Wednesday: Stanford expansion before Transportation Commission

Not mentioned in the article, is that the Transportation Commission would like to invite anyone in the community who has any question or comment to attend the meeting and participate in the discussion.

For those who would like to review the EIR, it can be found online at: Web Link

We look forward to meeting you, and hearing you comments.

Ray Mueller
Menlo Park Transportation Commissioner

So when are they going to connect Sand Hill Road to Alma and upgrade both to four lanes?
In fact, while they're at it, they should widen Sand Hill Road to six lanes by eating away at Stanford's land. This would make the rush hour much more bearable.

All the the Stanford expansion is the result of one Steve Schmidt, who [portion removed; don't speculate about another person's motives] agreed to widen the bridge [portion removed].

Palo Alto will approved since they are being bribed with funds, but Menlo Park, which will share at least 1/2 of the traffic burdens will get squat.

The next shoe to drop will be attempts to revive the Willow Road express way. Our present council has absolutely no backbone, and will probably write a meet letter or two, but the thought of a lawsuit challenging the EIR is beyond the intelligence level of this council, as well as our City Manager.

Connecting Willow to Sand Hill would be great. It would be easier to come to Menlo Park and more people would come here to spend their money

To build a Willow Expressway (as envisioned 50 years ago) would require that Stanford relinquish a huge chunk of land. Right now, the stretch of Sand Hill that goes past the shopping center is the slowest road in town. I have to think that Simon/Stanford like it that way! "Hey, I could walk faster than this -- why don't we go to Nordstrom and wait for the traffic to clear?"

Connecting Sand Hill to Alma would be a splendid move, but there's nothing Menlo Park can do to make that happen. So cars will continue to come north into MP, u-turn and Cambridge, and then left turn onto Alma. Stupid, but whatever. As for a Willow Expressway bringing more shoppers into Menlo Park. Well, not quite. It will allow them to bypass our town altogether.

Is Stanford willing to spend upwards of $200mm for eminent domain? Lots of houses along Willow! And let's not forget Oak Creek.

To ease the congestion of Stanford traffic on Sandhill Rd, Alpine Road, Junipera Serra and the Page Mill exit from 280 south, Stanford should be required to build its own on and off ramps from 280, running directly into the campus streets. Current rush hour ( 8 to 9:30 AM and 4:30 to 6 PM) place an unwarranted burden on local residents.
Trying to get out of Ladera at 6PM into Menlo Park is sometimes almost impossible, because evreything is clogged with Stanford traffic.

Have you given any thought that Stanford already owns the land surrounding Sand Hill Road and Alpine Road? So they've already done what you want...

For anyone who watched the proceedings tonite, Mueller was a tiger.
Thank you Ray for standing up for West Menlo.
Phillips, the rest of the blue suit
Stanford Management reps and their so called professional traffic consultants were made to look like idiots.
CalTrain Go Passes for all employees? Are they serious? Just look at all the Stanford employee cars parked on ECR in front of Stanford every weekday. They drive thru Menlo to get to front of campus, hop the Marguerite after they've pocketed their "don't park on campus stipend"
TDM to reduce 1000's of additional car trips on Sand Hill, Alpine, and West Menlo streets? Get real! They'll ride their bikes or carpool to their doctor's appts?
City staff exhibited their usual apologist ineptitude, esp. Taylor, who just was promoted from Transportation Mgr. to Public Works Mgr.
"We don't have that current data" "We'll have to look into that"
Where is current intersection analysis from the ECR/Downtown EIR that will poke holes in the STanford Traffic consultant 2006-07 counts? Oh, MP staff doesn't seem to have that available. How convenient!
How can anyone expect our current City Mgr. Rojas and Public Works Director Steffens to push back against their counterparts in PA?
PA thinks they can stiff arm Menlo and dump all this huge traffic increase on Menlo. Think again.
Stanford Management thinks they can just throw chump change at Menlo so the problem will go away with Traffic Impact Fee contributions, to be allocated later.
Protracted litigation is on the horizon, Stanford and Palo Alto.

Maybe Stanford should just shut off access to anyone coming from Menlo Park. No access, no traffic.

Just change your hospital of choice to somewhere else - Sequoia, Kaiser, UCSF. You'll be fine.

Problem solved.

'cougar sightings' warns "Protracted litigation is on the horizon", which reminds me of Menlo Park's pointless lawsuit on the Sand Hill Road extension- same anger and apocalyptic predictions, but the courts didn't agree and all we did was waste $$. Also the road has ben extended and the plague of frogs still hasn't occurred.

Good times!

Oaks, I thought the result of the first litigation on sand hill resulted in Stanford paying much more in mitigation fees and Menlo getting a better deal than originally offered. It's too bad some people on this town try to reduce complex matters to all or nothing propositions. I think we are lucky that we have volunteers willing to stick their necks out in the public eye, in the hopes of protecting all of us and getting the fairest deal possible.