City officials will host three community meetings next week on re-envisioning the Palo Alto section of the El Camino Real Grand Boulevard Initiative.
The initiative is a project comprised of 19 cities and agencies to make El Camino more pedestrian-friendly and have more mixed-use developments near public transit. The current segment redesign study would be between Stanford Avenue and Lambert Avenue.
Next week’s meetings will gather input and suggestions from the public for the Grand Boulevard study. The initiative received a $350,000 state grant in 2016 from the California Department of Transportation as part of the agency’s Sustainable Transportation Planning program.
The meetings will take place on the following dates:
• Sunday, Jan. 14, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at the California Avenue Farmers’ Market.
• Wednesday, Jan. 17, 4-7 p.m. at Country Sun Natural Foods, 440 California Ave.
•Monday, Jan. 22, 4-7 p.m. at the California Avenue Caltrain station, 101 California Ave. (this meeting was initially set for Jan. 18 but then rescheduled because of rain forecasts).
The public can also give their input through a survey at gis.fehrandpeers.com. For more background on the project, visit cityofpaloalto.org.
Forget the grand boulevard….we’re not Paris. Fix the potholes instead.
Indeed we’re not Paris! Another costly and fantastic fairy tale.
This lengthy proposal totally ignores cars!! It’s got sections on buses, bikes, pedestrians, bump-outs, road paintings etc. but not a single mention of cars!!
Where do the designers imagine the car traffic will go??
Also,did anyone succeed in responding via the “interactive survey”? I sure couldn’t get it working.
El Camino cuts our city in half. Getting from one side to the other as a pedestrian is at best unpleasant and often extremely dangerous. A huge problem is that Gunn High School is on one side of El Camino while many of its students live on the other side of El Camino. All of the bicycle and pedestrian routes across El Camino to Gunn are not very safe. The car speeds and narrow sidewalks on El Camino make it unpleasant to walk along, but I think the city needs to do a much better job as making it safe and convenient to walk across.
“Grand Boulevard” is a fancy way of saying they want to reduce El Camino from six lanes to four, and push the excess traffic out to the neighborhoods. VTA still wants bus-only lanes on El Camino.
Looking at what they did to a comparatively simple to handle Ross Road … Over last few days there were three (three!!!) people that I know of (tried to help two of them myself) who have driven into the idiotic traffic calming isles at the exit from the YMCA parking. There is only a curb around and no filling; those are traps, essentially. No warning signs there and no good lighting either. People got in with their front wheel as they tried to turn into Ross and had to call their insurance company to get lifted out.
Is this some kind of a silly joke?
I can imagine how they will do a large scale road project. It will be looking like a war zone.
If this is a county road how much say does Palo Alto have v the county?
Having seen what has been done to Ross Road, I can’t say I am enthusiastic about any type of “improvements” to El Camino Read.
We have lots of ways to spend taxpayer money on basic infrastructure such as prevention of flooding at Oregon underpass, general street repairs (potholes), improvements to efficient traffic flow (as opposed to slowing down traffic) and putting some commuter parking with dedicated shuttles to downtown and business areas.
Can we do anything to improve the mess rather than make changes that are totally unnecessary, if not worsening the situation?
Palo Altans for Common Sense.
Watch for VTA to try and grab a lane for only their busses. Same thing they tried in MV. I’d lay 100 bucks on the designated bus lane coming up.
All you people who are whining and complaining – attend the damn meetings, see what is being thought about, ask for details, and voice your opinions there.
Geesh!
Why even bother? Geesh!
Many of us “whiners and complainers” can’t get to the meetings for various reasons (including physical) and can’t get heard by the Council. Postings to this site are probably never read and the interactive survey seems designed to keep us from responding. (I couldn’t get it to work, either.)
It really seems like a waste of our money to “calm and beautify” ECR when half of the area is office buildings and the traffic is jammed up most of the day . There are so many other things to fix in Palo Alto, e.g. underpasses, potholes, parking, convincing the County to resurface ECR, stop adding to the traffic at Page Mill and ECR by permitting more construction, etc.,etc., etc.
Plus, stop such stupidity as the Ross Road destruction before some poor kid gets killed by sharing the road with a string of cars or by some car trying to make a left turn from Loma Verde into Ross OR some car runs up a lawn trying to navigate the roundabout at the same time as avoiding a biker.
ANYWAY, NONE OF THE COUNCIL MEMBERS OR CITY PLANNERS READ THESE RESPONSES ON THIS SITE
We’re so tired of the mess and traffic associated with the many recently completed construction projects near Cal Ave and Cambridge Ave on El Camino already, it is hard to be inspired to support more of the same in this area.
I agree that the times for the meetings make it difficult for working people to attend. Can one of the three meetings be held in the evening after work hours, please.
I gather that one happy consequence of being (unofficially) designated as a “Grand Boulevard” is that there will be no parallel on-street parking. That means no RV parking. I sure hope that there is a commitment from the Council that this won’t mean that the 40+ RV’s along El Camino will move into residential neighborhoods.
It also means that certain businesses will be missing their 5-20 minute parking out front. Which means that parking will have to be somewhere else close by, or, those usually small businesses will suffer. We all like small, independent businesses, right?
It also means even more on-street parking in adjacent neighborhoods, further punishing people who happen to be unfortunate enough to be too close to El Camino. Add to that the “parking light” housing developments we are being promised.
It doesn’t add up. There won’t be enough parking. Let’s stop the wishful thinking– if these changes are made, additional parking will have to be provided.
Clearly the city suffers from Paris envy.
The survey works for me (in Firefox) but a) it’s not a survey in the sense of a questionnaire, and b) it’s super complicated and you can’t edit if you make a mistake. Essentially you drag/drop icons to locations on the map to indicate walking, biking etc, and then add comments (optional) for each icon.
Interesting that you also found its design super complicated. It’s almost like the city WANTS to discourage input/
Again, I found no cars on the survey and I really wanted to see what lanes they’d been allotted.
Why are people acting so shocked? It is the Bay Area’s goal collectively to phase out cars.
Driving is selfish, we need to look out for the needs of “the community”. Obviously, the ruling class and ever-growing government l is exempt from all of that, for they are divine servants of the public!
First it was plastic bags, then cars, renaming schools, reprogram education so it’s less “Western”, and what’s next? We will truly reach *secession* at this rate.
It’s a 1-party state and the Progressives are in overdrive mode.
the site for comments and suggestions is insufficient.
I’ve said it before:
El Camino Real vision
I saw an actual working solution in, of all places, Tahiti. Apparently “paradise” has developed serious commute traffic. In order to keep the flow moving, they have disallowed left turns by constructing a barrier down the center of the road and eliminated most stop lights. Every 1/2 to 3/4 miles there is a multi-lane traffic circle where vehicles can reverse direction and make a RIGHT turn where desired. (Note that well-designed traffic circles are common in Europe, and significantly reduce traffic back-ups). Drivers entering the road can only make a right turn; they go to a circle if they want to go the other direction. It’s like a mini-freeway. Just eliminating left turns speeds traffic up, regaining the 20-30 seconds for the left turn arrow and another several minutes for cross traffic and pedestrians, and keeping the traffic going, not stop-wait for cross traffic and left turns-and-going. With 3 lanes, ECR could have dedicated 2 lane through traffic, 1 lane bus and right turn. I posit that the speed up would be greater than the flawed plan proposed by the VTA to modify ECR. I’d like to see computer simulations of both proposals under expected future traffic, and the effect on parallel routes (Alma, Middlefield, Foothill Expy). Bike routes should be developed on parallel side streets. There are several logical locations for circles: Stanford Shopping center, Embarcadero, Oregon/Page Mill, Charleston, San Antonio. The extra gas to go the extra distance to make a left turn would be more than compensated by being able to drive non-stop. There should be numerous pedestrian and bike crossings ELEVATED above ECR like the crossings over Woodside (near Middlefield), or 101 (near Oregon Expy), or the 4-way style seen in Las Vegas.
I also expect a fleet of non-polluting autonomous vehicles (instead of buses) that transport people from portal to portal anywhere in the Bay Area (instead of station/bus stop to station/bus stop), eliminating the “first and last mile” issue.
The interactive survey is very difficult to use. There is no save so I don’t know if they got my suggestions or not. Other than adding your own idea, there was no way to indicate support for traffic smoothing to reduce idling cars by timing lights or adding dedicated right turn lanes. I fear any so called Grand Boulevard initiatives will just make things worse.
AFAIK, the only significant mass transit to get people out of their cars are private bus services that go directly from near workers’ homes directly to their work, with wifi so they can work during the commute. More private shuttles should be encouraged. I love Caltrain but it is full. All the improvements are set to only increase capacity by 10%. Public mass transit doesn’t go where it is needed, takes too long, costs too much and doesn’t allow anyone to get work done.
Sigh.
There has yet to be a single change or project proposed but people are more than ready to jump to angry, cynical conclusions and toss out end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it predictions.
Let’s remember, we are governed by”The Palo Alto Process” which ensures that every inch along the route will be scrutinized down to a near-molecular level before the first crumb of concrete is shifted or dollop of paint applied. That factor alone allows us to take a deep breath until there is something of substance rather than speculation to kvetch about.
People aren’t going to stop using their cars until they have better ways to travel. Traffic diets and bus lanes won’t change that. A grand boulevard that’s choked with cars won’t change that. A grid of transit lines that don’t interact with car traffic, with frequent service that allows for quick transfers, might work. We should stop spending money on unworkable fantasies.
History Buff — Clearly the city suffers from Paris envy.
Hahahaha, good one … most cities do. Paris is pretty amazing.
I have to admit that I am sad to see the so-called Brutalist building
in the background of the article’s photo being readied to be demolished.
I’ve always liked that building and that style has been something I’ve
associated with Palo Alto since we moved here in the 60’s.
We save the terrible Eichler Market at Edgewood, but we think nothing
of demolishing a stylish and unique building with a nice patio and wide
sidewalk in front of it. And look at the other new buildings we have
pushed out facing El Camino along this area … UUUGGGLLLLYYY.
🙁
The meeting locations are peculiar; not one is a meeting forum conducive to a well attended presentation followed by a Q&A session. Why not hold these sessions in a proper meeting space?
Posted by CrescentParkAnon, a resident of Crescent Park, wrote:
>> I have to admit that I am sad to see the so-called Brutalist building
in the background of the article’s photo being readied to be demolished.
I’ve always liked that building and that style has been something I’ve
associated with Palo Alto since we moved here in the 60’s.
You’re just saying that to be contrary. 😉 Seriously, though, that was the name adopted in the 60’s by proponents and architectural critics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
Ugliest style ever, but, the real problem is that in urban design, it turns out that Brutalism has tended to destroy walkable cities. 3-5 story buildings with texture invite pedestrians, it turns out, while “brutalist”==raw_concrete environments, especially isolated tall raw concrete buildings with remote plazas, driveways, car parks, etc.– just like the one you are lamenting– discourage pedestrians. That particular style from that era also tend to be very energy inefficient. I’m not sorry to see it go. At all. Although, I may change my mind if it is replaced by another super-ugly building like the new College Terrace building. That building could have been a success if they had done it right.
>> We save the terrible Eichler Market at Edgewood,
Are you saying you don’t like “Eichler” or you don’t like the neighborhood market?
>> but we think nothing
of demolishing a stylish and unique building with a nice patio and wide
sidewalk in front of it. And look at the other new buildings we have
pushed out facing El Camino along this area … UUUGGGLLLLYYY.
Agreed.
Anon, that name, which I had never heard of before, Brutalist, was used in an article in the Palo Alto Online maybe a year or two ago. I am not saying that to be contrary. That was the name given to that build in particular. I don’t think it really fits what the Brutalist style description, but maybe that was in order to frame people in a negative way to support demolishing it. I think that is a unique and beautiful building, hardly brutal looking, it is like a sculpture and vaguely reminiscent if the shapes of the eroding rocks at the beaches around here with its little pockets or windows.
You can see even in this article’s photo how nice it looks with the patio overlooking El Camino and even down to California St. It is set well back from ECR and has been a fixture here as long as I can remember.
What I am saying is that there is nothing memorable, remarkable or worth saving about the Eichler-style Lucky/Albertson’s/Fresh Market. You cannot even tell it is Eichler. In general I like the Eichler style for homes, but that is merely a box and it should have been torn down to make room for an actual market building with parking that someone could use functionally.
If you haven’t looked at the survey linked to in the article, I recommend it. It clarifies something that the article does mention but doesn’t emphasize enough: the project we’re talking about is quite limited. Despite the expansive sounding phrase “Grand Boulevard”, the project in question only covers a specific 0.75mi stretch of El Camino.
Whether you think that making El Camino safer and more pleasant when you’re not in your car is a good thing or a bad thing (I think mostly good, for what it’s worth), it won’t be as much good or as much bad as you’d think if all you’ve read are the headlines or the comments.
Thanks. Where is that specific 0.75mi stretch? I’ve skimmed most of the sections and looked at the “interactive survey” and missed any general overview or introduction.
What a shame the bureaucrats who pretend to “want out input” can’t produce a simple well-organized report with an executive summary and a useful survey without wasting even more of our time plowing through all various sections on buses, bump-outs, etc.
Posted by CrescentParkAnon, a resident of Crescent Park:
>> Anon, that name, which I had never heard of before, Brutalist, was used in an article in the Palo Alto Online maybe a year or two ago. I am not saying that to be contrary. That was the name given to that build in particular. I
My apologies. I misunderstood your statement.
“Brutalism” is just a name, somewhat arbitrary, like, say, “Cubism”, or “Expressionism”. (How much of a cube can paint on canvas be? Doesn’t all art “express”?) Names of historical styles often don’t mean much on their own.
There is a Wikipedia article on Brutalism here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
“Brutalist architecture flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century. The term originates from the French word for “raw”, as Le Corbusier described his choice of material béton brut, meaning raw concrete in French. Architects Alison and Peter Smithson are believed to have coined the term “Brutalism” in the 1950s and it became more widely used after British architectural critic Reyner Banham titled his 1966 book, The New Brutalism, using the term “Brutalism” to identify the style.”
Massed bare concrete has a scale problem: it can look appropriate in automotive-scale things like concrete-arched bridges and dams, but, usually ends up looking ugly at human scale. A lot of people who greatly favor walkable cities hate Brutalism, but, as might be expected, some people like the scale of some of these buildings, and, occasionally, there are controversies.
https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/08/brutiful-birmingham-britains-second-city-fights-to-save-its-brutalist-architecture/494675/
You could write a book about it. 😉
>> don’t think it really fits what the Brutalist style description, but maybe that was in order to frame people in a negative way to support demolishing it.
Again, don’t read too much into it, although, I will note that “Brutalism” was used by its proponents.
>> I think that is a unique and beautiful building, hardly brutal looking, it is like a sculpture and vaguely reminiscent if the shapes of the eroding rocks at the beaches around here with its little pockets or windows.
Interesting that you describe it as a sculpture. I agree with that, although, I never thought of that particular building as beautiful. The extent to which buildings can look like giant sculptures themselves, or, alternatively, be decorated with smaller sculptural elements, is an interesting “controversy” related to the scale issue above. I won’t call it a consensus exactly, but, there certainly is a perception by a large number of people that massive scale is incompatible with, e.g., walkable shopping and entertainment districts. Of course, not everyone wants or likes walkable cities, but, I do.
Who came up with this grand vision of a “grand boulevard” and why? Surely this is something that should be put up to a vote!
“Why not hold these sessions in a proper meeting space?”
If that happened, people would attend them. They might express their opinions. That’s wasteful. Public input is not used in the local community participation process, so why misspend valuable staff time pretending to listen to it?
“Who came up with this grand vision of a “grand boulevard” and why?”
Look, relax. This is only some cityhallian’s resume building exercise, like a high school senior project but way more expensive. Just humor them. They’ll get that new job and move on. All will be forgotten until somebody else needs to bulk their CV.
A Huge Arc de Triomphe at the southern end by San Antonio and one North by the Creek at Menlo,
Fill the giant arch with Condos and BMR housing.
How is that for a Vision..
I went by the meeting at the Farmer’s Market yesterday. The issues and designs being looked at seemed pretty modest. They seemed focused on improvements to pedestrian and bike safety and better vehicular flow, much more innocuous than I and many posters feared.
My main disappointment was that the consultants were knowledgeable about transportation, but not very familiar with our community or even the existing conditions of the area being studied. Outside expertise is OK, but our staff should not be so wholely outsourcing designs that require understanding local contexts.
So which 0.75 mile stretch of ECR is this project slated for? Will we be getting an Eiffel Tower with an observation deck just like Paris Las Vegas?
Hiring out-of-area consultants who don’t know the areas for which they’re designing projects is a long-standing issues.
I agree that consultants should not be making these decisions, but it’s more like bulb outs than an Eiffel Tower. Chill
For those who have wondered which section of El Camino this is about: the original posted story actually answers that. It’s not in the headline, but it’s there in the body: it’s the segment of El Camino between Stanford and Lambert. This is a roughly 0.75mi stretch of El Camino, centered somewhere between California and Page Mill.
“Chill” seems like reasonable advice. This looks like it’s all about minor improvements to pedestrian and bike safety on one small piece of El Camino. For better or for worse, it’s not a huge change.
“This is only some cityhallian’s resume building exercise…”
No, this is not coming out of City Hall, and all of those blaming Palo Alto in advance are wrong. El Camino is a state highway and is Caltrans jurisdiction and responsibility. As the article states, there are 19 cities and agencies involved in this initiative, with Palo Alto being only one of them. Apparently there are a lot of people all over the place who want to see El Camino transformed into something different.
I often drive El Camino from Palo Alto to Redwood City just because it is the most convenient to my start and finish spots. The big problem in doing this is downtown Menlo Park because of needing to be alert as to which lane is the through lane and the fact that there is one lane less.
If El Camino starts becoming problematic, it will make my route much slower and necessitate having to drive all the way to 101 instead. I don’t think that is something I would want to do.
If there are any more slowdowns on El Camino Real, it will no longer be the Royal Highway but just another slow city street.
How does one host an effective community meeting at a Farmer’s market, a tiny grocery store, and a train station?
Is this like Ross Road’s “grand” Bike Boulevard where the City does not really want any community input? Seems like someone is going through the motions so they can say there were public hearings.
@Matt the Grand Boulevard Initiative isn’t “quite limited” and youdamn well know it. It is a social engineering plan that is indeed on a “grand” scale. Love your suggestion for everyone to “chill”…..that certainly will make it easier to railroad and bulldoze everyone into this grand scheme you seem to be so enamoured of.
Nayeli, in answer your question of “who came up with this” take a minute and Look up this Grand Boulevard Initiative. And if all you Palo Altans who wonder about the pockets of your politicians and the developers etc, well your answers are there.
Just as one small example, they’re involved in the relinquishment of State 82 (El Camino) from CalTrans to local jurisdictions which then opens El Camino up for center lane busses as is being pushed by the VTA. Center lane busses, isn’t that a lovely idea. Guess what that means for cars? But hey, who needs cars?
The entire initiative is dedicated to a complete redesign of the ECR corridor. The ball is rolling, doubt any can stop it now. Finely engineered to get y’all out of your cars and riding busses and bikes.
There is a complex traffic engineering problem that has been discussed for quite a long time regarding how to coordinate traffic signals among different jurisdictions, and, different types of streets and highways. It may seem easy, and, frequently appears in “ain’t it awful” comments on bulletin boards such as this, but, it is a very complicated problem.
The applicability to this discussion is that ECR as State 82 gives CalTrans responsibility for operations. Historically, CalTrans didn’t pay much attention to what happened with traffic on side streets. But, optimizing the operation of traffic lights that are “close together” (that is, close enough that the queue behind a light backs up to the previous light at rush hour) is difficult. All kinds of compound interactions occur among on-ramp metering lights, off-ramp backups from city streets back on the freeway (always happens at certain ramps before athletic events), and, just optimizing lights along a long stretch of, e.g., ECR.
My point is simply that people should acknowledge that it is a complex problem that will require subtle engineering to be effective, not just someone’s idea of “common sense”.
The other aspect of this is getting the requirements right. Not everybody agrees on the requirements. A number of people seem to find it important to be able “to drive fast”, say, between lights, while other people prefer short trip times and maximum throughput.
Needless to say, I have zero sympathy for those who want “to drive fast” on residential streets and in business districts. But, I think we can agree that short trip times and efficient use of streets are real requirements.
First step…pay a visit to Redwood City for a prime example of what not to do on El Camino. Over-sized boxes with little or no affordable, ground floor retail or community benefits.
OMG that stretch of El Camino in Palo Alto is SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!! Don’t touch it! It couldn’t possibly be improved.
Posted by Nayeli, a resident of Midtown
>> Who came up with this grand vision of a “grand boulevard” and why?
Good question. I’ve visited the website, and looked at the “survey”, and, I still don’t know what they are trying to get at.
>> Surely this is something that should be put up to a vote!
I like to vote on policy, and on the character and effectiveness of the politicians. I don’t like to vote on things which require a lot of study and expertise. If the Planning Commission and City Council are doing their jobs, our voting on every little thing should not be necessary.
Posted by RWCWTF, a resident of College Terrace:
>> First step…pay a visit to Redwood City for a prime example of what not to do on El Camino. Over-sized boxes with little or no affordable, ground floor retail or community benefits.
RWC has done a great job developing a walkable city downtown. It appears that for the section of ECR you are referring to, they have relegated that section to ugly, oversize office buildings. Perhaps because they don’t consider ECR a “grand boulevard”? I’m not sure, since I don’t know what the goals of a “grand boulevard” really are.
“…all of those blaming Palo Alto in advance are wrong. El Camino is a state highway and is Caltrans jurisdiction and responsibility.”
Oh really now. A 3/4 mile section of our majorest thoroughfare is to be remodeled, and nobody in city hall is involved???
I went by one of the middle of the road pitfalls yesterday and noted that one had a huge dig out by a car that got stuck in it, can see spinning wheels trying to get out, and dirt trailing down the street. These “constructions” are not marked properly.They are elusive during the day and almost invisible at night – there are no red stickers to alert that they are in the street.
@res, you lost me there. Are we talking about El Camino? I need to get out more often.