Views from the Terrace

April, 2000

College Terrace Traffic Calming Meeting!

Sunday, February 27
6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Escondido School Multi-purpose Room.

Come learn about the modern tools available for Traffic Calming! Talk about alternatives for solving the traffic problems in our neighborhood! Share desert and meet your neighbors!

Our guest speaker will be transportation- and town-planner (and long-time Palo Alto resident), Patrick Siegman. Known for his emphasis on encouraging bike-friendly communities, Patrick will show us the new traffic calming tricks in the traffic engineer's "tool kit".

See "CTTC (College Terrace Traffic Calming) Report from the working group" on page 3 for more information.

Coffee and tea will be provided. Desert contributions to share are welcome!

Vote Yes on Measure G!

When "Big Blue" was demolished in 1996, the residents of College Terrace cried out for a halt to demolition of historic homes in our community. Last summer, after three years of intensive public debate, a new historic preservation ordinance was passed by the City Council.

This ordinance doesn't protect many houses in Palo Alto (only about 700) but it would have prevented Big Blue from being lost forever.

If you have questions about the ordinance, please check the Handlebars for Preservation - Yes on G web site (www.PANeighbors.org) for more information.

The ordinance appears on the March 7 ballot. Please help finish what College Terrace started: vote yes on Measure G.

Emergency Preparedness - PANDAs in training

We all know that we live in earthquake country but most of the time we tend to ignore this fact. Suddenly one day the ground starts shaking and we realize that we haven't done as much as we should to be prepared. And earthquakes aren't the only kind of disaster that can happen here as the `98 flood proved all too well!

The Palo Alto emergency response staff is trying to change that. The second class of Palo Alto Neighborhood Disaster Assistance (PANDA) trainees (including three College Terrace Residents) graduates on February 23!

The goal of the PANDAs is to help the city's emergency response staff in a major disaster. When large scale events such as earthquakes occur, outside help may not be available for up to 72 hours. Our neighborhood may have to take care of ourselves during that time. The PANDA training will help us do just that.

PANDA continued...
One of the things that PANDA training encourages is preparation for emergencies. I have plenty of copies of the earthquake preparation guide Living with our Faults, if you don't have one (call 493-2153 or pick one up at the Traffic Calming meeting, 2/27). Ideally, we should all have at least three days supply of food and water available, as well as medical supplies, flashlights, etc. We should all know how to turn off our power, water and gas if necessary (don't do it unless you believe there's a leak!). And we should also have a family plan for where to meet and how to communicate in a disaster.

The next level of preparation is neighborhood planning. If a disaster strikes, we need a designated place to gather so we can begin to help those in need. Weisshaar Park (on Dartmouth between College and California) is our best choice. It's close to the fire station (on Hanover) where emergency supplies are kept and the paved surface of the tennis court would be useful as well.

It is also helpful to have some idea of resources in our neighborhood. People with special training and tools (doctors, nurses, construction workers, ham radio operators, etc.) may or may not be around in a disaster, but it is useful to know who they are. It is also a good idea to know who in our neighborhood might need extra help in such an emergency - especially folks with mobility problems or special medical needs.

There is a form at the bottom of page 4 to collect this information. Please fill it out and drop it off at the traffic meeting or at 2130 Yale Street if you have any special skills to offer or have special needs (or know someone who does!). If you'd rather send me the information by email please do (priag@ctra.org). This information will be kept confidential and shared only with a handful of neighborhood organizers.

Of course we can always use more trained PANDAs in College Terrace! The next PANDA class will be held sometime this summer. It's a lot of fun.

If you think this is something you would be interested in doing, I encourage you to sign up. Contact Barbara Cimino (329-XXXX or email at barbara_cimino@CITY.PALO-ALTO.CA.US).

Perched Water Table... or why we all need sump pumps.

Although most of College Terrace doesn't flood often (except the area around Werry Park), most of us need sump pumps to keep our basements and crawl spaces dry. Have you ever wondered why?

Well, the answer is something called a perched water table. The "real" water table is the top of the groundwater, a layer of rock permanently saturated with water. In our neighborhood that layer usually starts about 20' down. But before you get to the water table, about 4 - 12 feet down, there's a layer of impervious rock. Water that falls as rain (or from sprinklers), sinks down to that layer and then can't get any farther. It "perches" on top of that rock and flows gradually through the rock, down toward the bay. In winter (or when an uphill neighbor does a lot of watering!), the soil above the rock gets saturated and water flows into our basements and crawl spaces! Voila! A perched water table!

Voluntary Design Assistance Program

Until Palo Alto is able to do something about residential design guidelines, the Planning Department has instituted a voluntary design assistance program to help homeowners, builders, architects and others to "preserve and enhance the desirable qualities of Palo Alto's residential neighborhoods."

The City offers architectural design assistance to help "ensure that the residence is sympathetic to the existing neighborhood." The service is completely free and compliance is voluntary... but projects which make use of the process get priority for building permit and exception review processes!

If you're planning to remodel and wish to use this valuable tool, please contact Amy Glaser at the City's Development Center (617.3119).

CTTC (College Terrace Traffic Calming) Report from the working group:


At the neighborhood meeting on November 21st, a task force was formed to carry forward the proposal in our September petition to the City Council asking for a pilot neighborhood traffic calming program in College Terrace. Members of the task force represent a broad range of residents: upper and lower Terrace, interior streets and perimeter streets, parents and singles, cyclists and SUV owners, etc.

Many members of the task force attended the 12/1/99 workshop on traffic calming offered by Reid Ewing and Patrick Siegman, which focused on new, effective ways to slow car speeds, encourage walking/cycling and foster livable communities. We learned that the traffic calming "toolbox" has grown dramatically in the last 20 years, offering many more alternatives than in the mid-70s when stop signs and barriers were the main options available to our neighborhood.

Task force members also reviewed the traffic volume and speed surveys done by the city transportation department last fall. Interested neighbors can find this data as well as good links to current traffic calming research and practice by going to the "traffic" section of the CTRA website:

www.ctra.org/traffic.html

Since January, the traffic calming task force has focused on: 1) defining the specific problems to be solved by a neighborhood traffic calming program in College Terrace, and 2) developing alternative strategies to solve these problems. These will be presented at the CTRA meeting on Sunday 2/27, to get community feedback before submitting our problem statement and proposals to the city.

If you are unable to come to our 2/27 meeting, please look for summaries on our website afterwards -- or contact Paul Lomio at 857-1383 if you don't have access to the Web. You may also ask give feedback to me or any other task force member (in alpha order: Karie Epstein, Pria Graves, Grace Liu, Emily Marshall and Joyce Ogawa).

-- Kathy Durham (kfdurham@earthlink.net)

College Terrace Do's and Don'ts

We all want to be good neighbors but sometimes folks don't think about how their actions affect others.

Please:

Common Ground update

As you probably know, our wonderful local organic garden supply store, Common Ground, needs to find a new home. There's a chance they may move to the building at 555 College but that's still under negotiation. Watch the store web site (www.ctra.org/CG) for current information.

Check Out Our Web Page!

at http://www.ctra.org. It's due for a face-lift soon so keep watching. Meanwhile, please feel free to email items to webmaster@ctra.org

 

College Terrace on NeighborSpace!

If you haven't yet checked out NeighborSpace (www.neighborspace.org), you're missing out on the latest way to chat with others about a variety of topics.

The first time you sign in you will have to register a user name and password but once you've done that, you can bookmark the discussions you want to check on and go straight to them. You can just read what others have said or post your own comments.

College Terrace even has it's own topic (thanks, Jon Corelis!) which is currently hopping with some great ideas about improving the California Avenue shopping area. Other topics include a variety of local issues such as housing, airplane noise, leaf blowers, traffic, etc.

 

 

College Terrace Disaster Preparedness Inventory

Name: ________________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________

Phone: ________________________________________________

email: ________________________________________________

Special needs (mobility/vision/hearing/ oxygen etc.):

________________________________________________

Special skills (medical training? construction? ham radio?) :

________________________________________________

Useful tools/equipment (generator? large tarps? construction/demolition equipment?):

________________________________________________


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