Menlo Park’s most dangerous crosswalk is undergoing a pilot program to improve safety. The downtown intersection accounts for nearly a quarter of all the city's vehicle collisions with pedestrian collisions last year.
The intersection of University Drive and Menlo Avenue, next to Draeger’s Market, has seen a high number of collisions, particularly those involving pedestrians. There have been 10 collisions involving a pedestrian at the intersection between 2015 and 2022, and four of those were in 2022, according to the Menlo Park Police Department. The city reported 17 pedestrian collisions in 2022, meaning the intersection accounts for nearly a quarter of total pedestrian-involved collisions in the city.
“I think we need to do whatever we can to make it safer,” Mayor Jen Wolosin said in an interview. “It’s not okay that people get hit.”
Wolosin said that after another collision on Monday, May 22, she requested that the city expedite the pilot program to increase safety as soon as possible. The City Council heard an informational update from city staff about the plan at the May 9 meeting.
The city is exploring several permanent options to rectify the situation, including building bulb-outs, which would extend the sidewalk further into the street, narrowing the roadway, and combining the left turn and through lanes on southbound University Drive, and the right and left turn lanes on westbound Menlo Avenue where it ends in a T intersection with University. Another option includes adding a small center crossing median on University Drive instead of bulb-outs on that road.
As a test of the options, a pilot project will add temporary bulb-outs to both sides of Menlo Avenue and remove the right turn lane at University Drive.
“We're taking the issue very seriously, this is why the pilot was proposed in the first place," Wolosin said. “We definitely want to make it safe for people to get around in our city.”
In addition to running the pilot program, the city plans to replace the current brick crosswalk with a high-visibility crosswalk in the next 12 to 18 months.
Comments
Registered user
Menlo Park: The Willows
on May 30, 2023 at 2:04 pm
Registered user
on May 30, 2023 at 2:04 pm
I am concerned about removing the right turn lane on Menlo Avenue onto University Drive. While I support the intention to make the crossing safer, I am quite worried by how this change would increase East-West traffic. For those of us driving from Eastern Menlo Park (we're in the Willows) to Hillview and other destinations in Western Menlo Park, this is already a very slow bottleneck. I wonder if a stoplight at that intersection would improve both traffic flow and pedestrian safety.
Registered user
Menlo Park: Sharon Heights
on May 30, 2023 at 6:42 pm
Registered user
on May 30, 2023 at 6:42 pm
I wonder if planners may consider a mini-roundabout there.
Roundabouts have been proven to reduce rates / lethality of collisions + resulting in smoother flowing traffic vs stop signs
Registered user
Menlo Park: The Willows
on May 31, 2023 at 3:37 pm
Registered user
on May 31, 2023 at 3:37 pm
I wonder if the city has considered a flashing crosswalk like they have put in on Middlefield by the fire station and like they had on Ravenswood at Alma. When the lights are flashing people have to stop for pedestrians. That would not constrict traffic like the other options seem to do.
Registered user
Woodside: Emerald Hills
on Jun 1, 2023 at 11:44 am
Registered user
on Jun 1, 2023 at 11:44 am
@Parent "I wonder if a stoplight at that intersection would improve both traffic flow and pedestrian safety."
I knew at once from reading the headline what intersection this was referring to.
My recollection is that council did approve a stoplight for this intersection in the 2002-2004 time frame, over what seemed like clear staff resistance. I also recall staff having a pet solution that they strongly favored. My recollection is also that studies showed the stop light could be configured to improve existing traffic flow. There may have been a capital budget shortage from the recession after the burst of the tech bubble.
By 2006 all five council members would have left office.
Staff could have dragged its feet with budgetary excuses, and dropped the project entirely after the 2006 election. Yes, I have seen staff completely reverse its "logic" in staff reports issued weeks before an election and then again almost immediately after a new council is seated, presumably to influence a tabula rasa council to adopt polices more favored by staff.
It's a great lesson in institutional memory, and staff agenda.
I wonder how many people have been hit since 2004 and how, why, and when staff got the stoplight decision reversed.
In case the award-winning Almanac staff wanted to research this alleged recollection it might be a good idea to start with the then sitting City Attorney who might also recall the decision and subsequent reversal. It's not nearly as sexy to awards judges as writing about teacher housing, but its the stuff that local government is made of. People are still getting hurt at this intersection and I sincerely remember authorizing a stoplight sometime between 2002 and 2004.