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Should the stretch of Santa Cruz Avenue that has been closed to vehicle traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic reopen? Or should it stay closed — permanently?
Mayor Drew Combs would like to know if his fellow City Council members are interested in tackling such questions.
Per his request, the council Tuesday, Feb. 11, is scheduled to decide whether it wants to explore possibly reopening eastbound Santa Cruz between Curtis and Doyle streets.
“It has been clear for a long time now that most of the members of the business community downtown prefer the street to fully open,” Combs said Thursday, Feb. 6, in an interview with The Almanac. “They believe (the continued closure) has negatively impacted their business.”
Merchants contend that the closure has curtailed downtown traffic circulation, access to shops along Santa Cruz and the willingness of people to visit the area, he added.
At the Jan. 28 council meeting, downtown shop owner Keith Quiggins told city leaders that he doesn’t understand why Santa Cruz remains closed.
“I talked to several people recently that said, ‘Oh, I don’t even bother coming through downtown because I can’t get to El Camino (Real) going that way,’” Quiggins said.
Aaron Andrikopoulos, another downtown merchant, also urged the city to reopen the avenue.
“I strongly support reopening Santa Cruz Avenue to improve accessibility for businesses and residents,” Andrikopoulos said in an email the week of Feb. 3 to the council. “Restoring traffic flow would make it easier for people to get around, encourage more visitors to downtown and provide much-needed support for local businesses. Many of us rely on convenient access for our customers, and reopening this key street would help sustain the economic health of our community.”
But other community members are in favor of keeping Santa Cruz closed.
“I am very opposed to the removal of the outdoor dining and seating in that block of Santa Cruz,” Elaine Cummings previously said in an email to the council. “The tiny inconvenience of taking an alternate route to El Camino is well worth it to have more outdoor gathering spaces. With so many empty storefronts on Santa Cruz Ave., this is a welcome glimmer of vibrancy in our downtown. Please don’t eliminate something that has been so positive for our community.”
‘With so many empty storefronts on Santa Cruz Ave., this is a welcome glimmer of vibrancy in our downtown.’
Menlo park resident Elaine Cummings
Menlo Park actually launched its outdoor dining program in 2015 with a pilot on Santa Cruz Avenue, the city said. That effort expanded during the pandemic to help local businesses remain viable through the severe economic challenges at the time.
In 2020, the city closed the one segment of Santa Cruz as well as part of Ryans Lane to allow outdoor space where patrons could dine and gather in a safe manner under pandemic-related health protocols.
In 2023, the council voted 4-1 with Combs dissenting to continue the Santa Cruz closure while reopening Ryans.
Combs believes it’s time for another reevaluation of the closure. Besides the concerns raised by merchants, he said, the closure doesn’t tie into any current larger city project and is “kind of a holdover from the pandemic.”
But Combs acknowledged that the closure has created a key communal gathering spot, which he suggested could still be preserved while allowing vehicles through by adjusting the barricades.
Then again, he said, maybe Menlo Park overall is OK seeing a permanent closure.
If that’s the consensus, he said, then perhaps that section could be enhanced “to look and feel more permanent.”
He wants to hear the latest conversation on the avenue’s future if the council moves forward on the topic and is keeping an open mind, Combs said.
“More than anything, I’m interested in the discussion,” he said. “I do think it’s worth a discussion.”
If the council agrees to take up the matter, it has options to choose from, including having city staff prepare a report for later this month or the next.
The City Council needs to consider a number of issues.
1. Opening the closed vehicle lane on the 600 block should consider what our residents want not, just the preferences of downtown businesses.
2. Local businesses that complain about the closed vehicle lane need to persuasively explain and show how their businesses are currently affected by the closure.
3. The “existing plaza” would be even more popular if the Council made it more attractive, the furniture was upgraded, the ugly vehicle barriers were replaced. See my blog post https://www.almanacnews.com/blogs/2023/11/27/my-holiday-wish-list-for-menlo-park-residents/. The City had agreed in 2023 to replace the furniture, but nothing was done.
4. The Council has only recently expressed a little interest in improving downtown and listening to our community. Now it is considering eliminating a downtown attraction.
I am very much against opening this section of Santa Cruz again. The area has become a strong gathering place during the day and into the evening. If the city would make the investment promised 5 years ago, the area would be even more vibrant. Why is Coombs so adamant about this area when there are more than a dozen closed storefronts on Santa Cruz?? The stretch next to Penzey’s has a string of 6 storefronts CLOSED?? If you move down the block, there is another stretch that has a block of four storefronts CLOSED, one of which has a outdoor dining area. The city council needs to reevaluate their priorities and get align with the public sentiment in Menlo Park.
I’m open to the idea of re-assessing the situation IF we look at it more holistically. The current closure is a half measure that makes people try to drive but get frustrated without getting the real benefit of a human-scale space. Cities around the world (and even in the USA) have closed off main retail streets to routine car travel to discover that vitality and business INCREASES because of it.
I’d like to see us look at traffic flow in the whole downtown zone not just Santa Cruz in isolation. Let’s look at a comprehensive update to the zone from ECR to University, and Menlo to Oak Grove. My personal opinion is that the best answer is to close Santa Cruz to car traffic from ECR to University (maybe Evelyn) But leave cross traffic open (even though there is a short Santa Cruz jog for Crane and Chestnut. Then reconfigure Menlo and Oak Grove to be one way each. Menlo NB (toward ECR) and Oak Grove SB (toward University). By doing that, we could have better lane configurations for through traffic efficiency combined with left turn ability. Having the cross streets remain open would allow access to the parking plazas and getting close to all SC retail for pickup/drop off.
By doing this we’d have the ability to reconfigure Santa Cruz completely. Start to execute a plan to convert it from ad hoc tables, chairs and concrete barricades to a proper pedestrian plaza / park. It could be done one block at a time to manage the budget.
Imagine being able to stroll down a peaceful plaza under the shade of the trees in the center and sides. Regraded to remove the car features and hard gutters into a lovely environment. No store would be more than a block from car access. Many already have access to the parking plazas behind anyway. But the whole experience would make people enjoy being near these stores and more likely to take advantage of others while they are there for one.
Win for everyone except the truly lazy who have a fantasy that they can just roll up to an open space in front of the store every time (how often do you get to park within a block of the store you’re going to?)
Hi, would like more public out reach from the city on most topics, in the form of an online survey to help with building consensus around ideas to better help guide our collective goals as a community.
Thanks!
I love the outdoor Plaza, and sadly, the restauarants are one of the few reasons I ever go downtown ( besides Ace, Trader Joe’s, the Guild, and a few other stores). I agree with Elaine, it’s the only sign of life that remains in our sweet but dying town. We need businesses that people want to go to. We need the town to be welcoming. Last time I counted, granted it was pre-covid, we had something like 5 banks, 5 rug stores, 5 galleries, 5 charity type stores, 1 incredibly overpriced furniture store where a dining room table was $30k ( there were other more appropriate furniture stores), etc. We need a better mix of businesses, ones that can that earn our business. Otherwise people aren’t going to coming to Menlo Park, open streets or not. Wit
The outdoor seating actually brings people to our community. Please, please don’t get rid of the one thing that “drives traffic” to our downtown.
So glad that this is finally being considered! The blocked off areas are surely a boon to the restaurants that get huge amounts of additional space, but they impede the flow of bike/car traffic and make it trickier to get around. Between this and the silly changes on Menlo Ave at University, which reduced the number of lanes available for cars and provide no meaningful benefit for pedestrians or cyclists, things definitely back up more these days.
And of course, reducing the speed limit on Santa Cruz and Valparaiso make it even less likely I’m heading to/through downtown. It’s faster for me to get to other towns in many cases, and that’s what I do. If I could get to/through downtown Menlo faster, I would definitely shop and eat there more often.
Please re-open this area!
To those who worry that reopening northbound Santa Cruz Ave to autos means the complete loss of valuable dining options or public meeting space in the now-closed 600 block of that street please recognize this worry may be a false choice.
First, each of the dining establishments along our downtown’s ‘high street’ besides Left Bank and Bistro Vida still enjoy a previously unavailable business opportunity with dedicated parklets, the outdoor areas filling some of their adjacent street parking spaces. Reopening Santa Cruz Ave. fully causes only the two named restaurants to revert to the amount of outdoor parklet space they had in the past, just the same as other the other establishments have.
Please also consider the two deeper outdoor dining areas currently blocking traffic in the 600 block are, like all the parklets, underused or unoccupied entirely for several months each year and are never used before or after business hours. Yet that portion of the street remains closed 24/7/365 all year.
Let’s please explore rightsizing the outdoor dining and public market space along the northbound side of the 600 block so as to use as much of that block’s parking space area as possible for dining and public use consistent with safe two-way traffic along that block.
This is a win-win opportunity for the public and our local businesses. The two mentioned restaurants and their customers get the same benefits as other such establishments do. A narrower ‘street market’ and an adjacent public area can still be enjoyed as an attraction. The market vendors can easily set up in the parking spaces to serve their customers passing on the sidewalk.
All this can be done while allowing northbound motorists to once again access El Camino Real and the businesses beyond via Santa Cruz Ave. This should reduce the northbound gridlock extending from El Camino south along both Oak Grove Ave. and Menlo Ave. past Crane St. on weekday afternoons.
I agree with revisiting these closures. They were born out of covid and remain simply because the city hasn’t done the due diligence to look at downtown more holistically with regards to revitalization. Residents rightfully point out this block has life and provides students with a place to gather, but these were happy accidents. Let’s invest in a longer term vision for downtown revitalization that all businesses, not just some, and all residents might benefit from.