Great decisions! I expect the popularity of the 600 block plaza and all outdoor dining will grow even a lot more with the onset of warm weather, and this will clearly demonstrate the value of these wonderful community assets for BOTH residents and merchants. Thank you, city council members!

I disagree, it was nice during the pandemic when traffic was low and restaurants needed the help because indoor dining was not allowed. As the pandemic gradually winds down it is time to return the streets to the the residents of Menlo Park and reopen them for traffic. Before the pandemic and after, restaurants were allowed to expand outdoor dining in parklets like Left Bank did. I recall several restaurants took advantage of that option which also left the street open for traffic. Why not go back to that? At the very least follow the example of other cities and charge for the street space until the pandemic winds down further then when indoor dining is back to normal reopen the streets.

I am a little surprised that Wolosin says she has not heard from anyone wanting to reopen the streets. There were emails to the city council in support of re-opening Santa Cruz to vehicle traffic. There are also merchants who have said the closure has hurt their business.

Hooray!!!! Make the whole stretch of Santa Cruz be a walkable plaza and make parking behind the buildings better. Let's put more surface area towards safe walking/biking and less surface area towards convenient parking.

YES! Keep and increase outdoor dining and retail options. The hardware store spills onto the sidewalk - that's great. Make Santa Cruz more walkable and make parking behind the buildings better.

I would like to just say Yay!, but the rules disallow short comments for some reason, so yippee! hurrah! super! goody! Is this long enough?

Walkability adds to the vibrancy and community feel of our downtown area.

The streets aren't staying closed just to benefit restaurants -- offering outdoor dining benefits all of us. And the pandemic isn't over, not by a long shot, even if we wish it were.

I agree with Frozen! Downtown MP has never felt so vibrant and it's only because of the street closures with outside dining spilling over. If we open up the streets and take this away, we go back to the sleepy 'boring' MP reputation we had. I'm in favor of expanding parking to allow these spillovers to keep working their magic! Don't let specific retailers determine what our downtown needs just to increase their revenue... it's much more than just saying we are giving restaurants a few more tables of income!

Fantastic decision!

Let’s go even farther. Santa Cruz Avenue should become a permanent pedestrian mall. Let’s make this town more walkable and human friendly. We got plenty of roads for cars, but not enough community space for people.

Mueller’s plan sounds like a great place to start.

Left Bank and Bistro Vida both benefit from the street closure, but Harvest Furniture, which is sandwiched between them, has seen their sales decline and not just because of the pandemic. Their other locations are faring well. Perhaps the city can help Harvest to move to another location on Santa Cruz Ave.