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By Dana Hendrickson
E-mail Dana Hendrickson
About this blog: My wife and I moved to central Menlo Park in 1985 where we have raised two sons. A retired high-tech executive, I now actively participate in local and national community service programs. I am the founder and director of Rebuil...
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About this blog: My wife and I moved to central Menlo Park in 1985 where we have raised two sons. A retired high-tech executive, I now actively participate in local and national community service programs. I am the founder and director of Rebuild Hope which assists the families of severely disabled veterans injured since 9/11 regardless of where they live, and I am the editor of Re-Imagine Menlo Park, a website that offers fact-based analysis of our city's civic projects and plans. I built homes on for the Peninsula Habitat for Humanity and drove seniors to their local appointments for five years.
I love living in Menlo Park and believe our city has both tremendous untapped potential and huge challenges. Through this blog I try to help residents become better informed about our city planning activities and encourage them to get more involved. It examines the progress our city is making in creating a more vibrant downtown and critiques the City's planning processes and new commercial development proposals. I invite residents and business owners to express their views, including how our city government can better understand community needs, concerns and preferences. I welcome suggestions.
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Menlo Park Bike Network Plans Lack Vision And Boldness
Uploaded: Jan 6, 2019
My friends and family know how much I love to ride my bike, especially when streets are dry and daytime temperatures rise to at least 65 degrees, and many join me on recreational trips here, in New England and Europe. While I do not regularly ride to destinations in Menlo Park, I have a keen interest in our city creating a community bike network that offers other residents much better options for riding to their favorite destinations. This means a network of streets that provide convenient, safe and stress-free riding environments. My interest in this subject has led me to study bike network design standards and methodologies, examine contemporary bike networks built in “bicyclist-friendly” cities, and closely track our city’s efforts to improve our bike network. I have also submitted recommendations to our city council, staff and the former bike commission. You can find them on my Reimagine
website
During December I spent considerable time reviewing the bike section of the Transportation Master Plan our city is currently developing, and am disappointed by how few bike lane investments are currently proposed on streets within the boundaries of the Downtown/El Camino Specific Plan and on the main approaches. I recognize it is impossible add bike lanes to streets lined with parked cars but encourage our city to NOT to accept this situation as necessarily permanent. Instead, selectively removing street parking should be part of any city strategy to increase downtown parking. That way both bicyclists and motorists would benefit.
The good news: the Master Plan proposes that the city expand downtown parking. The bad news: it does not show how bike lanes could be added when this is done. More bad news: a downtown parking garage is the only solution Menlo Park is proposing for adding more parking spaces and this might never happen. More good news: There is a superior alternative – Satellite parking.
It’s time for Menlo Park to (a) propose bike lanes on several downtown streets and (b) aggressively investigate satellite parking so these bike lanes can be added in the next two to three years.
Menlo Park Transportation Master Plan
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