Comments for “Palo Alto Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) Update (ARCHIVE)”
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Southbound auto traffic on Park Blvd turning right onto Page Mill cuts across the bicycle lane at high speed and seldom stops at red lights at the Park/Page Mill intersection.
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Always large vehicles parked on Park Blvd directly in front of the signs indicating that parking of those vehicles is illegal in this area.
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Streets in South Gate are too narrow for parking on both sides. Recommend prohibiting parking on one side of each street for emergency vehicle access. It is so narrow that a car and a bike cannot pass when cars are parked on both sides.
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This intersection is designed to restrict auto traffic flow but does NOT make appropriate concessions to bicycles coming down Margarita turning left onto Park Blvd, or bicycles turning left from Park onto Margarita. Also, motorcycles frequently use the bicycle cut-through to go straight through on Park Blvd, and cars southbound on Park frequently make the right turn onto Margarita and then immediately U-turn and continue back onto Park Blvd.
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Cars coming from downtown or turning from Embarcadero don't seem to know that Bryant is a Bike Bouldevard. The cars go fast and I think some speed bumps (with a gap for bikes) would be very helpful to slow these cars down.
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The road surface down Margarita Ave is in poor condition - unpleasant to bike down.
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Biking from Stanford to Los Altos should be though through, so that more people can bike to middle school and high school, and conversely, to Stanford. This street is a major dangerous barrier, and a more safe crossing that cyclists and pedestrians can count on should be introduced, including hardscape not just a light.
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Bike paths are shared by pedestrians and cyclists. Cyclists are often whizzing by way too fast, not safetly sharing the road or practicing safe behavior around pedestrians who are often little kids or people walking small dogs. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm tired of the near misses. Pedestrian bike collisions can and have been fatal, it is not something to ignore.
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This only needs to be fixed if it hasn't been in the last few years and I'm unaware. For many years, the playground of Juana Briones elementary was turned into a street for older kids to cross on bikes, so the city didn't have to admit that Maybell wasn't that safe. Then the excuse was that Maybell was being upgraded (after the upgrade was already finished). This situation is unsafe. I have myself witnessed several collisions between older kids on bikes and little kids on foot. Thankfully none serious but such collisions can be deadly. Signs telling kids to slow down or walk bikes do not work. I've even witnessed an older kid on a bike running into one and falling off his bike. The school yard needs to be closed/ made off limits to through-traffic bikes, and high school/middle school kids on bikes need to be encouraged to use actual streets and bike paths on their way to school. It is not only unsafe for the little kids to have their playground used simultaneously as a freeway for older kids on bikes, it limits the play and ability of younger students to fully enjoy their own schoolyard before and after school. Time to fix this (if it hasn't been, haven't heard word).
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Moving this comment because it's hidden behind another apt comment at this intersection.
November 05 2023
The bike box here is an extreme hazard for cars turning left the rest of the day and seems to be teaching kids to zoom across car bumpers at other intersections. National standards for bike boxes are for intersections **with good visibility in all directions** which is not the case here. The DMV emphasizes that cars should not just trust a light while turning but drivers should look both directions before pulling into an intersection, but this is not possible at all because the bike box allows almost zero visibility for cars to the left. A light does not protect cars as our transportation department keeps insisting as this intersection light is frequently run. I have myself nearly been broadsided more than once by cars running the light at full speed on Arastradero. If you stop at the line during the 23.5 hours of the day when there are almost never bikes present, when the light turns, you have to drive up and stop to check for cross traffic which puts you in danger of being rear ended by someone behind who would not expect that behavior which has also happened. Worst of all, when that bike box went in, all over town, kids on bikes began racing across car bumpers to pull ahead of them at intersections, assuming even tiny spaces of inches with a bike in the paint means it’s a bike box and they are supposed to pull in front. I’ve also seen kids pull into Arastradero from Donald against the light more than once, mimicking behavior based on the light conditions in the morning that are not standard to favor getting them across. Only by shear luck are they alive today. I’ve also seen adult bikers on the sidewalk to cross at the light—when I asked why they didn’t use the bike box, they said it was confusing. When told this, the City dropped full page color instructions on doorsteps—traffic conditions should never require nonintuitive full page instructions, assuming no one new will ever use the road. Lastly, this intersection is still extremely hazardous for young bikers despite the bike box and in some ways because of it. It needs a redesign that takes the need for car passenger safety into account too, the need for visibility when turning, and the need for safety of bikes at that intersection in the morning where parents are still dropping their kids off at the corner and then pulling into Donald to turn onto Arastradero creating danger for the bikes including because of them pulling around for the bike box (also leaving those who can’t fit stuck behind alone amid large buses and cars.)
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Arastradero and El Camino are unpleasant and hazardous to walk on. Rather than narrowing Arastradero by putting in extraneous road furniture, why WEREN'T (correction) walking and biking ways widened? Couldn’t a two-way separated bikeway with signaling and a wider sidewalk have been put in instead? Sidewalks in this city are littered with obstructions. No one wants to walk if they have to go single file and can’t carry on a conversation because of constant obstacles. Although unhappily the city has been working hard over the years to eliminate retail people used to want to walk to anyway, in favor of hotels and offices, the city should be remembering pedestrians not just bikes. This intersection in particular is a perennial hazard for pedestrians to cross going to El Camino.
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I don't know if it's just this crosswalk or if there is another one on El Camino Way (off the top of my head) but the flashing lights don't work. They are distracting. The way the shadows from the tall buildings (which can't be changed) and trees (which shouldn't be changed) contrasts with sunlight much of the day, drivers can't see people trying to cross. This crosswalk needs EMBEDDED FLASHING LIGHTS
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Homer should be returned to two way traffic, or a contra-flow class IV bike lane be extended from High St. Ideally it's returned to two way traffic which would mean we don't need the weird 1 block protected bike lane.
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The pavement has split here and cars coming off of ECR and wanting to turn right onto University crowd out the crosswalk. This makes it extremely dangerous for cyclists. The wheel of my bicycle was caught in the seam of the pavement which caused me to fall onto a car which had stopped in the cross walk.
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The center lane on Hanover encourages cars to speed here (either up or down the hill) and creates a huge hazard with the Bol Park Bike Path. The center lane should be removed and the bicycle "gutters" converted into Class IV bike lanes
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It would be amazing to have Class IV bike lanes on El Camino to be able to access these stores more easily by bike. The current 110' stroad is incompatible with our urban environment. Park Ave is great, but bicycles need a network of roads.
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My daughter has almost been struck here multiple times while trying to get to school. Drivers turning right from El Camino Way often do not look for pedestrians crossing El Camino because they are too busy looking for a gap in traffic. We should restrict right turns on red here, particularly during school hours.
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As a pedestrian who walks down Barron frequently, I would not support turning it into a one way street as it would make it much less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Restricting left turns at El Camino would prevent more cars from driving down it however.
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Have to pull to a stop when turning right in order to avoid on coming traffic and hunt for bikes in the “protected” lane which gives them a false sense of security at the intersection. Unfortunately not enough space to stop means cars behind on Arastradero might collide. This needs to be rethought. Or Arastradero needs a redesign. Bikes pull around from the park so that cars looking for bikes as they approach the intersection don’t realize a bike is there as drivers have to look in numerous directions all at once to turn safely.
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So many accidents and near accidents at this intersection. If you’re on CA turning left onto Alma, it’s also not unusual for drivers to pull up behind and lay on the horn, making the turner have to choose between potential road rage and an accident. May be time to put a light here, at least timed with others so it doesn’t affect the expressway.
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There is so little space for cars and bikes on this narrow road that this turn is a huge hazard for bikes and death waiting to happen. Cars are moving straight through the intersection while bikes in front are between a car headed straight for them and parked cars along El Camino Way, with no room to maneuver.
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Many families would like to enter Escondido Elementary School via this gate (that was previously opened pre-Covid). Opening this gate saves a trip up Stanford and to the front entrance of Escondido, decongesting school pickup/dropoff.
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Shade from tall buildings and trees make the light/dark at this crossing hazardous. The large flashing signs are almost a distraction when people want to cross because it can be very hard to spot pedestrians because of contrasting light and parked cars. THIS CROSSING NEEDS EMBEDDED FLASHING LIGHTS.
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Arastradero and El Camino are unpleasant and hazardous to walk on. Rather than narrowing Arastradero by putting in extraneous road furniture, why were walking and biking ways widened? Couldn’t a two-way separated bikeway with signaling and a wider sidewalk have been put in instead? Sidewalks in this city are littered with obstructions. No one wants to walk if they have to go single file and can’t carry on a conversation because of constant obstacles. Although unhappily the city has been working hard over the years to eliminate retail people used to want to walk to anyway, in favor of hotels and offices, the city should be remembering pedestrians not just bikes. This intersection in particular is a perennial hazard for pedestrians to cross going to El Camino.
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The problematic design of the “improvements” at this intersection were made without neighborhood input by people who see the dangers daily. When the then head of transportation was asked why not, he wrote that they didn’t know how to reach the neighbors (seriously). This intersection is the site of constant near misses and has been made dangerous for cars. The survey seemed leading and intent on continuing this unnecessary ethos that safety for bikes must needs increase danger for drivers.
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