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Menlo Park adopts Slow Streets program after residents push for College Avenue pilot
Summary
The City Council approved a new Slow Streets program to prioritize low‑cost traffic calming citywide and authorized staff to pursue pilots; residents from Allied Arts pressed for an immediate 90‑day quick‑build pilot on College Avenue and for the city to track higher-end speed percentiles and sidewalks gaps in prioritization.
Menlo Park’s City Council voted April 28 to replace its Neighborhood Traffic Management Program with a new Slow Streets policy that gives staff clearer authority to install temporary traffic control devices and pursue low‑cost pilots to calm speeding on neighborhood streets.
The move follows extensive public testimony from residents of the Allied Arts neighborhood who urged immediate action on College Avenue, a residential route used by students and walkers but lacking sidewalks. Janet Poses, a resident, told the council, “We get about 700 cars a day, and over 150 of those are speeding over 31 miles per hour,” and asked the city to run a 90‑day pilot using signs, striping and flexible posts.
Staff said the program establishes a scoring and prioritization framework across the city to rank candidate streets for quick‑build and longer‑term treatments. Senior transportation planner Katrine Maki said the approach is intended to be equitable across districts while preserving staff capacity for both quick builds and engineered projects.
Several residents pressed technical questions about the city’s use of the 80th‑percentile speed metric. “The tail of the speed distribution is the traffic actually driving serious injury risk,” Allied Arts resident Ken Kershner told council, asking that the 90th‑percentile speed also be reported. Councilmember Jennifer Schmidt supported tracking additional percentiles and favored piloting lower posted speeds in high‑hazard locations.
Council members debated trade‑offs between formulaic prioritization and direct council oversight. Vice Mayor Jennifer Wise and others said the scoring is a step toward consistent, citywide prioritization; Councilmember Drew Combs dissented during the adoption vote, expressing concern about reducing policy control over individual projects.
The council adopted the Slow Streets resolution, with one dissenting vote, and directed staff to report annually on program results, including speed metrics and sidewalks gaps. Staff said they will examine pilot designs used elsewhere — notably San Francisco’s quick‑build toolkits — and return with recommended pilot locations and costs.
