Issue date: August 26, 1998
By ANDREA GEMMET
The quickest way to get from west Menlo Park to the Willows neighborhood is not via Willow Road. Not at rush hour, anyway.
Invited to take a tour of the Willows and the site of East Palo Alto's University Circle project, I did what most savvy drivers do: cut through the city to Middlefield Road, and avoided Willow Road and its traffic jams by driving down Woodland Avenue.
It's exactly the sort of shortcut that traffic generated by the University Circle project might use, with frustrated drivers taking the tree-lined residential surface streets to avoid traffic jams on Willow Road and University Avenue.
And it's exactly the sort of shortcut that a group of local residents are trying to prevent.
Calling itself "Citizens Against Development Related Overflow" (CADRO), the group last week filed a lawsuit against the project, claiming it will flood their neighborhood with traffic. CADRO members also said they believe the project does not include sufficient parking, and that rain runoff from paved areas risks flooding the nearby San Francisquito Creek.
"It's a straight shot from Willow Road down Chester (Street)," said CADRO member Raymond Swope, standing in front of his Chester Street house. Chester Street is the first left turn for traffic coming off U.S. 101, and it jogs into West Bayshore Road, right into the project's parking garage entrance, he explained.
"This residential street is going to be converted into the project's driveway," he said.
The development, unanimously approved by the East Palo Alto City Council July 20, includes a 230-room hotel, three six-story office buildings, 15,000 square feet of retail space, and a parking structure. The 12.2-acre site is west of U.S. 101 and less than a block from Menlo Park city limits.
The project is expected to produce $3.6 million a year in tax revenues for the cash-strapped city.
Menlo Park city officials sought to include traffic-calming measures in the project, but negotiations between the city and developer Linda Law broke down. As a result, devices designed to keep traffic off Menlo Park residential streets during peak commute hours are not included in project plans approved by East Palo Alto.
The lawsuit targets the project's traffic analysis, calling the data "inaccurate" and claiming that the analysis vastly underestimates the project's traffic impacts in nearby neighborhoods.
Developer Linda Law and her attorney Richard Shapiro could not be reached for comment.
"I think it's unfortunate they have this perceived notion that there will be a tremendous increase in traffic," said Sharifa Wilson, East Palo Alto's vice-mayor. "I don't believe that's a valid perception."
Where CADRO members see a quiet neighborhood that will be ruined by traffic, Ms. Wilson said she believes the area will be tremendously improved by the development.
"We have a provision to promote local hiring, which will improve the quality of life. People will be economically empowered," she said.
CADRO spokesman Jim Wiley, a Willows resident, said the group is not opposed to the development itself, but its members want remedies for increased traffic, and the potential for parking overflow and creek flooding accurately studied and addressed.
"We would like to see the area developed," Mr. Wiley said. "We don't want delays, but the developer refused to discuss these issues."
Ms. Wilson called such comments by CADRO members a smoke screen.
"If they're for the development, they need to let it move forward," she said.
She said that if Menlo Park residents are so concerned about traffic, they should take up the matter with their own city officials.
"There are things Menlo Park can do within its city to address that," Ms. Wilson said. "They're not willing to do that. They don't want to inconvenience their own citizens, they want to inconvenience ours."
CADRO member Monica Bowditch said traffic problems can't be solved by the actions of Menlo Park alone.
"East Palo Alto gets the economic benefits from this. It should bear the burden and pay the cost (of mitigations)," she said.
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