Santa Cruz Ave in West Menlo Park

[John Langbein]

If you don't cycle the short section of Santa Cruz Ave between Sandhill RD and

the split to Alameda de las Pulgas in west Menlo Park, you can ignore this message.

About two months ago, the County made a temporary change in the configuration of

the northbound lanes on Santa Cruz Ave in west Menlo Park.

Its location is: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.428967,-122.196071,19.98z

Originally, the northbound lanes on SCA had 3 lanes at the 'Y' with the right most lane

designated for traffic continuing on SCA towards downtown Menlo Park; the other

two lanes were for traffic continuing NB on the Alameda towards Atherton.

The "pilot" project consisted of eliminating the third lane adjacent to the curb

and designating that the old "middle lane" for traffic that desired to continue on

SCA towards downtown Menlo Park (Right turn only). Instead of two lanes for continuing onto the

Alameda, there is now single lane. In addition, when the light turns red, all

SCA traffic stops. Bikes are allowed in any of the lanes independent of

their desired destination.

This project is only temporary and is scheduled to end in early October.

The County is collecting comments at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QM662NN

If you feel strongly one way or another, please comment. Especially important

are those who cycle through that area during periods of heavy traffic. 

There has been some very informal discussion about installing pocket bike-lanes

just at the intersection if the County decides to make the "pilot" more or less permanent.

There is more information here: https://univpark.org/safe/safety-trial

If you think the this might help, then please include this in your comments.

However, limit your comments to just the pilot project. I hope that sometime

in the near future, a more comprehensive project will install bike lanes from

Sandhill to the west-Menlo business district (ie, the Dutch Goose).

Thank you

John Langbein