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Portola Valley is a small town at the end of a road, but it has traffic problems nonetheless.
About a dozen residents attended a special meeting of the Bicycle, Pedestrian & Traffic Safety Committee on Dec. 6 to voice their concerns, mostly about unsafe encounters with vehicles at crosswalks.
Traffic consultant Paul Krupka led the meeting. The town hired Krupka to study the issues and get feedback from residents. He is scheduled to make recommendations to the public works director in January.
With Krupka’s enlarged bird’s-eye views of town intersections propped up along the walls of the Historic Schoolhouse, residents were asked to use sticky notes to paste suggestions over problem areas. Among the suggestions: Build a pedestrian bridge over Portola Road, stagger release times for students at the schools, and employ crossing guards at crosswalks.
The areas under discussion included crosswalks at Roberts Market at the corner of Alpine and Portola roads, at Windmill School at 900 Portola Road, and at the Woodside Priory at 302 Portola Road, where there are four side streets within 300 feet.
At the Priory, students crossing Portola Road are daily “navigating (around drivers who are) in a hurry because they’re late to pick up their kids,” said nearby resident Jose Iglesias.
Resident Ruhi Khan said she was speaking for several mothers who use jogging strollers on town trails along Cervantes Road and Westridge Drive to take their children to school. The trails are steep and sometimes they wind up in the roadway, she said. “We understand they were meant for horses,” she said. “But we’ve ended up on the roads and there are blind curves and construction vehicles coming up early in the morning.”
“This is perfect input,” Public Works Director Howard Young said in response. “This is exactly what we want to hear and I can bring that also to the Trails Committee for coordination.”
One particularly troubling crosswalk is not near a school, but across Los Trancos Road at Alpine Road. “That is just not a safe crossing,” said resident Elizabeth de Oliveira. “You actually have to be looking in three directions at once,” she said. “It’s terrifying.”
Students avoid the intersection by jaywalking further along on Los Trancos, but at a blind curve and near a deep dip in the road, de Oliveira said. “They don’t get it,” she said. “I’m terribly worried about that intersection.”
Resident Chuck Corley said he uses the crosswalk that goes across Alpine Road at Los Trancos Road about 400 times a year and has had close encounters with vehicles four times in two months. With the turn pockets and bike shoulders, it’s like crossing five lanes, he said, adding that a driver once castigated him for not wearing a brightly colored shirt.
Resident Geoff Baldwin said that the setting sun makes pedestrians “completely invisible” at that crosswalk for a couple of weeks every year.
“There really isn’t an intersection … in this town that doesn’t have some problems,” said resident Kiran Kamboj. She advised the town to look into Vision Zero, an international program aimed at eliminating traffic fatalities. “It can’t be ethically acceptable that people are killed or injured when moving through the transport system,” Kamboj said.
If pedestrians are at risk, the speed limit has to come down, she said. If that doesn’t work, then pedestrians and traffic need to be separated. “Basically everything is driven by the notion that we’re all supposed to stay alive, and there’s no amount of convenience that can override that,” she said.
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The solution is clear. We need to construct tunnels at these intersections, particularly where LTR meets Alpine and at Alpine-Portola. A bridge would be unsightly and unnecessary. There is no excuse for the town to not act and get this done—maybe get funding from the county. This is a safety issue that affects us all.
CROSSING GUARDS & MORE SHERIFF PRESENCE MIGHT HELP ( ESPECIALLY IF TICKETS WERE ISSUED ).
If drivers can’t figure out how to obey standard crosswalks and stop signs, the city needs to step it up a level and install red lights. Car drivers generally pay more attention to those.
Disregarding the troll comments above, the best solution is some sort of crosswalk either over or under the road. You can’t have the sheriff or crossing guards there 24/7, and there will always be people in a rush. ESP workers coming in, many are in a hurry and disregard basic rules of the road
Add signal lights embedded in the road surface to greatly improve pedestrian visibility when crossing.
Reducing the speed limit is a bad idea because nobody is in the crosswalk 99.99% of the time.
Not one consistent comment/solution. Therein lies the problem of asking for resident input. Everyone is an ‘expert’! When laws exist and they are disregarded, it’s hard to justify any action short of Sheriff enforcement.
Definitely decrease the speed limit on the major roads (e.g., Alpine). I drive the speed limit and I always have cars right behind me as though I’m driving too slow. People drive too fast. This is a rural town. I like what they did on Alameda de las Pulgas to slow down traffic near the residences there, effectively lessened the speed limit to 25 mph.
I’m fine with people walking their children in strollers on the trails, and I am a horse owner. I’d much prefer that to seeing them in the street. However, I would ask that they (including nannies) take off any earphones. It scares the crap out of me when I see people walking in the bike lane with double wide strollers, wearing earphones, especially when they are not facing traffic. Taking away your own awareness of traffic of all types, be it cars, bikes, horses, joggers, or hikers with/without dogs, is at best rude and at worst dangerous. Enjoy the outdoors—don’t isolate yourself from it.
Regarding crosswalks, I have found the flashing crosswalk by the Ladera Shopper to be a vast improvement in visibility, both as a walker and when driving. Orange flags would be helpful at other crosswalks until this can be implemented elsewhere. Thank you!!
How come the flashing lights work consistently at La Mesa & Alpine Rd in Ladera, but the ones by the Priory – Portola Rd & Brookside Dr are alway out of order ??
“”Basically everything is driven by the notion that we’re all supposed to stay alive, and there’s no amount of convenience that can override that,”
What a manifestly idiotic statement. Leave it to Dave Boyce to emphasize it without comment. What was your point, David?
Whne can we have a real reporter on this beat?