Since the “Y” intersection of Santa Cruz & Alameda is such a complex area, we are splitting the website’s discussion up into a north half (this webpage) and the south half of the Y intersection.
The following discussion is based on the February 2024 design that contractors have done for County DPW (Dept. Public Works). Shown below are those design plans with notations regarding safety issues and what seems to be just a lack of focus on pedestrian and resident safety. There seems to be little regard for people with disabilities to use the intersection.
Modified Plan from DPW — Feb 2024
For this northern half of the Y there will be an improvement of wider sidewalks. Otherwise, there has not been much improvement safety wise from prior plans, nor even from what the intersection looked like 15+ years ago (See comparison here). Many of the same issues and safety problems remain unaddressed.
This illustration is directly from the design County provided. Please read the notes in the graphic, as points are made of some of the main issues and problems with what the county contractors have proposed.
Why are we concerned? Because what is being proposed will probably be what this intersection will be like for the next 30 years. That long time between upgrades seems to what to expect to address safety issues. Our community has been actively working with County and its contractors for over 8 years to get to this point — and this point is now a step backwards in safety for many issues that this location has.
One of the major problems created by Y’s skewed design, is lack of pedestrian safety, both along the sidewalks and the crosswalks. For example, the crosswalk to cross Alameda is 235% the length needed. That means pedestrians are in and exposed to roadway more than twice as long as they should need to be. Adding to this negative result, is that traffic signals that stop Alameda and Santa Cruz have durations also over twice as long, compounding backing up traffic. Shorter crosswalks would mean shorter signal times that would reduce the backup! Also, such a long length of distance and time, makes these crosswalks prohibitive to people with disabilities, families with young children, and many of our seniors.
Looking at the illustration you can see one of the biggest problems: The design of the “Y” intersection itself. It has a ‘skewed’ approach, something that the FHWA, NACTO, and other engineering organizations highly recommend changing to be a simple 90° degree approach. This results in 50+ mph turns.
Despite a major Pedestrian Safety Study of this intersection conducted for County that highly recommends fixing the skewed approach, it doesn’t look like County contractors will address this. If that severe skewed intersection were to be changed to 90° degrees, the crosswalks would be much shorter. The intersection would not be so confusing. Residents safety would automatically be addressed. Speed would be reduced and the high speed turns that occur now, could not occur. There would not be all of the sight line issues that exist.
It seems that County contractors and DPW are not going to make this recommended change and so this is where we will be 30 years from now. Stuck with a challenging and dangerous intersection with many safety issues. We need to change priorities and thinking within county – put safety for pedestrians, residents, and cyclists ahead of motor centric focus.
Community Safety Alternative:
The illustration below shows reasonable suggestions to address safety. It greatly increases residential safety by providing a needed buffer to for safe(r) ingress/egress for driveways. It provides short crosswalks. It reduces the width of the intersection. There are other noted safety issues addressed:
The emphasis of the community is safety. Safety for residents to enter/exit their driveways. Safety for pedestrians to be buffered from traffic when using the sidewalk and when crossing. Safety for cyclists to have a calmer, safer, route through the intersection for all directions. A roadway that provides plenty of awareness to motorists to help them drive more safely.
Motorists too have improved safety by a calmer flow of traffic and a less confusing intersection. Improved sight lines provide better visual contact with pedestrians (and cyclists). Rather than unaligned traffic paths, the traffic lanes follow the natural geography of the intersection, curves that motorists would be expect traffic lanes to follow.
Animation to help Visualize Issues an Solutions
The illustration here is an animated toggle between the County consultants Feb 2024 design and our community suggestions as reasonable fixes. The animation will toggle quickly between the two graphics to help show changes, the animation then pauses for about 10 seconds to show each illustration with notes.
Animated comparison of designs: 15 years ago vs Feb 2024
This Y intersection has been one of the most dangerous intersections in County. It has major sightline issues at corners. It is extremely large, as one would expect an expressway intersection would be. Many residential properties and houses have been hit by vehicles, including recently. Pedestrian safety was practically non-existent in the design. It was very much a Motorist Centric design. No safety for cyclists or residents. It has confusing traffic lanes and traffic lights. No provisions were provided for residents to safely use their driveways, allowing traffic lanes right up against the curb on a high speed slip lane with line of sight issues.
We need a design that is instead oriented to safety in our neighborhood and one that is designed to keep traffic speeds in line with our 25 mph speed limit. It is an accepted fact that the only effective way to address speeding traffic is through road design — as we are all aware, placing a speed limit sign has little to no effect. It is the design of the street and its elements that can effectively lower speeds. The Y intersection is a key location for this need of a calmer – slower – design effort and one with 25 mph turns, not 50 mph.
A Santa Cruz/Alameda road design that endorses traffic calming, reduced accident rate, increase safety for all, that effectively limits speeding, all sound like ‘apple pie and motherhood’ — how could you be against those principles? And the fact is, we should demand that those goals be achieved! It’s our lives and our neighbors that are impacted by safety compromises.
Traffic calming design often incorporates:
- Narrow traffic lanes
- Greenery
- Short crosswalks
- Pedestrian activated crossing lights
- Textured/colored pavement treatments and medians
- Turns that promote slower speed – consistent with speed limits
This all goes to create a ambience of a safer – slower roadway in a residential area. This gives motorists the perception of a neighborhood route, not an expressway. Motorists drive slower and have fewer distractions and fewer accidents. Other users of the roadway are at lower risk.
History and Background
The last time County designed the roadway for West Menlo Park, specifically the Santa Cruz/Alameda traffic corridor between Sand Hill Rd and Avy Ave (see intro map), the design was based on the creation of an expressway style road to move traffic quickly through this short area of our neighborhood. At that time no thought materialized for bicycle safety. No thought appears to have gone in to pedestrian safety. Residents were left with dangerous issues when entering/exiting their properties. Again, no thought was put into resident safety, at least no effective action resulted as many residences have safety issues with driveway access and parking.
Our current roadway design was not a success, as is shown by the corridor’s long history of frequent traffic accidents, injuries AND deaths. Many in the community don’t feel this roadway design is safe. That lack of safety has caused some to actually move away and others to live in constant unease. A community should not have these fears. Add to this a lack of effective safety action over the last decades by County. County could have mitigated some of the poor design and the safety issues, yet county has been reluctant to do identified effective action during this time.
High Speed Traffic – Poor Design
Basically, the design created a high speed corridor with long sweeping high speed turns. This is one of the major problems: Speed. To address the high speed of traffic in this short corridor, we need a design that is based on 25 mph speeds. One that, through design, creates a calm flow of traffic. As all engineers know, effective speed reduction is through design, not random speed limit signs or sporadic enforcement. The design of the roadway itself is key to slower traffic and safer environment.
Unfortunately, the reason for the high speeds is that of the road design itself: The Santa Cruz/Alameda corridor was actually designed for high speed traffic. It has wide lanes, an expressway look and feel. For example, the NB Santa Cruz slip lane at the “Y” intersection supports speeds of 50+ mph. The skewed – angled configuration of the “Y” intersection resembles a freeway ramp. The super wide and large intersection was part of that expressway style design and gives motorists the perception that higher speeds are okay.
One of the major problems created by Y’s skewed design, is lack of pedestrian safety, both along the sidewalks and the crosswalks. For example, the crosswalk to cross Alameda is 235% of the length needed. That means pedestrians are in and exposed to roadway 235% longer. Adding to this negative result, is that traffic signals that stop Alameda and Santa Cruz have durations also over twice as long as needed. Such a long length of distance and time, makes these crosswalks prohibitive to people with disabilities. It also adds to the long queuing problem, aka traffic backup, that contractor project will occur if not mitigated.
Looking at the illustration you can see one of the biggest problems. It is the design of the “Y” intersection itself: It has a ‘skewed’ approach, something that the FHWA, NACTO, and other engineering organizations highly recommend changing to be a simple 90° degree approach. Despite a major Pedestrian Safety Study of this intersection conducted for County that highly recommends fixing the skewed approach, it doesn’t look like County contractors will address this. If that severe skewed intersection were to be changed to 90° degrees, the crosswalks would be much shorter. The intersection would not be so confusing. Residents safety would automatically be addressed. Speed would be reduced and the high speed turns that occur now, could not occur. There would not be all of the sight line issues that exist. It seems that the contractors and county are not going to make this recommended change and so that is where we will be 30 years from now. Stuck with a challenging and dangerous intersection with many safety issues.
Where the County Contractor’s Design Fails:
What has County delivered as a re-design at the “Y” intersection? A continuation of the same intersection footprint. Basically the same intersection with different lipstick. Just the opposite of what we need.
Review the following observations from County’s newest design and see which of these points make reasonable sense:
- County removes the equivalent of 3 lanes from the Y intersection width, yet the new design creates an even wider intersection. Why is this excessive intersection width necessary? Why make it even wider?
- The ‘new’ design is based on a design that was created 50 years ago for an expressway style road with upward speeds of 50+ mph? Why not a simpler, slower, smaller intersection, designed for 25 mph and a residential neighborhood?
- With the Alameda reduced to a 2 lane road with a center turn lane, why retain a crosswalk that requires pedestrians to walk over 9 lanes of length to cross? The southern Alameda crosswalk is 235% longer than other crosswalks that cross Alameda just a few hundred feet north.
- Why is County keeping the skewed – angled intersection approach even when traffic engineering studies for this intersection recommend fixing it to have recommended 90° angles? This correction is highly recommended by FHWA, DOT, and Vision Zero and other urban traffic safety organizations to create safer and calmer intersections and reduce risks to pedestrians.
- Why does the new design impede emergency response, restricts access to residential driveways, and creates cycling paths that are dangerous and significantly less safe than alternatives?
- This list could go on: The purpose of asking these questions is to provide an insight into the need to modify and correct the “Y” intersection design. It doesn’t make sense to ignore community input and spend millions of dollars to double down on a proven to be poor and dangerous intersection design that has so many safety issues. It doesn’t make sense to have a design that makes it more dangerous for residents and pedestrians. It doesn’t make sense to have a bike route that is significantly less safe than alternative options, one that only avid cyclists will use, not casual cyclists from the community.
Dangerous by Design, https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/
Safe Crosswalks and Crossings, NACTO,, https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/intersection-design-elements/crosswalks-and-crossings/
A Plan to Eliminate Roadway Deaths, https://www.nsc.org/road/resources/road-to-zero/road-to-zero-home
Visibility and Sight Distance, NATCO, https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/intersection-design-elements/visibility-sight-distance/
Sidewalk Design Guidelines and Existing Practices, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalks/chap4a.cfm
FHWA Complete Streets, https://highways.dot.gov/complete-streets/make-complete-streets-default-approach
Need to Improve – Build Better – Voice Your Questions & Concerns
If you would like to write County directly, please use this
Authored Mar 2024, Safety@Safer4Us.com
I can see improvements to this portion of the road in both designs.
If we can simplify the crosswalks and make some of the safety recommendations suggested in the Community design, that would improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists and provide visibility for motorists.
If we can add the bulb-out for Southbound Santa Cruz motorists heading North on Alameda that was added to the Community design, pedestrian crossing this area will be seen.
We can combine both designs for the addition of the triangle and crosswalks to simplify and shorten the distance to cross this intersection while maintaining safety.
I like the Community design of making the crosswalk straight across but think it should be in the triangle as the DPW design had further up Northbound Alameda.
Thank you for continuing to engage the community in this effort to improve safety in this corridor.
I have a problem with the current design. I prefer the community design as an alternative because it is safer.