Menlo Park: Traffic-calming is coming to Chester Street Menlo Park: Traffic-calming is coming to Chester Street (March 24, 2004)

By Rebecca Wallace
Almanac Staff Writer

With "cut-through traffic" remaining one of suburbia's chief bugaboos, Chester Street in the Willows area of Menlo Park will be the latest spot to have new traffic-calming devices.

After residents submitted a petition to the City Council asking for a Chester Street plan to provide relief from cut-through drivers and speeders, the council on March 16 approved several measures, including raising two existing speed humps and adding two new ones. The new humps would be between Willow Road and Arnold Way, and between Laurel and Menalto avenues.

The council also agreed to take steps to emphasize to drivers coming from Willow onto Chester that they are leaving a commercial area and entering a residential neighborhood. To do that, the council agreed to narrow Chester slightly near Willow, at the entrance to the neighborhood, and to add trees in the area of the intersection.

Other steps will include restricting left turns from Chester onto westbound Willow, which city staff said is a difficult turn and can cause traffic to back up.

Many Willows residents have e-mailed the council in support of this plan, and several were on hand at the March 16 meeting, including Ross Wilson, who said, "This plan enjoys the overwhelming support of Chester Street residents."

Some critics, though, said the plan could be divisive, mentioning the traffic-calming devices on Santa Cruz Avenue that caused an uproar and were removed last year shortly after being installed.

"Unless you're walking to work, everyone's cut-through traffic," Willows resident Gordon Cruikshank said.

In light of the concerns, the council also opted to revisit the issue six months after the traffic-calming devices are installed, polling neighbors on their views and measuring the speed and volume of traffic in the area. The council vote on the Chester Street plan was 4-0, with Paul Collacchi abstaining because he lives within 500 feet of the project area.

Elsewhere in the Willows, the city last year installed seven speed bumps along Woodland Avenue and stop signs at two Woodland intersections. Data collected show that the speed of the fastest drivers has dropped by as much as 12 percent in the area, city transportation consultant Dan Smith wrote in a March 16 staff report.

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