Menlo Park debates 'Slow Streets' proposal as residents urge quicker, low-cost fixes

City staff on March 10 presented a proposed Slow Streets program intended to replace Menlo Park’s Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, proposing a point-based, data-driven framework to prioritize traffic-calming projects across residential streets.

Senior transportation planner Katrine Maki told council the program would remove petition requirements, use a batched review cycle and score eligible street segments by measurable safety indicators: one point for every mile-per-hour the 80th-percentile speed exceeds 25 mph, two points for each injury collision in the past three years (from the Safetrek collision database), and one point per 500 vehicles above a 750 weekday annual average. Vehicle speed and volume estimates would come from Streetlight, an anonymized mobility data platform; staff said tube-count validation would be used selectively where needed.

The proposal lays out three implementation pathways: quick-build projects delivered with program funding, projects folded into regular street resurfacing or delivered through the capital-improvement program, and larger CIP projects that require longer planning cycles. Staff said a bundled resurfacing project could add traffic calming quickly and that a two-speed-hump concept might cost roughly $30,000 when delivered as part of another project; standalone speed-hump estimates were presented at a high-end average of about $15,000 each.

Residents who spoke during public comment pushed for faster, lower-cost fixes. Bill Kirsch urged an "urgency-driven approach" with quick-build devices such as rubber speed humps and more on-the-ground staff outreach. Laura Millon of the Finance & Audit Commission warned that the 80th-percentile metric can hide the fastest 15% of drivers and described the draft as a traffic-calming "triage" rather than a community-driven slow streets vision; she urged the city to listen to resident requests before injuries occur. Janet Posis and others told council neighborhood-level schooling, bike‑bridge commuter flows and missing sidewalks create pressing pedestrian safety concerns.

Council members asked detailed questions about backlog handling (staff said the existing queue of roughly 30 requests would be analyzed as part of the first batch), how bicycle and pedestrian activity is counted (staff said points are added for bridges and concentration areas identified in the general plan and Safe Routes maps), and the limits of Streetlight data and tube-count validation (staff said Streetlight provides annual averages and that targeted tube counts would be used where queries appear inaccurate). Several council members pressed whether quick-build projects could be given priority or bonus points so small, low-cost fixes would clear the backlog faster; staff said ranking requires design review to determine which requests are quick-builds and that separate implementation "buckets" (quick-build, resurfacing/CIP, larger CIP) are intended to accelerate simpler projects.

Councilors were split on how much direct policy control the council should retain versus delegating approvals to staff for administrative efficiency. Some members emphasized the need to move projects faster and trust staff to implement quick builds; others said council should retain final say on priorities and guard against geographic concentration of projects. Council directed staff to return in April with a recommendation to adopt the program as a consent item, to provide an informational progress report listing which legacy requests did and did not meet the program criteria, and to follow up on options for addressing clusters or equity concerns.