Menlo Park fire district may fund $350K for pedestrian signal

Safety measure outside a fire station would provide missing link for bike routes crossing Middlefield Road A pedestrian-activated traffic signal should be installed near Fire Station 1, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District board tentatively decided last week. At its June 20 meeting, the board agreed to fund up to $350,000 for a signal at 300 Middlefield Road, though it still needs to discuss the plan with city officials. The signal will be a HAWK (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK) beacon, similar to one approved last year outside Station 3 at Almendral Avenue near El Camino Real in Atherton. The new signal will remain dark until activated by a pedestrian, bicyclist or the fire district; its beam will extend 300 feet along Middlefield to allow cyclists to move from Santa Monica Avenue across Middlefield to Linfield Drive while vehicles are stopped. Jonathan Weiner, a member of the city’s Complete Streets Commission, and resident Jen Wolosin brought the idea to fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman. They asked the district to partner with the city to acquire the beacon, which would make it safer for people east of Middlefield to access Burgess Park, downtown, schools and other parks. Wolosin, who is spearheading a community school safety effort called Parents for Safe Routes, said the Menlo Park City School District told her 170 to 190 Hillview Middle School students would use the new route. Weiner said the current blinking crosswalk at Linfield presents “the illusion of safety.” The new signal, on the other hand, would amount to “multiple crosswalks … giving pedestrians a lot more room without feeling intimidated by cars that are just a few feet away.” David Lehman, a 40-year Menlo Park resident, said he received a concussion and a bruise to his brain after he was hit by a vehicle while riding his bike from Santa Monica to Linfield in July 2015. “I’ve crossed that intersection thousands of times (with) traffic often heavy and moving fast, and drivers seem distracted and in a hurry,” he said. “It’s absolutely not safe to assume cars will stop” at the crosswalk. At the meeting, Schapelhouman touted Weiner and Wolosin’s “common sense approach” to improving safety along a stretch outside the fire station where firefighters have had to use the Jaws of Life apparatus to extract people from cars and where at least one pedestrian has been killed. “We fight people trying to insert bicycle routes in places that they shouldn’t be,” he said. “I rarely deal with something that was so easy, so simple and so straightforward in approach.” The new signal would also benefit the fire station. Board President Peter Carpenter said the beacon would allow fire engines to leave the station without waiting for traffic or pedestrians “to get out of their way.” The board also directed the fire chief to look into the possibility of implementing HAWK beacons outside additional fire stations, where feasible. The board didn’t approve the funds June 20, but instead authorized Schapelhouman to meet with city officials to negotiate sharing the costs for the new signal. The project can’t proceed without the city agreeing to do an engineering design for it. A staff report accompanying the discussion only authorized paying half the expected cost, at $175,000. Carpenter suggested the district fund the total cost, with the stipulation that the city reimburse it with the other $175,000 later. “If we wait for them to put it in the budget, it will take another 16 months,” he said. “This will have to come back to the board to approve an actual amount.”