College Terrace Resident’s Association Quarterly                                November 2002

Views From the Terrace

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Long Live the King's Highway!

Cars, People, and Trees Can Thrive on El Camino Real

For years, Caltrans rebuffed Palo Alto’s efforts to make State Highway 82—better known as El Camino Real—a more attractive and safer thoroughfare. But now the state transportation agency isn't just listening: it has actually put up money to rethink the future of perhaps the most unpleasant 4.3 miles of pavement in Palo Alto.

On November 19, the city's planning commission will review a new draft master plan with guidelines for future improvements to the stretch of El Camino Real within city limits. This plan is the product of the design study funded jointly by Caltrans and the city, which was discussed in our June newsletter and in the community workshops in June and September.

The report signals a critical shift in how Caltrans is approaching highway planning. Officials acknowledge that the previous system of imposing “one size fits all” highway standards did not produce the desired result: a smoothly flowing main artery for motor vehicles. Plus, new federal mandates require a broader vision for such roads, adapting the design to balance the needs of the community and all users of the roadway.

What does the proposed master plan offer for College Terrace? For the first time, there is an alternative to the worsening congestion that will result if the 1960s design is not revamped. A few highlights:

• Traffic management goals will now include minimizing incentives for drivers to cut through residential neighborhoods.
• Key intersection improvements plus widened medians will improve pedestrian and cyclist safety without appreciable increases to motorist travel times.
• More vehicles can be handled more efficiently by engineering and signal changes that encourage drivers to obey the speed limit while reducing delays at traffic signals. (This is also safer for all street users and less frustrating to drivers.)
• Large shade trees will create an urban boulevard landscape, rather than the open highway that all users of El Camino Real experience today.

Contrary to some news reports, these improvements are not contingent on reducing El Camino Real to four lanes along its whole length. The traffic analysis does suggest, however, that there are two limited segments – away from major intersections – where six lanes are not necessary to handle vehicle traffic. In these segments, a carefully designed "road diet" could provide major benefits for businesses, pedestrians and safe school commutes.

For more information and links to the city’s webpage about the El Camino Real design study, check the website of the College Terrace Traffic Committee: <www.cttc.info>

Questions? Want to get involved? Contact John Ciccarelli, our neighborhood’s representative on the study Advisory Group (494-9140 or johnc@bicyclesolutions.com).

Come to the study session for the Planning and Transportation Commission where draft recommendations for the future of El Camino Real will be presented: Tuesday, November 19, at 7 pm in the City Council Chambers (1^st floor, City Hall).

Tiny Bubbles?

Not in College Terrace. Once again the neighborhood's Labor Day party witnessed a bevy of breathtaking bubbles in the annual bubble gum blowing bash. See more picnic pictures on <The Neighborhood > page!

 

 

Our 120 Acres: College Terrace Walks! Neighborhood Tour

By Paul Lomio, CTRA Vice President

 

Did you know that Joan Baez lived in College Terrace? That Albert Einstein had tea here? And that there are hundreds of tiny details to be discovered in the nooks and crannies of our neighborhood that we pass by daily without noticing?

Those were a few of the lessons learned by the twenty or so College Terrace walkers who were led on a history and architecture tour of our neighborhood by Ruth Sloan on Saturday, October 5th. We met at the corner of Amherst and California, and Ruth started with insights on the two interesting houses located right there. I've passed those two homes dozens of times but failed to notice the architectural details Ruth pointed out: the half-circle chimney, extensive use of piping on one house; the front door ziggurat arch on the other.

From there we wandered up and down Amherst, Bowdoin, College, Columbia, Dartmouth, and California Avenue, learning many new things, including details about the Amherst Street house built by a Stanford student the summer of his freshman year, the Dartmouth St. house built out of spite, and many other details of our many-faceted neighborhood. Did you know that Cambridge and Oxford streets extended all the way to Amherst—and even with little traffic circles at the parks? Did you know that the original developer of College Terrace, a man named Gordon, subdivided the neighborhood into 25-feet parcels with the intention that buyers would acquire these in multiples—he never intended that we'd have the narrow lots that we do.

A sampling, but alas a mere sampling, of Ruth's fascinating tour can be found here: <www.ctra.org/homesTour.html>.

Ruth is a fountain of information about our neighborhood, its history, its architecture, and we only covered a small portion when it become time to head to the library for its Open House (celebrating 100 years of library service) and more history lessons there.

At the library we were greeted by Palo Alto historian Steve Staiger, who filled in more amazing details about our neighborhood and why it looks the way it does. The land that became College Terrace was once owned by two farmers who refused to sell to Leland Stanford, despite Stanford's many attempts at acquisition. Stanford then opened his university, and looked to create a town for it. College Terrace was then part of the town of Mayfield (its first mayor was Hanover Street resident Arthur B. Clark , father to Birge Clark), but Mayfield's major industry was liquor, with the California Avenue area boasting 13 bars/saloons and even one brewery. Stanford, ever the politician, wanted a teetotaler campus but Mayfield wouldn't go dry for Stanford, so he turned to Palo Alto instead, even though that town was a bit farther from his central campus than Mayfield was.

But College Terrace most definitely was linked to Stanford University from the very beginning. Many faculty built homes in our neighborhood, indeed the early Victorian houses (e.g., 1487 College) were "come-on" houses, built on speculation to appeal to university faculty. And students turned to us too. In the beginning, Stanford was free, and was viewed as being a college for only poor people (Hoover, for example, was an orphan); wealthy folks sent their children elsewhere for their education. The only big expense for early Stanford students was for room and board, and this is why eating clubs sprung up in College Terrace (2150 Dartmouth is believed to have once been an eating club) and also why that certain Stanford freshman, an engineering student, built a house (2230 Amherst) the summer of his freshman year in 1902, as a boarding house for generations of Stanford students. How times have changed.

College Terrace Walks! (CTW!) plans to ask for more of these fabulous walking tours with our resident expert and delightful docent Ruth Sloan. Please let me know if you'd like to be added to the CTW! mailing list (send your request to plomio@stanford.edu).

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Grande Latte, Without Fender Bender

Even if you love caramel mocha lattes at Starbuck's, you probably don't share the same feelings about the cars coming and going from their parking lot on Stanford Avenue near El Camino. We want your horror stories with all the details—date, time, direction of travel, and the safety problem—so that we can present them en masse to the city. Please send by e-mail to board@ctra.org.

Turn Over a New Leaf

The city public works officials ask us to remind people NOT to rake leaves into the street – it’s no longer legal to do this. Instead, place them in compost containers on PASCO's pickup day. Leaves can plug street drains when it rains, as well as damage street sweeping machines. If you use a gardening service, please explain this to your crew!

Baby You Can Drive My Car

College Terrace is one of the first neighborhoods in the country to have its very own shared car! For just $25 you can become a FlexCar member and "borrow" the College Terrace car (based at Mike's bikes, next to JJ&F) or any of the cars at the four other Palo Alto locations. For more information, go to <www.flexcar.com>

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Car Wars: Taming Traffic

 

In the last three years traffic has jumped by at least 10 percent on streets throughout our neighborhood, according to a recent city study. Although California is a car-crazy culture, the College Terrace Traffic Committee is making the case that our neighborhood has perhaps become a bit too car friendly.

The committee is patiently toiling to help get precise data to pinpoint the problems. Thorough documentation is required by the city before we can consider ways to address safety and quality of life issues raised by the increases. To see the latest traffic trends, go to the committee's website at <www.cttc.info>. It provides all of the traffic studies done in our neighborhood, from 1974 to date— including the latest speed and volume counts for all of our open streets.

The next step: the city needs to complete the long-awaited report on our neighborhood's cut-through traffic. The data for this study were gathered last April and May by 56 hardy College Terrace residents. After that effort, volunteer Amy McGuire worked very hard with city staff to write a computer program that will crunch the numbers. John Mark Agosta has added value to this effort by further tweaking the software to meet our needs. A small team of College Terrace resident volunteers (John Mark Agosta, Maritza Frankfurt, Grace Liu, Paul Lomio and Louise Roche) spent hours entering the raw numbers into Excel spreadsheets. Thank you to all who have contributed to the success of this endeavor!

The city is now running the reports that will serve as the basis for our cut-through calculations. The final analysis will be added to the cttc.info website as soon as it becomes available. Also in the works is a neighborhood meeting early next year to discuss results and possible solutions with city officials.

For more information, contact the committee co-chair Paul Lomio at plomio@stanford.edu or

857-1383.

Join our E-news list!

It’s easy to be in the know! Just send a blank message to <CTRAnews@yahoogroups.com> and you will receive neighborhood news updates and headlines that make you smile a couple times a month.

Escondido Village: Constructive Comments

 

With the departure of the heavy machinery that had graced our view across Stanford Avenue for months, College Terrace has survived another phase of Stanford construction. Now the University wants to hear what we think of their work.

Stanford will be hosting an open house on Saturday, November 16, from 10 a.m. to noon, featuring the portion of new Escondido Village housing and parking that was completed over the last few months. It will take place on the porch of the new graduate housing, near the corner of Wellesley and Olmsted Road, just in from Stanford Avenue.

A number of residents have voiced concerns about the appearance of the new parking along Olmsted, which seems to offer our neighborhood a prime view of graduate students' cars. Stanford officials promise that landscaping will improve the situation. On hand at the open house will be the landscape architects, who are overseeing this issue and who can present renditions that will show how it will appear once all the plants are in and have had a chance to grow.

There will also be other officials from Stanford at the event, available to answer questions about these projects. Although students have already moved into the recently completed building, the university is still at work on a second one. The goal is to have it finished and occupied in the winter quarter. This is an opportunity to let officials know what worked well and what didn't in the process so far.

Fun Facts About Storm Drains

by Susan Rosenberg, Stanford Avenue resident and member of the city’s Storm Drain Committee

 

1.     Palo Alto's storm drain system is not connected to the sewer system – but directly to the bay.

2.     Our storm drain system was constructed piece-meal over the last 100 years.

3.     Our storm drain system does not meet the nationally accepted design standard for a 10-year storm (one which has a 10% chance of occurring in any given year).

4.     Some neighborhoods (Southgate, for example) have no storm drains at all.

5.     The storm of February 1998, when San Francisquito Creek overtopped its banks, is generally considered to be a 70-year storm, which is far beyond the capacity of any storm drain system.

 

In response to these and other findings, a specially-formed committee to study storm drains recently submitted its recommendations to City Manager Frank Benest. The group is calling for capital improvements and enhanced maintenance of Palo Alto's storm drain system. The report and other documents are available online at <www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/stormdrain/>

 

To learn more about storm drains and funding for improvements, come to a study session of the City Council on November 12 at 6 pm in the Council Conference Room in City Hall. All are welcome.

 

 

Support Your Neighborhood Association

Have you been waiting for a handy form to send in your voluntary contribution to your friendly neighborhood association? Anyone 18 or older who lives in College Terrace is automatically a CTRA member. But becoming a dues-paying member helps us to throw neighborhood parties, to publish this newsletter, and to track issues of importance to our community. Thank you to everyone who has contributed already.

 

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Please make checks payable to College Terrace Residents’ Association and send to the following address: CTRA, c/o Paula Sandas, Treasurer, 2140 Columbia Street, Palo Alto, CA. Please either attach the above form or include your name, address, email, and phone.