Controversial Arastradero Road Testing Gets Nod by Council

Clogged intersections and longer commutes did not amount to enough ammo Monday night at City Hall to shoot down a proposal to extend testing of striping changes to Arastradero Road.

The Palo Alto City Council, voting unanimously in favor of continuing to test the tweaks made to the busy thoroughfare for another year, ultimately did so on behalf of parents and other residents who loudly voiced their concern over children’s safety.

Palo Alto Chief Transportation Official Jamie Rodriquez, in presenting a detailed study by city staff of impacts caused by lane restriping, said that the negative impacts expressed by opponents may be mitigated this month when starts with a new 8:25 a.m. start time.

The morning bell had previously rung at 7:25 a.m. and coincided with an all-pedestrian road freeze that allowed kids to walk and ride to and , forcing Gunn seniors to wait in their cars on Arastradero.

“This better separates grade school ped/bike traffic from Gunn,” Rodriguez said.

Planning Commission Arthur Keller agreed, saying the bell changes will “significantly impact delays on this corridor.”

“The new schedule will switch that up so arriving seniors will bypass that all-ped phase,” he said.

Dozens of residents addressed the council, split nearly evenly between those who did and did not favor approving the testing.

Palo Alto resident Lisa Laforge said that she has lived here since 2000 and has never come to a council meeting, but came Monday night to express frustration over what she described as frequent traffic backups that block the intersection of Arastradero and El Camino Real.

“The people wanting to travel down Arastradero toward Foothill block the intersection,” she said. “Typically the traffic is backed up all the way to Walgreens on Maybell.”

Laforge said that another consequence of the heavier traffic is cars now drive down Maybell at dangerously high speeds.

“Maybe the number of travelers hasn’t increased, but let me tell you the speed has increased dramatically. The speed bumps have not slowed down the traffic on Maybell,” she said.

Betty Lum, another Barron Park resident, sympathized with the concerns expressed by Laforge and other opponents, but said the greater purpose—increasing road safety for school children—trumped all.

“The main objective of this plan is the safety of the school children,” she said. “We have to make that our top priority. I admit, it’s a frustrating experience for people who do this on a daily basis.”

She implored the council, however, to stay focused on the greater purpose. “I ask you for the benefit of the children that you vote to extend this,” she said.

Council members then spent more than an hour asking staff for detailed explanations and clarifications from the report.

Council member Karen Holman highlighted a concern that had been raised earlier about VTA-22 buses, which have the ability to change the lights at El Camino and Arastradero from red to green.

“What would you envision as being the next steps that can be taken to work with VTA to try to resolve these issues?” she said.

Rodriguez said that more testing at that intersection would be in order. “We probably need to do some kind of feasibility study for the intersection—not for El Camino, bit for Arastradero. To reduce impact, we need to widen Arastradero.”

Rodriguez also suggested putting together an outreach plan that identifies more community meetings to be held quarterly or more frequently.

Vice Mayor Yiaweh Yeh then motioned to approve extension of the plan and took a moment to reflect on the heated debate at the meeting.

“It started off with a lot of anger,” he said. “It’s important to see how a community reacts to change.

Yeh added, “I’ve long known that there’s a lot of balancing that’s going on for the particular use of this corridor.

Then, with a second motion to vote, the council unanimously agreed to continue testing the striping on Arastradero Road until July of 2012.