College Terrace Traffic Calming: Defining the Problems

We, the undersigned, are residents of College Terrace who are deeply concerned about the amount and unsafe nature of traffic in, around, and cutting through our neighborhood. We perceive an alarming increase in the volume and speed of non-resident operated automobiles and trucks. We enthusiastically support a pilot neighborhood traffic calming program for College Terrace and would like such a program to begin as soon as possible.

DEFINING THE PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED:

1. Throughout Neighborhood:
   • Speeds: 9/99 speed survey shows 85th percentile on ALL open streets = over 25 mph speed limit
   • Inappropriate/unsafe driver behavior: cars racing around corners, rolling through stop signs, accelerating rapidly; commuter mentality rather than friendly to pedestrians and cyclists
   • Cut-through traffic: commuters to Stanford University and Research Park, drivers avoiding Page Mill or El Camino congestion in peak periods, delivery trucks w/o College Terrace
   • Need to define residential neighborhood with gateways, perimeter treatment
2. Interior Streets:
   • College Avenue:
     • Cut-through traffic: commuters, delivery trucks, Stanford vehicles
     • Acceleration, speed between stop signs
   • Open Ends of North/South Streets (esp. Columbia, Hanover, Oberlin, Princeton):
     • Cut-through traffic: commuters, delivery trucks, Stanford vehicles
     • Speeding on narrow streets (esp. Hanover, Oberlin, Cornell)
   • Closed Ends of North/South Streets:
     • Barrier Running: delivery trucks, SUVs, non-emergency use by emergency vehicles
   • Short Streets Close to El Camino (Yale, Staunton, Oxford, Cambridge
     • Speed and volume of cut-through traffic
     • Need for transition from commercial to residential; too much non-residential
3. Perimeter Streets:
   • Stanford Avenue:
     • Increasing volumes (+ 16% from 1993 to 1999, up from 8,300 to 9626 vehicles per day]
     • 85th percentile speed over 35 mph
     • Nothing to slow cars between Escondido Road and Yale St.
     • No provision for pedestrian crossings between Escondido and Yale
     • School Crossing Safety at Escondido/Hanover: Congestion in peak periods; cars turning right on red; cars sliding through first light on red; Drivers using bike lane as travel lane (esp. eastbound)
     • Bike/pedestrian crossing safety at Stanford/El Camino
     • Starbucks driveways: Congestion, left turns, unsafe maneuvers: concern for bikes, peds, cars
   • California Avenue:
     • 85th percentile speed over 35 mph
     • Nothing to slow cars between Hanover St. and Yale St.
     • No provision for pedestrian crossings between Hanover St. and Yale
     • Cut through traffic to/from Page Mill and El Camino via Hanover or through parking lots ack of service roads interior to Stanford Research Park (garbage,recycling, deliveries on Calif)
     • Cut-through cars coming and going from Calif Ave businesses, esp the new parking lots which empty directly onto Yale, Williams and Princeton

Draft - 2/22/00