on message boards. It does not mean that doing so reflects their complete intellectual capabilities. Many times its done to bring out a response of anger or frustration from others(mission accomplished I guess)
Regardless, I do hope that God saves you from your perception and that you somehow can recover from the "befouling" of this sacred message board. Be strong. Drive safely on safe roads.

When I had to use Arastradero, we called it ATRASHtadero back then.

It's funny, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It had bad engineering back then, too. If you want the title ENGINEER, you MAKE THINGS BETTER, NOT WORSE.

Time to dump these City Engineers. They have had their chances.....

The reduction of traffic lanes on major arterial roads in and out of Palo Alto can be directly associated with major companies such as Facebook, Space Systems Loral, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Genencor, Roche, and others joining the exodus out of Palo Alto. It is a pity that uninformed city council members and city manager are intent at reducing a once economically vibrandt community into a low income retirement village. They in turn blame others (city workers) for their ignorant actions. With a community consisting of 53% renters (2010 U.S. Census) I guess the transient population of Palo Alto voters have made their choice.

The study completely ignores the fact that many more students use side streets to get to Gunn now with the Arastradero changes
This is how it plays out...They will make the changes permanent then the residents of the side streets will raise a tizzy as they should because they didn't buy homes on a busy street! Then the city will block and limit traffic on side streets and the whole area will be choked down and will be an even worse mess. This is another example of someone in the traffic department trying to justify their ridiculous salaries and pensions....

Posted by Philip Melese"Whether or not traffic has been diverted onto Maybell will be evaluated. Even if this is an issue, it was announced that there is a separate initiative to make Maybell a "Bike Blvd" which would solve this particular problem of cut-through traffic."

The city studied Maybell for years to make it a "Bike Blvd". They took grant money to put in speed bumps. They added stop signs in the middle of what used to be a quiet neighborhood street. All of this was done to make this street safer for biking to Gunn, Terman, Briones and a private school.

Now in an attempt to calm Arastradero Rd. the efforts have forced more cars on to the only street that parallels Arastradero which happens to be Maybell. Gone are all of the efforts to make Maybell a "Bike Blvd" and Arastradero is a daily nightmare as well.

Wait for it Just my opinion. If they had intentions of creating a bike blvd like Bryant St, on Maybell, they were likely going to install a couple of traffic blockers/dead ends that will allow cyclists through.
Once those go in, the cut through issue is resolved.

I prefer not to "wait for it". Schools start in just a few short weeks.

Maybell calming project was done well before the Arastradero change to improve the increase in traffic due to the reopening of Terman Middle School. The effects of those improvements has been voided due to the changes on Arastradero. If the City is planning on readdressing Maybell then please hurry so that we do not see the bicycle/pedestrian accidents occurring on the neighborhood streets.

Well, I _prefer_ not to do a lot of things myself, but sorry, you'll have to wait. I don't think this is the ticking time bomb of dead kids some people want to predict. Again, drivers should slow and drive safely for the conditions. It comes down to that so often doesn't it? Cops cops cops will be seen all over once school starts, same as every year. I predict no increase in accidents on Maybell...but that's just my opinion.

Most of the streets in Palo Alto aren't meant to handle such high numbers of traffic, we got kids going to school, parents taking them, workers heading to work, visitors to offices, tourist and etc. We need to solve our problem of having to get where we want to go and get there fast. Folks we live in a urban area, you have to change your habits.

Garrett, I thought we lived in a SUBurban area. San Francisco and San Jose are what I consider urban. Of course, with ABAG dictating so much growth, the whole peninsula will be one big urban blur in a few years.

If you live south of Arastradero as thousands of Palo Altons do, you have no choice but to use this road to get everywhere in the city--especially schools. I like the project. I drive it. I walk it. I bike it. It's better now.

Thank you, City Council.