Comments for “Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Update”
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Generally, as former Mayor and City council member who was always a big supporter of bike-able, walkable Palo Alto, I love the whole new proposed plan. Since I live on the residential artery of Embarcadero between Emerson and Bryant, I do want to applaud the big step towards Big Streets and adding protected bikeways and shared ways. You are right that residential arterials host many if not most of the city's bike destinations - libraries, schools, parks. It's critical to look at CITY-WIDE integrated strategy as this does. The consultants may not know about an earlier Embarcadero Corridor study done in 1990s which proposed roundabouts and reduced number of lanes which go together since most of the "stacking" takes place because of intersection design. Is the plan or study looking at small or large roundabouts for anywhere in the city? Take a look at Stanford's roundabouts. In order to move significantly towards "zero" serious traffic injuries or deaths and increase our bike/walk mode share to 50% plus, we do need to "think different" - this plan is a great blueprint and design! Congratulations to all to have worked on it.
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Cyclists have to compete with cars at the crossing over the creek when riding in either direction. Cyclists coming from Menlo on the excellent Middlefield bike path lose the path after Willow and usually exit Middlefield to get on to Byron. Cyclists coming from Palo enter a dangerous stretch between the creek and Willow, especially if they want to get into the left turn lane onto Willow. An improvement would require coordination with Menlo Park.
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Consider allowing cyclists heading NE to cross San Antonio on the right side instead of only the left. There's no warning for cyclists that they need to be on the left side of the street to cross, which requires that they walk their bikes SW on San Antonio to the location of the button to activate the traffic light. Most cyclists hop on the sidewalk on the left side of the street before the intersection, but this is against traffic and the signage and paint on the path suggests this is improper.
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The location of the proposed Class 1 path can't be implemented too soon. At present, riders headed NE from Galvez to Embarcadero have two super dangerous options. They can stay in the road and fight it out for space with accelerating cars heading NE on Embarcadero to the left of the triangular island, or they can make a hard right turn on a small pedestrian path on the triangular island which is a technically challenging maneuver. Please improve this ASAP.
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Adding a protected class IV bike lane will make it unsafe for homeowners. Secondly, there is a loss of street parking for renters, ADU renters, home owners and visitors. This will create significant congestion on smaller streets, where all the overflow parking will end up.
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Converting Newell to a Buffered Bike Lane would eliminate parking along the street which is already in short supply as it's only allowed on the east side of the street. As someone who regularly bikes along Newell Rd I see little benefit to this, as there exist suitably wide bike lanes on both sides of the street as is.
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Embarcadero is already straining to keep traffic separated in its four lanes. Only way to add two buffered (or unbuffered) bike lanes would be to convert the road to only two auto lanes. This would create massive traffic jams, lots of neighborhood cut-thru driving, and utter chaos. One of the worst ideas ever to come out of our traffic department and its ivory tower consultants.
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Always dangerous for bikes and pedestrians as cars often don't slow down (and have missed the Stop signs) coming off the highway on Channing or Greer.
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ReplyThere have been a couple of accidents / near accidents due cars not stopping / slowing down.
Like Liked 1 timeI ride this every week day. There is plenty of space in both bike lanes for parked cars and for bikes. The problems come from (a) cars not stopping for right turns where there are stop signs or lights that are red; and (b) from bikes riding the wrong way on either side and sometimes on the sidewalk.
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Wayfinding from this point to destinations in Mountain View, like CalTrain, the shopping center, or other bike routes, is poor.
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ReplyYes. I agree, wayfinding should be improved at this location to help people find their way to the train station and shopping center. I have tried to explain it to people. You can't really find it on a map, so I have had to ride it with them. .
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This is an essential, existing crossing for connecting to Mountain View. Shorter delay will improve compliance with the signals. Consider a shorter cycle delay, or perhaps a split crossing phase so that pedestrians and bicyclists can cross half the street at a time, with less waiting.
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I thought the plan for this was a shared use path on the wide setback, in place of the sidewalk. This needs at least 8 foot widths for safe passing, and is dangerously narrow with no setback from Alma and poor driveway visibility between Ferne and San Antonio. This is an valuable, direct route when you are late for the train at San Antonio, or Gunn HS via Charleston.
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I love the plan to make University a bike Boulevard. Could go even further - make is a slow street (well, it already is), but prioritize walking and biking, including across the street anywhere, and expect motor vehicles to be slow, 15 mph, or even kept off it entirely, like our sister city Linkoping in Sweden. Linkoping has a three block wide section of their downtown with only pedestrian access. I guess the category is Share Use Path.
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Every cross street between Forest and Everett should be a slow, bike-friendtly street across downtown. How else to get into the downtown core? All should be 20 mph speed limit, shared spaces (for access to vehicle parking, but also for walking, too. I guess this is Bike Boulevard, but really should be Woonerf.
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