Pros & Cons - Santa Cruz/Alameda Y Intersection

Kudos to the community task force for coming up with such a well-thought out, creative and solid design. Plans like the 10.5 are of the sort that truly encourage more and more people to bike and walk, supporting not only their own health but also the health, safety and connectedness of the entire community. When one more person bikes, walks or rolls, the entire community benefits. Please make ‘whatever needs to happen’ happen in order for this 10.5 plan to become a reality for the people of Menlo Park. The community deserves it.

Alt-C is not an improvement of what we have now. It does not address the speed of cars coming through the intersection and makes it harder to get into the homes in the Y.

As a pedestrian, this is not an improvement. I have witnessed most pedestrians continuing north on Alameda from the East side of Santa Cruz Avenue and walk directly into the street to follow the road instead of cross at the appropriate locations.

As a resident in the Y, I do not want an island right outside my front door. We cannot get into our property from the north and would have to navigate south past all the lane switching and make a u-turn to get into our driveway. This is worse than our current situation.

I also do not want a crosswalk coming directly into my house. I want to know exactly where street lights will be located to assure they are not in front of my property or line of sight through windows. If I take down my fence, the current plan has a crosswalk going directly into our home and I will not be able to reconfigure our driveway if we plan to remodel the property. Why would a crosswalk be permitted to direct people into the middle of a property.

10.5 has so much more improvements for calming and safety. I think we can move crosswalks and reduce the size of the island but the configuration makes more sense. Bike safety can be adjusted a bit for those going North and the sharp turns into Santa Cruz can be made more smooth. The turn from Santa Cruz onto Alameda can be improved as well.

There are two versions of 10.5 and it would be great to get the city planners to give recommendations on improving this option as it is the best option presented.

Thanks for putting these options together.

After more than 20 years living near the Y, I still have bad moments driving there. 10.5 is a wonderful solution and also in keeping with the times.
So many more people are out walking, jogging, biking this area since the pandemic. I think that trend will continue, especially if facilitated by the 10.5 design. Cities are closing streets, we can slow traffic.

Please adopt Plan 10.5. This design calms traffic far more efficiently and is more clear to drivers in all directions about where to turn, etc. Further, this design allows for better speed control.

The County must also figure out how to monitor excess speeding in the Y area, both on Santa Cruz Ave. and on the Alameda.

This is a thoughtful and safe plan.
It provides safety for residents, pedestrians and cyclists.
It slows traffic.
It is easy for drivers to follow.
Alt C is a confusing, complicated plan that does not slow traffic, impedes residents access to their own driveways.
The long crosswalks are dangerous for slow walkers. The multiple lanes will confuse drivers and increase accidents as they cut into other lanes.
The original survey was so frustrating because one had to choose a design before proceding to the next page - even if none were acceptable. One of the most flawed surveys I have ever seen.
What can we do to get the county to look again at 10.5?
A big thank you to those who came up with 10.5!

I think the community task force has worked hard and represented the regions and stakeholders of the community well. They came up with an alternate design they call "10.5a". 10.5a is full of very thoughtful and safety-promoting design features.

I really like the traffic calming that the curb/plantings aesthetic creates.

I like not having to go diagonally through an intersection where I'm halfway thru the intersection when it turns red (shorter, orthogonal intersections).

I like shorter crosswalks with great visibility of the pedestrians (mothers with walkers, children going to school, and me and my family and friends).

I like the ability of residents to safely pull out of their driveways into a buffer lane without fear of getting t-boned by a motorist in a hurry.

I like not having high-speed (large radius) turns to get people to slow down.

I like having traffic lights pointing at the correct lanes (not having to guess which light is mine since the County has a hard time pointing and shrouding the lights to limit visibility to only the intended drivers and cyclists).

Doesn't this look like the way the intersection should look and function? It does to me.

Great job and a shout out to the Task Force for continuing to work toward the best solution!

10.5 has my vote!

(but wait, I couldn't vote for it here on Survey Monkey - I hope somebody is reading this.)

I live off of Campo Bella. Retaining a signal to turn left out of Campo Bella is CRITICAL, and it does not appear that 10.5 includes such a signal. Please advise.

Otherwise, my family and I will be at risk every time we try to exit Campo Bella, as folks driving toward Sand Hill often accelerate at that point in their commute, and we wouldn't see them early enough if we were trying to turn left to leave our home.

As it is, people often run the light heading toward Sand Hill...we often experience "near misses" with people who would broadside our cars with their cars (and especially bikes)--even a couple of counts after our light turns green.

My only suggestion to that 10.5 design would be to make the right hand turn onto Santa Cruz northbound a smoother transition, meaning not such a sharp right turn.