EVERYTHING everyone in your papers' community served does NOTHING but worry about "environmental impact" from Stanford hospital plans, to school plans, to anything and everything that has an effect on those who feel they live on a certain part of the planet that exists only within these confines, and to hell with the rest of the world.
EVERYTHING is discussion, arguments, complaints, keeping people out, ignoring the mathematics of life continuing without each of your readers or commenters having ANYTHING to do with being in touch with life except to keep the pulse of your eventual earthquake faultline which will wipe out all of this in three big jolts.
No religion, no money, no planning and no bull shed is going to stop this from happening and it is all just as narrow minded as the entire KINGDOM which is this domain.Go save a decrepit historical piece of junk of architecture, and trample progress of the rest of the world with objections to state recovery and raise your children in classrooms with 10 students, and then watch none of it matter because you just are not in touch...Pythagoras and math along with Virgil should be used in your thinking. IGNORING the stupid TESLA thing is an embarrassment as are all your meetings and the hilarity of all the money lost by millionaires, their narrow minded wives and mothers, and the fact that the survivors are going to be the ones who move out of SALEM'S LOT WEST.I bought GOLD and sold and only have one more piece to rid myself of this corrupt and vacuous area.

Really.......Put that in your bank accounts.

"...only have one more piece to rid myself of this corrupt and vacuous area.

You won't be missed.

The traffic that Stanford imposes on its immediate neighbors must be alleviated. Any further increase in the morning and evening that clogs the Sandhill and Alpine Road corridors is not acceptable, despite the improvements that Stanford has made to the Sandhill-Santa Cruz-Alpine intersection. The best solution would be for the University to build its own ON and OFF Ramps to I-280 north and south, feeding directly into the Campus. Internal campus roads and parking are bare barely adequate now. Adding thousands more people to travel to and from the university is a severe strain on the surrounding towns.

Stanford has not always been the best neighbor, since they feel they can out-muscle everyone. For our area, the reneging on the trail on their land and attempting to push it onto Alpine Road was unconscionable. But, they have the money and the influence, though it certainly does not buy them good will in the neighborhoods.

I agree 100% with the comment, “The best solution would be for Stanford University to build its own ON and OFF Ramps to I-280 north and south, feeding directly into the Campus. The intersections in the morning and evening at Sandhill and Alpine Road are presently saturated. Simply put, Stanford University must be required to accept more of the traffic in the Palo Alto – Menlo Park locality.

Saying "...all the money lost by millionaires, their narrow minded wives and mothers," shows to me that R. Gordon is a sexist, amongst other things.

Palo Alto/Stanford must allow the connection on Sandhill to its downtown area or otherwise most of the increased traffic will come through Menlo Park. Drivers should not just be allowed to turn onto El Camino going south to Palo Alto or north to Menlo Park.

How is it I understood what frustration both Gordon and the others feel?
Not sexist at all. If anything he is coming down on people like the person who accused him of being so.
Not many are really looking that far forward except for their own needs.
Stanford may be the power it is, but it certainly has lost its clout as a care giver.

Stanford does more than most people know to mitigate traffic impact. Maybe it is time for Stanford to increase shuttle traffic to and from Cal Train in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to mitigate employee travel impact.

As for being a good neighbor, what exactly does Stanford owe anyone here? As far as I can tell, this area owes much to Stanford. I don't see how they have been an insensitive or dishonest neighbor.

Like Ram, I fail to see why Stanford should be obliged to bow to Menlo Park's wishes. It is close, yes, but it is not even in the same county. MP is in the middle of a busy, growing corridor, and this brings changes which might be regretted by many, but are natural.

I work at Stanford, and although I don't agree with all of their policies, I think it is *very* relevant that they pay me over $250 to not drive to campus. In addition, they buy Caltrain passes for most of their employees, and run free shuttles to the Caltrain station and elsewhere.

Stanford is definitely making an effort to mitigate their effects on the community. I would urge the citizens of Menlo Park to ensure that these changes are channeled in positive directions -- beginning with strong support for good public transportation.

Traffic from 280 is only part of the problem. The report highlights increased traffic on Marsh and Willow. When the mall was expanded, PA refused to connect Alma to Sand Hill, forcing traffic into MP. It is time to revisit that decision. PA, which benefits more from Stanford than MP, should work to ease its neighbor's burden and allow more traffic from 101.

What a bunch of crap.
Stanford no longer has the prestige which brought people to the West Coast.......AND all this will be gone by the LONG overdue earthquake sitting on the fault line which runs through this entire community.
Community suggests "communal thinking"........this is the most contentious and pretentious area I have ever seen globally.

As a Stanford alum and former employee, I can tell you how their mitigations work. Employees have to pay a chunk to park on campus. Conversely, the university will pay the employee for not driving. Soooo...a lot of employees drive to residential areas around campus -- or to one of the local malls served by the shuttle. They happily collect their money from Stanford and then Stanford can claim that it's mitigating the commute problem. But in reality, it's not mitigating it, just shifting it to the neighbors. What else is new?

Stanford has gone beyond its original charter -- the one that has served it for over a century -- and is trying to build an empire. If they want to add all those employees, they should also build on-campus housing for those people so that the local streets aren't clogged to the point of total gridlock.

Impeding Stanford Hospitals' plans to modernize and meet state seismic requirements is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I guess some folks would rather drive to San Francisco for hospital care, or creep on 101 in an ambulance to some other overcrowded emergency room, rather than keep a world-class facility in our midst. Some people around here seem to think Stanford's proposal to upgrade its medical buildings is some dire plot to flood the region with more cars. What nonsense! We all benefit from the medical care Stanford provides, whether we use the hospitals or not. And the next big earthquake isn't going to wait for the Palo Alto City Council to debate the matter to death. Let's move, politicos!

If the hospital were only modernizing and meeting seismic requirements, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We're talking about a huge expansion. And the "nonsense" about flooding the region with more cars is corroborated by the studies done to date.

The Stanford campus is in a residential area. It can accommodate a local hospital but is not an appropriate site for a massive medical center.

High time Menlo Park pushed back on Palo Alto.
Typical PA wants the cash flow, but not the traffic flow.
Former MP Mayor Schmidt rolled over for Stanford in allowing a widened Sand Hill/Santa Cruz intersection without demanding Palo Alto
make it 4 lanes to ECR from Arboretum and a critical connection to Alma. He shafted the West Menlo neighborhoods that still get excessive cut through commute traffic because Sand Hill is a STOP AND Go series of a dozen stoplights. Nobody bothers to take Sand Hill from ECR, nor Sand Hill to ECR if they are destined to downtown MP. They still cut through on Santa Cruz, Oakdell and other residential West Menlo streets, avoiding Sand HIll Road congestion.
All because Herr Schmidt wanted an underground bike tunnel under STanford controlled land where the idle car dealerships currently sprout weeds.
1) Demand Alma be opened up at ECR, since downtown North has been amply protected from cut through commute traffic with no turn signs at Hawthorne and Everett, neighborhood traffic circles, etc.
2) No U Turn at El Camino, Cambridge in MP.
Just watch all the Palo Alto originating cars that make that u turn and head back to the Stanford Shopping Ct. cloging ECR traffic in MP.

Just read the Palo Alto Town Square thread on this topic: Web Link

Palo Alto seems to think it's fine to stick it to Menlo Park, and that we need to build the Willow Expressway to accommodate the additional Stanford traffic.

Time to push back.

I, for one, wish Stanford Medical Center the best with this expansion, since I would like my family to have an improved chance of STAYING ALIVE.

Funny how Ram has no problem when improvements are made somewhere else in our town, or near our town, but ask him to agree to a curb cut for a local school.........heck, no way!
NIMBY at it's best.

Hilarious!!!!
All this mouth rattling when everyone knows it is the WRONG thing to do......
Dismissing earthquakes as "little nothings" and traffic as inconveniences while Stanford declines in prestige as both a hospital, caregiver, and the Universite is staffed and attended by 70% foreigners. The head of admissions to Grad Schools is Russian.
The staff of the hospital is way over the 70% mark for employees including nurses and staff. Yet, Joseph E. Davis of Woodside, "wants his family to have an improved chance of STAYING ALIVE" in the newly conceived Stanford Medical Center. HA!..Most people here are victims of their own fraudulent information or lack of it.When the BIG ONE comes, it will make the OIL SPILL which cannot be controlled, look like a bad putt.

Does anyone remember the proposed "Willows Expressway" plan of the late 1960s early 1970s?

The plan was to build a six lane expressway from Willow Road across the 101 freeway through part of the Willows and Palo Alto along the creek to link up with Sand Hill Road. Anyone remember?

It was a flawed route and depended on much use of eminent domain.

Had that plan gone through this would be less of an issue today.

If Stanford wants to expand, they must directly address with their traffic problems first. Traffic is dreadful today and most of linked to Stanford expansion. Our city only sees peace and quiet when Stanford offices are closed for the day.

I say put this to a regional referendum vote. Tell Stanford how we feel.

Has Stanford considered building their new hospital elsewhere?

Regardless of how you feel about this project, to dismiss Stanford Medical Center as a third rate hospital is totally absurd.

Stanford has a world-class faculty, performs some of the most advanced procedures and treatments available anywhere and participates in more clinical trials than most other academic institutions. When that time comes when you or a family member is in need of one of those treatments, you'll thank your lucky stars that such great care is so close. Not every community enjoys that proximity to world-class health care.

You may not like their expansion plans, but it's hard to deny that they are a major asset to our community.

And by the way, everything in the Bay Area - including all of our homes, schools, churches and businesses - exists in active earthquake zones. We don't stop progress because an earthquake may occur.

I would go to the Mayo Clinic WAY before I considered having medical treatment at Stanford. Personal experience and from many people who have had first hand experiences recently, totally are in accord with me.
If not, I would even go to the Mayo Clinic extension in Arizona, which is an hour away and almost faster to get to than Stanford because of traffic, accessibility, and mostly, declining personal care.
I just wonder where the mostly foreign staff which is paid far less than the former employees.......can afford to live.

OR TEXAS.