Recent mailings from the Menlo Park City School District about opposition to parts of the plans for expansion at Oak Knoll School use the word “opponents” to label many neighbors, parents of school children, members of the public and city staff who have raised some comments about the negative declaration.
I have spoken publicly at school meetings and at City Council meetings. I speak as a parent who has 10 years of experience taking my own children to Oak Knoll via foot, bike and car. I served on the Safe Routes to Schools committee that developed the existing traffic management and pedestrian/bike features at the school.
Unfortunately, by pointing out that this design may not be in the interests of maintaining or improving pedestrian and bike access to the school, I find myself labeled an “opponent” of our schools.
In these mailings there are numerous statements that the new design configuration will address safety issues for pedestrians and cyclists. The negative declaration and traffic study is a lengthy document (over 130 pages), and I encourage those who have read this far to read it themselves. But with regard to pedestrian and bicycle safety issues, I think it is fair to summarize the criticisms of this study in a few key areas:
1. The study is entirely focused on car counts and car traffic. It has no study of pedestrian routes or bike routes. It doesn’t count parents who ride in with young children, count who has tandems or trailers, or what bikes are going to be leaving after the parents drop off their young cyclists. As such, it can’t address the impact on pedestrians and bikes — they are never part of the study in any way.
2. The study makes no effort to assess if the existing parking and driveway exit design could be improved with better parent education or a left turn out of the existing parking lot.
3. The Safe Routes to School project for Oak Knoll, implemented in 2001/2002, produced important survey data and was summarized in several reports. This most recent study for the board doesn’t use any of the data on cyclists, pedestrians, street conditions, roadway widths and configurations, or address how the proposed changes would interfere or interact with the parking restrictions and routes implemented in the safe routes program.
4. The study shows that a minority of the students arrive to school via the car drop-off line (more arrive on foot, bike, and bus than are dropped in the car drop-off line). The emphasis on the interior driveway seems to be driven by concerns of several vocal neighbors about the impact of cars dropping off students. If there are issues about illegal parking, illegal turns, or unsafe driving, simply enforcing our traffic and parking laws would be preferable to punishing the majority who don’t even use it.
5. Concentrating all pedestrian, bike and bus traffic to one gated entry is going to make a very congested morning, especially for the parents biking with tandems and trailers. The traffic at this gate will be two-way. I also am concerned about bicycle storage in this plan.
There are many other issues raised by concerned parents and neighbors. Many of the school children themselves have commented about the value of a 300-year-old oak tree, and the plan to cut it down to increase parking spaces. They are not “opponents” of our excellent school, but parents, children and neighbors who have expressed their concerns. They have different values about land use, and think the school property is best used for educational purposes and facilities, to bring our children a safe school ground for play, green space, and even the opportunity for future educational purposes.
John Fox lives on Elder Avenue in Menlo Park.
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