[Post removed.]

[Portion removed.]

Also the latest road “improvements” on Ross road were bikes and cars funnel into the same lanes and get in closer proximity to on coming traffic looks to make this kind of accidents more common

OMG, how, why... Relax and let the FACTS come out before casting judgement or jumping to conclusions.

Interesting to jump to the conclusion that the van driver was at fault before knowing the full story. It could go either way in that the driver may have been distracted or the kids were in a blind spot, or the kids weren't paying attention and drove right into the path of the van. Many on bicycles ride as if they have the same right-of-wayas pedestrians, forgetting that they must follow the same rules as cars. In any case, it's good news that none of the injuries appear to be serious.

Very interesting that Palo Alto in its wisdom thinks that sharing the road makes it safer for bikes!

Yes, and on Monday my husband's car was T boned by a reckless bicyclist who sped through the Loma Verde Ave. intersection southbound on Bryant, causing $3K in damage including a cracked windshield.

Thank goodness . . . that there was a minimal impact on traffic. It is always sad when an injured child causes a delay for those of us with important things to do and places to be. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who may have had to soldier on in the face of inconvenience.

Half the shoppers exiting the Walgreen's parking lot routinely ignore the Right Turn ONLY sign. I once watched a reckless another male recumbent bicylist wearing dark clothes get absolutely irate when a vehicle there honked at him for sipping into its path AS the vehicle was making its right turn.

Just last week an adult male bicyclist waiting to cross Middlefield in Midtown between the Walgreen's parking lot and the pedestrian-activated crossing lot kept pushing his bike so far into traffic I had to slam on my brakes. He was evidently unaware of how far his front wheel was jutting into traffic.

One of the three kids at the accident near Walgreen’s was taken to the hospital, and was released soon after with no serious injuries.

@ Resident -- let's use all the streets for bikes then and ban cars altogether ...

Seriously, a huge part of the problem needs to be recognized -- too few drivers of cars realize the cyclists are fully legitimate users of roads, and need to be given the same space as other vehicles, regardless of the speed at which they are going.

Yes, there are a few cyclists who disregard rules of the road, and they should be held accountable, but it is not the majority. And there are MANY drivers who disregard the rules of the road (e.g. rolling stops are far more common for cars than for bikes, and yet criticism is frequently levied on cyclists who roll through stop signs with no mention of the cars who do so regularly), and others who do not fully accept cyclist as legitimate users of the roads, and who have not sufficiently learned to navigate their vehicles appropriately around cyclists.

Not enough facts to comment on this story, but I am quite concerned about students bicycling to and from JLS. Seems like they have little concern for pedestrians, cars, or traffic rules.

I have security camera footage of one distracted student running into the back of a parked car. Would seem that JLS could teach the importance of traffic safety.

@Online Name - MIddlefield gets very narrow, especially around Colorado. It's one of the few places I ride on the sidewalk. There is barely room for a car and a bike. There isn't room for a truck or bus and a bike to fit in the lane.. Add to that, people speeding, people turning and and out of the shopping center, peds and cyclists ignoring the signal at the entrance to to the CVS, and you get a pretty dangerous and chaotic section of road.

These kids biking to school do some really drastic unsafe maneuvers in front of cars. I have been driving on Meadow and a swarm of kids leave the bike lane and cut in front of cars and don't even pay attention to see if there is a car in the lane they are moving into. The schools and police need to re enforce the need for them to follow the rules of the road.

This comes on the back of the Ross Rd project controversy. The posts above illustrate clearly that we have both irresponsible cyclists and car drivers. Force mixing them together on Ross Rd is a formula for disaster. The part of this post below is taken from another article and threads re Ross Rd.

"Yesterday my grandson visited me. He is in his 2nd year at UC Berkeley's School of Law. I told him about the Ross Rd project. Later, when we were on our way back home from Stanford Shopping Center, I purposely had him take Oregon Expressway to Ross Rd and make the right turn onto it so he could experience driving the full length of Ross Rd to my house. The first part included 6 mild speed bumps until we got to the start of the installation of the new boulevard features. He was shocked and kept asking "Why are they doing this?" I gave him the stock answer we get from the people who pushed for it, city staff who planned it, and CC members who approved it. He just shook his head, maybe thinking lawyers will get a lot of business from suits filed in the future. He even had a near miss with an oncoming car at a pinch point.

Here's what I'd like to see before the ribbon cutting to officially open this up. Ribbon cuttings are usually times of celebration and speeches from officials and dignitaries. This one might be different. I propose all the city staff and CC members involved in the project hop on bikes and give it a test run. And here's my plan for that test run: Split the group of bikers in two and have half of them coming from the southern terminus and the other half coming from the northern terminus. Further, intersperse cars driven by opponents of the project, between each cyclist. This will be a true test of real life everyday situations that occur on Ross Rd. Video record the event and interview cyclists, those who survive, after it's over.

We opponents are criticized for not getting involved before, when there were notices given and meetings held to get public reaction and feedback to the project. The fact is this was a major project that required more than the casual notices. It required knocking on doors and offering to discuss and explain it to residents. And plane (2 dimensional diagrams) on plain paper just doesn't describe it adequately. There should have been scaled 3D models and animated videos made to show how cars and bikes would flow through the boulevard. C'mon we live in the center of the tech universe in Silicon Valley.

But, the fact that it was approved by CC doesn't mean we, who are now opposing it, gave our tacit approval of it by not being adequately informed and engaged before."

I know this will get a rise out of the cycling crowd, but I would never let a kid ride a bike in traffic, too much risk. Clearly you can't keep a kid in a bubble, but there are way too many incidents with distracted drivers on the road. Texting, phone calls, conference calls, and Tesla's 17 inch 'infotainment' touch screen, did not exist 20 years ago (not to mention the volume of traffic). I never see any kids walking to school, is that a thing any more? [Portion removed.] Surely being on foot is safer than zipping through traffic on a bike or a skateboard.

One of the serious problems I see every day is what happens when kids on bikes meet the crossing guards on the way to school. The crossing guards stop traffic to allow the bikes across. The crossing guards wave kids through their stop signs. The crossing guards allow bikes to act as pedestrians.

The fact that kids on bikes are growing up with this attitude from crossing guards that they are not vehicles is wrong in my opinion. All this does is teaches the kids that traffic will always stop for them. It teaches them that they don't have to behave like vehicles. It teaches them that the rules of stopping for a stop sign don't apply to them.

What I think must be done is that the culture which enables crossing guards to wave bikes through their stop signs must stop. The crossing guards stop signal must be obeyed by all traffic including bikes, adults on bikes as well as kids on bikes. Our kids are precious and for their safety's sake, they must learn the rules of the road.

Please, please, please make the crossing guards stop bikes as well as all other vehicles and stop treating bikes like pedestrians.

Midtown Shopping Center is a child-friendly shopping center with many businesses that cater to children. Car drivers need to expect to see children in that area, both on the street and in the parking lot, and slow down and pay attention. [Portion removed.] The city also needs to design safer bicycle routes to the shopping center from the neighborhoods on all sides of the shopping center.

Not to say the kids were at fault since we don't have details, but far too many people bike on the sidewalk near the Midtown shopping center going against traffic - so the bikes are coming at you from an unexpected direction.

@john_alderman said, "MIddlefield gets very narrow, especially around Colorado. It's one of the few places I ride on the sidewalk. There is barely room for a car and a bike. There isn't room for a truck or bus and a bike to fit in the lane.. Add to that, people speeding, people turning and and out of the shopping center, peds and cyclists ignoring the signal at the entrance to to the CVS, and you get a pretty dangerous and chaotic section of road."

I totally agree with what you've said. And then throw in the 3 waste bins to clutter up the narrow streets even more.

That's what makes the new ridiculously narrow chokepoints so dangerous and the sanctimonious notes from ZeroWaste about OUR not placing our bins in bike lanes so irritating when ZeroWaste throws our bins all over the street. Did none of our costly "planners" bother to account for buses and other wide vehicle and the our 3 waste bins in the street before spending all this money?? Did it ever dawn on anyone to propose trash pickup on weekends when our neighborhoods aren't over-run by commuter parking and traffic?

@Gale Johnson, re advance notification about projects, you must have missed the last few years of people criticizing the city, esp. the Transportation Dept. for FAILING to notify people about projects right in front of their /our homes. When caught when neighbors DO go door-to-door, the city then gets resentful and refuses to answer questions and AGAIN fails to notify us.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

@parent, not every driver on Middlefield is local and/or familiar with where children congregate.

Many (well meaning, I assume) drivers contribute to the problem by waving youth cyclists through 4-way stop intersections instead of (carefully) taking the right-of-way that the driver has and forcing the cyclists to stop. The youth cyclists are being conditioned to assume that a car at an intersection is going to wait for them, so they first learn to coast through, then later just to ride right through stop signs w/o regard to the presence or approach of a motor vehicle.

I have been behind vehicles when the driver has waited and waved cyclists through. I have also been across from such a driver, and had the cyclist ride right in front of me as I legally began to proceed through the intersection.

SUCH ACTIONS ARE DANGEROUS. Drivers - stop doing this!

ARTICLE 4. Operation of Bicycles [21200 - 21213] ( Article 4 added by Stats. 1963, Ch. 479. )

21208.
(a) Whenever a bicycle lane has been established on a roadway pursuant to Section 21207, any person operating a bicycle upon the roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride within the bicycle lane, except that the person may move out of the lane under any of the following situations:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle, vehicle, or pedestrian within the lane or about to enter the lane if the overtaking and passing cannot be done safely within the lane.
(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(3) When reasonably necessary to leave the bicycle lane to avoid debris or other hazardous conditions.
(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.
(b) No person operating a bicycle shall leave a bicycle lane until the movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after giving an appropriate signal in the manner provided in Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 22100) in the event that any vehicle may be affected by the movement.

The vast majority of cyclists don’t stop at stop signs. Kids ride three and four abreast in the street. Cyclists are distracted because they are texting, talking on their cell phones and riding hands free. The lighting on their bikes is minimal and inadequate.

Since the city insists that garbage bins interfere with bike lanes, let’s go back to garbage men picking up our garbage bins that are located down our driveways. That is the way garbage used to be picked up, and it would solve the problem of garbage bins sitting in the bike lanes.

@ Cyclists ride dangerously:

The vast majority of drivers don't come to full stop when taking rights, use their cell constantly and drive above the speed limit.

So, what's your point? Should we ban them all, and only allow pedestrians? [Portion removed.]

Hopefully the city doesn't use this as an excuse to turn all of Middlefield into a 1-lane road with a giant bike lane cordoned off by bollards in an attempt to "improve bicycle safety and reduce single-occupant-vehicle commuting".

Cars and bicycles simply do not mix well and the bicyclist always loses.

Green paint and sharrows provide zero protection and encourage a very dangerous proximity between cars and bikes.

The only solution is to provide physically separated and protected bike lanes.

According to the article, "In both collisions, the sun's position in the sky reflecting on slick roadways from overnight rain challenged both the cyclists' and drivers' vision."

The law requires a driver (of a bike or a car) to adjust speed to that required by weather and road conditions. The speed limit on Middlefield is 25mph. If the sun was in their eyes, limiting vision, the drivers and cyclists should have been going slower than that. (It's a good bet the bikes were.) I hope they were. One should not drive faster than your own field of vision allows.

I don't know who is to blame. That is for a court to decide (with the complete facts, so let's not speculate). However, I hope we will all take this as a lesson to moderate our speeds and keep our eyes on the road at all times.

Streets are for everyone...whether or not they can or want to drive. Let's share the road with courtesy for each other and respect for the law.

"Streets are for everyone...whether or not they can or want to drive. "

This is a dangerous fallacy - streets are not mean for walkers, wheelchairs, pogo sticks etc.

Streets were designed for cars and trying to mix cars and bikes, particularly bikes ridden by children, will result in injuries and deaths. It is not a matter of right or wrong but of simple physics.

Each of those kids riding a bike to school is ONE LESS CAR on your route. If your schedule has you driving around 8am and 3pm, please take a chill pill and be happy we live in a city where this is possible.

In other cities, those three kids riding and chatting after a long day in a classroom would be three more minivans or SUVs on the road in front of you.

I sure hope the kids are all ok. Very scary. The schools will probably send communications with a Bike Safety reminder.

Before there were cars, there were streets and they were shared by bikes, horses, pedestrians, children playing. The advent of cars created new dangers for everyone and pushed other road users off the road. Car manufacturers lobbied hard to eliminate funding for transit and to support funding for car-centered transportation infrastructure and vehicle code. These things are changing, thank goodness, because cars are impacting our communities and planet terribly--they impact community safety, create congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. Not to mention, Americans are getting fatter than ever as we sit in our cars more. This is affecting our general health.

Streets must be for everyone because not everyone can(or wants to )drive, but everyone has a need to move about the community. Treat your neighbors with kindness, consideration, and respect for the law.

Streets for everyone has be be designed VERY differently than our current streets.


Not right or wrong - just a fact.

This is why I don't ride my bike in Palo Alto anymore.
I'd love to but I won't gamble with the my life.

The complaint that bicyclists do not stop at stop signs
is really irrelevant, and untrue as well. Mostly this claim
comes from people who resent having to share the road
or wait for bicyclists and care nothing for the truth.

Whenever I have seen a bicyclists go across the street
they do not do it blindly or without thinking, they slow
down, make eye contact and most normal non-AH
people will wave the bicyclists through even though
it might mean a wait of 5 second or so. What is wrong
with you complainers?

It does not look this any of these accidents happened
in an intersection anyway.

Drivers I see in Palo Alto everyday constantly and I
mean constantly are on their phones or texting.
Almost every stoplight when it turns green there is
a long delay for someone ahead of me being on their
phones and not realizing the light has changed - at
almost every light.

Drivers fail to stop or in most cases now or even slow
down for stop signs - they just glide right through.
I see this on Channing and Louis every day almost
all the time.

And the other thing that drivers do almost all the
time is drive in the middle of the road - when there
cars in the other lane. I see this every day on Channing
and Homer as cars have their wheels over the line
into the other lane.

Get rid of poor, inconsiderate and incompetent
drivers and this would clear up instantly.

One problem is that when police are mandated to target
these things they just go out to ticket anyone, not the
real bad drivers. There needs to be some kind of rule
where they save giving out tickets to real problems not
just to get it off their list of todos.

"The only solution is to provide physically separated and protected bike lanes."

Great idea--if cars never had to cross the bike lanes. The Walgreen's collision happened at such a crossing.

Bikers and walkers need attitude transplants, specifically, that having the legal right of way is not an ironclad entitlement to march into the path of a nearby oncoming vehicle. So, how do we teach common sense to the members of our Privileged Class while they are still alive, and luckless innocent drivers are still untraumatized?

[Post removed.]

I live on the corner of Ross and Moreno. I work outside a lot and watch what happens in the intersection. About 1 in 20 bikes even slow down when they ride through the intersection. I have had bikes ride right in front of me after I have stopped at the 4 way stop at Ross and Colorado. And it was like it was my fault I did not stop again quick in the middle of the intersection so as not to hit them. Yikes. I have had bikes plow into the side of my car when I was stationary. We need some bike law enforcement. Road furniture in the middle of the street will not fix this problem.

I agree 100 percent with Peter Carpenter.

someone else wrote
"The youth cyclists are being conditioned to assume that a car at an intersection is going to wait for them,"

This got much worse in my area when the City made a completely poorly thought out bike box on Donald at Arastradero. The City is teaching the kids that they are supposed to pull around cars and jump in front of them at intersections. If you go to the national traffic organization that outlines the use of bike boxes, every last example is of large boxes on roads with major clearance and visibility, not a single one are basically teeny tiny hockey sticks on roads with no visibility, which basically teach kids that they are supposed to veer in front. Since this went into practice, I have witnessed a lot of new, unsafe behavior among cyclists who expect that they are supposed to ride around cars and go to the front of the intersection. I have even witnessed a bike do this to the left of s car and run right into Arastradero with cross traffic having a green light.

Our experience has been similar to Ross road, neighbors treated like mushrooms and cyclists like guinea pigs.

@Resident, your. Omplaint that
"The crossing guards allow bikes to act as pedestrians."
Is. Overestimate in the DMV handbook.

Left Turns
There are two proper methods for making a left turn on a bicycle:
Using traffic lanes
Or
Approach the intersection staying on the right. Stop and cross as a pedestrian in the crosswalk,

"The crossing guards allow bikes to act as pedestrians."

As well they should.

On the. Intraday, the city should not be teaching bikes to split lanes and ride around cars to jump across their bumpers as in these ill-conceived and poorly implemented bike boxes.

Safety First. The crossing guards should make the kids dismount if they want to be treated as pedestrians. Otherwise they are vehicles and should obey the crossing guards stop sign like other vehicles. As soon as someone on a bike dismounts, of course they are then pedestrians. But, when they are on their bikes they are vehicles, not pedestrians.

Bicycles should never ride through crosswalks, but they get away with it all the time. Dangerous! It's designed for slow-moving pedestrians, a fast-moving rider using the crosswalk is less visible to drivers.
I believe this was the situation when a cyclists was killed at San Antonio and El Camino.
Please WALK YOUR BIKES at crosswalks.

... Meanwhile in Amsterdam, we don't wear helmets.

We will see more of this as Palo Alto continues to force drivers and cyclists including kids into each other's path on the roads with sharrows, bulbouts, roundabouts, and crossovers, and as the roads are increasingly congested with parked vehicles on both sides of the street.

Distraction could easily have been a factor but separating drivers and cyclists provides insurance against accidental or negligent distractions.

Sadly, the city doesn't have the right-of way to provide separated bike and pedestrian facilities in many locations. I have biked around Europe, including the Netherlands. It is not correct to say that they have separated bikes, pedestrians and car facilities everywhere in Europe. The changes we are seeing in Palo Alto have been tried in other cities, including bike-friendlier European cities--where many of these concepts were originally implemented.

It is true that in Europe they are much further along creating bike facilities in some areas because they started decades before we did. Some of these countries recognized as early as the 1950s the dangers of allowing the oil and auto lobbies drive their communities' toward car-dominated transportation system. As a result, they have more robust bicycle and pedestrian facilities and efficient, ubiquitous transit.

Can we please try to understand each other and work together to identify solutions that make our streets work for everyone? We are neighbors. Let's all moderate our speeds, put our cell phones away when we are moving on the street, and use the road legally and attentively--no matter how we are traveling. This will make a safer, healthier, happier community for us all.

We are not on different sides. We are all people who are just trying to get around. Let's tread gently on this earth and love our neighbors.

These are terrible accidents. Peter Carpenter's proposed solution of separated bike lanes would be best.

Not true that every bike is one less car. In the mornings I see families that I know biking to school -- one parent and 2 or 3 kids. So 3 or 4 bikes instead of 1 car.

My car windshield was frosted up and the glare off Louis Ave was intense. I'd say on average the bikes are a lot less predictable than cars but I would also say that bikes are supposed to squeeze between parked cars, cars, and pedestrians and the roads are not set up for bikes. Also a comment on Ross road. I thought they were going to pinch off cars which would be helpful for bikes and traffic both. But those structures to squeeze down to exactly two lanes are very uncomfortable as a bike to go through. I prefer the original road. I'm going to have to go up on the sidewalk around those structures I'm sure that is not the intent. If those structures did not cut into the bike lane I would be happy with them but they essentially cut out the entire bike lane.

I drove through the Middlefield accident yesterday, and it looks like it was a low speed collision. Thank goodness. I many motorists exceeding the 25mph limit on Middlefield, myself included, but to my estimation the driver was going the speed limit or below.

Seeing such a heated debate over what cyclists and motorists are doing is alarming to say the least. Shouldn't we be more worried about what we can do as a community to make traffic safe for all?

To those complaining about the Ross Rd "improvements," I drive along Ross Rd at 8am each weekday morning and it hasn't had an impact on my commute. I have noticed less cars SPEEDING, but I haven't seen anything that screams unsafe. At first I was suspicious of the work being done, but so far I am surprisingly please with how it's turned out.

I bike daily with my child in front seat:cars are king on Palo Alto streets. I hope separate bike paths will be built in the future because I’m forced to bike on sidewalk regularly just to not be run over. Infrastructure is not up to date with regards to the busier, changing use of the roads. This is not the 50’ anymore. More cars, bycliclists and pedestrians are on the road today. Palo Alto street design and infrastructure is built for car traffic. Bicyclists are much more vulnerable so they need more protection. It’s time for a real visionary plan, not just patches here and there, or little paint on the road. Sharing the road is not working. Look at Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany where they make bicycling safe because they built safe bike paths.

I guess, reading these comments, bad design means the person can't drive as fast as they want. Everyone has a reason why they need to be driving their car, unfettered and without the need to accommodate other road users.

These roads are called Freeways, and yes, even these are all backed up some hours of the day. Guess why? because there are too many cars to fit, Silly!

I can't wait until the reality elf visits the road capacity deniers.
Less cars equals less traffic. The number of cars has reached near critical mass and it WILL NOT improve until we have less solo drivers. Simple fact. It's not fun to admit that this is the norm if you insist on driving everywhere, but Physics cares not about such desires of unfettered driving. Montana is a good state for that though.

@Bad traffic design

Not road capacity deniers. We all know there are just too many people living in our Bay Area, and most of them own, and yes, need cars. I was born and raised in Montana and at a time when there were no speed limits. That has changed, but I think the population of Montana, the third largest state in our contiguous 48 states, has a population about the same as the city/county of San Francisco. But even in Montana they have local traffic problems. Take 10th Avenue in Great Falls for an example. Go up there and preach to them about giving up their cars and instead, riding bikes. I hope you have a good medical insurance plan.

@Peter Carpenter (and others):

"Physics" means that car drivers have a particular -responsibility- to drive carefully, not to drive faster than safety allows, not to drive at all when their windshield is too frosty or fogged to see where they are going, drive within the speed limit, and, drive as slowly as necessary (i.e. less than the speed limit) in order to satisfy the California Basic Speed Law:

'California has a “Basic Speed Law.” This law means that you may never drive faster than is safe for current conditions.'

Web Link

You might also want to note the following:

'According to the new law (AB1371, Bradford), signed by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. on September 23, 2013, if traffic or roadway conditions prevent motorists from giving cyclists three feet of space, drivers must "slow to a speed that is reasonable and prudent" and only pass when a cyclist will not be in danger. Violations are punishable by a $35 fine. Motorists who collide with cyclists and injure them while violating the Three Feet for Safety Act can be subject to a $220 fine. Under the previous law, a vehicle was simply required to pass to the left at a "safe distance."'

Web Link

Pedestrians and bicyclists must travel on and/or cross streets, roads, and highways since most travel is not grade separated. Obviously, you are not allowed to cross a freeway, for example, on foot. But, how do *you* get from your house to your car parked across the city street? The problem is not *physics*, it is *2D geometry*, and, lacking a total grade-separated 3D transportation world, people will have to -share the road-. There is no -geometric- alternative.

The periodic cyclist-motorist war on Palo Alto online all came from a obvious difference: we don’t acknowledge the other party’s presence. The bad infrastructure intensify this conflict. After many close calls, I recent retreated from bike commuting and turned to driving all the time, after nearly 6000 miles on bike commuting. One more van in the morning traffic plus 10 gallon gas consumed. Nice.

Back when I was a kid...
Newspapers here were delivered by bicycle.
Hard to believe now.

Accidents like this should MANDATE a check of the drivers cell phone.
If they were on it at the time of the accident, they should have the same punishment as if they hit kids when they were drunk driving.
Call phone drivers = drunk drivers.

That 3-foot law is ridiculous.

Impeach Jerry Brown!

@Bad traffic design

The problem is not SOVs. This is part of the lie that the Socialist regime of California tries to shove down our throats.

There is... absolutely.nothing wrong with driving a car alone. This is a crucial part of the Western lifestyle.

I often choose to walk to places in Palo Alto rather than drive. I will walk across the entire town. Palo Alto is not that big. I love to go on a good stroll.

However, I am tired of this anti-SOV propaganda because the problem, as Gale Johnsoj alluded, is an unreal concentration of people in a small place -- this is caused by tech companies bringing people in from every corner of the globe to live here. It is totally unrealistic.

Hence CA tries all kinds of experiments (lane reductions, sharrows, car-free corridors, double HOV lanes, HOV3, HOV4 to get people to willingly give up driving, sacrificing precious hours of their day.

This never happens. People stay in their cars, and we end up with monstrous congestion... like three lanes at 101/San Antonio completely immobile while people dangerously fly past them in the double HOV lanes.

The truth remains:

It's OK to be a single-occupant commuter.

@Resident: Are you saying that because of how Midtown was laid out (in the 50's?), the resulting bad traffic design makes victims of SOVs? Or, somehow, the "Socialist Regime of California" was responsible for the accidents? I'm confused. :-(

Wouldn't you like to see the police reports first before assigning blame?

@bike commuter

Your post is kind of a 'bad news...good news' story. It's sad to hear your commute biking experience got so bad you gave it up, but I'm sure you're not the only one that did it. The good news is you feel safer in a car. Amen to that. I don't bike because I don't own a bike anymore (did at one time many years ago), so I drive, and I see so many bad situations that come close to disastrous and deadly situations on our South PA streets. I see young cyclists riding home from school, 3 abreast, straying far out of the bike lanes, and into paths of cars...holding them up. And these aren't dumb or stupid kids when it comes to schoolwork. They're brilliant students. So where do their survival brains, skills and instincts, go once they're out of the classrooms?

I think a dedicated plan for educating drivers and cyclists is important. The Ross Rd project was implemented poorly and should never have been approved in the first place. But, now that it's here, the city needs to provide guidance on how to use it.

@Anon

No I was responding to an earlier post. Scroll up a little. With 100s of comments being posted we frequently go off-topic in the comment section and start debating.

Bicyclists routinely ignore the stop signs on all the streets crossing Channing , my route home at night In the past.

I’ve changed my route to Embarcadero where there are less cyclists, and less reckless behavior.
Many cyclists have no reflective gear or lights , making iit impossible to see them in the evening and night time
Motorists are assumed to be at fault, we need a culture shift about safety from cyclists.
Wear reflective gear, have lights , and obey traffic laws

Wow! all this noise about a minor accident. Every kid on a bike is one less monstrous vehicle blocking a driver's way to the next stop light - this is fact. Dream on if you think separate bike paths are the answer. Ridiculous idea because there are too many intersections (driveways). Separate bike paths are ok out in the country but they do not work in the city. Besides, consider our real estate market - no way this is going to happen. What is going to happen: as technology advances there will be fewer commuters driving to a job, autonomous vehicles may make the roads safer. A walkable, bicycle friendly city is highly desirable. Palo Alto needs to promote this and plan for it. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Kathy Durham, we have had bicycle safety taught in the schools. We need to support and continue this program.

*** Merry Christmas! ***

On-topic, with almost no one commuting into Palo Alto yesterday and today, it has been delightful out there. With just us residents and no business-related traffic, the streets have plenty of room. It can't help but make me think about what life would be like if people had efficient alternatives to SOVs to get to work.

I am a bicyclist and have a 5 year old grandson who also bikes; I am very careful with him when we are on any road.

I believe that we have an intrinsic problem with the number of bikers, the range of ages, and the traffic density. Our city officials have done their best within traditional approaches to improve the situation.

We need to start thinking much more creatively about solutions; we all know we're in a center of innovation. It is time to use our imagination and come up with new ways of separating cars and bikes...vertically as well as horizontally perhaps.

We all pay for the streets. We all must use them. Sometimes we walk. Sometimes we bike or drive or use transit.

However you use the street, please consider others who are sharing the road with you. Be legal, be safe, be considerate. 'Tis the season to make resolutions. Let's resolve to be kinder and to consider the needs of others.

Finally, kindly turn off your cell phone when you navigate the road. It is a dangerous distraction.

@ Marc Miller

"I believe that we have an intrinsic problem with the number of bikers, the range of ages, and the traffic density." I absolutely agree with you on that point.

"We need to start thinking much more creatively about solutions; we all know we're in a center of innovation. It is time to use our imagination and come up with new ways of separating cars and bikes...vertically as well as horizontally perhaps." I might agree with you if I understood what you mean by the vertical and horizontal separation, and can you give us an example of what your "more creatively designed solutions" would be. Is the current Ross Rd design one of those, in your mind?? I surely hope not.

So, tell us what you think of the Ross Rd project, and will you and your grandson be using Ross Rd a lot? I drove Ross Rd again today, coming back from Safeway, just to check the progress. Now they've added speed bumps with very narrow gaps in them, apparently for cyclists to aim for to get through by avoiding the bumps. That will be interesting to watch young cyclists racing to see who can get through first, with anxious car drivers behind them. You alluded to total separation and that makes so much sense. I'm intrigued by vertical separation. Please elaborate on that idea.

@ Anon

Glad you had that one day of Nirvana...remember it and cherish it...and now it's back to business as usual.

@ Bike Commuter

I differentiate you from the other lower case lettered poster...'bike commuter'. He, or she, makes sense...you don't.

"Every kid on a bike is one less monstrous vehicle blocking a driver's way to the next stop light - this is fact." Wow! That is so thoughtless, disingenuous, and uncaring of you, to promote putting a kid on a bike (endangering their lives), in front of a 'monstrous vehicle' to slow traffic. Are you okay?? Are you having an episode? Should someone call 911? You're obviously not thinking clearly.

Gale Johnson, a resident of Adobe-Meadow, wrote:


"That is so thoughtless, disingenuous, and uncaring of you, to promote putting a kid on a bike (endangering their lives), in front of a 'monstrous vehicle' to slow traffic." (sarcasm deleted)

Gale, California's basic speed law requires a driver in any vehicle, including a monstrous one, to slow down and not hit a kid on a bike. There are many circumstances where the street configuration will result in a kid on a bike being in front of a vehicle. The vehicle driver is obligated by law to drive safely. I am not a lawyer and don't pretend to be one, and, I know that the law is different in other states. The Basic Speed Law has been part of California law for many, many decades. As should be clear, just driving at or below the posted speed limit definitely does not absolve a driver from negligence.

Also, in many of these threads, people have complained about the typical 25 mpg speed limit. That is statewide -- that is, the default speed in a residential or congested business area is 25 mph by default unless posted for a higher speed limit. 25 mph is also the statewide limit when "driving around children" -- unless posted lower- school zones may post at 15 mph. Here is a driver page on -California- speed limits.

Web Link


-Share the road-

Negligence is very unimportant after a child has been injured or killed because they were told that they are would be safe because of the paint on the roadway.

Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of Atherton, wrote:

"Negligence is very unimportant after a child has been injured or killed because they were told that they are would be safe because of the paint on the roadway."

Believe me, I'm sorry kids on bicycles were injured. But, your argument is a "straw man".

Regarding green paint: the city started using it for what I would call a good legal reason, but, from a safety standpoint, it is a useful device to tell car drivers that it is legal for bicycles "to be there" -- and is typically used in places, like on Park Blvd at the Page Mill onramp, where bicycles proceeding south on Park need a zone where cars expect them to be.

The green paint is a message to cars that bicycles heading south are typically going to be away from the right curb, in order to allow cars waiting to get on, to be to their right. I think it makes the intersection safer.

Sure, the bikers would be even safer if they weren't there at all, but, I don't like that option myself.

Green paint may well inform observant drivers but it does nothing to protect bicyclists from drivers who are less observant.

Green paint and things like sharrows create an unjustified sense of safety.

Web Link

"they were told that they are would be safe because of the paint on the roadway."

Who specifically said this???

I could see someone claiming bikes would be safe-ER, but I don't recall anyone saying that they would now be "Safe".
There will be nothing to guarantee that, not even a concrete wall.
*Please don't create a false narrative to support the issue you care about.

That said, I agree separated bike lanes create safe-ER routse, just as green paint does when measured against non-improves lanes.

Sharrows actually increase bicycle accident rates:

Web Link

“What is clear in the Vision Zero era is that truly prioritizing bike safety means building separated bike lanes.“

Web Link

>> “What is clear in the Vision Zero era is that truly prioritizing bike safety means building separated bike lanes.“

What would a "separated bike lanes" design look like at the intersection of Park and the Page Mill onramp?

@Anon
I think it would look like what we already have, the ped//bike tunnel under Alma and the tracks at Cal Ave.
thanks to Peter Carpenter for the informative link about sharrs.

Web Link

Posted by Peter F Carpenter, a resident of Atherton, wrote: (Web Link)

I can't quite picture how that layout would work on Park at Page Mill, but, perhaps if someone has a schematic or something, it would help. In any case, I'm not opposed to it if improved safety results. If Palo Alto tries it out on Park or elsewhere, be prepared for a flood of criticism.

I'm not in love with green paint, BTW-- it, along with several other techniques criticized above, were developed to help -drivers- understand where to expect bicycles, and drive accordingly. The paint is not there to mark some kind of magical area where bicyclists are promised safety. The paint is for drivers. That presupposes that drivers are willing to accept it. But, I don't accept the implicit suggestion of some drivers here that bicyclists would be safer if they stopped riding bicycles. That may be true, but, my goal is to make bicycling safe and practical, not make it disappear.

You claimed in your post that the link provided showed "Sharrows actually increase bicycle accident rates"

Yetr the link provided clearly states: "But only one study to date looked at whether or not sharrows had any impact on overall car-bike collisions—and that study found they could be increasing the risk of injury."

So, only one study has been done and the conclusion thay came to is that they "MAY" increase dangers (meaning "or they may not"). Do you consider this scientifically conclusive? Do you have any other studies or is one, inconclusive study offering wildly vague results enough for you to say "Fact".

Also, please answer my question earlier as well about who told you the roads are now safe (YOUR CLAIM!) Did you see that question? I'm now more unconvinced that you are right that ever based on the "evidence" you seem to accept as fact.
Clearly more studies are needed, and even more clearly, as shown in your "examples" more studies are needed before any real claims should be made. The studies should show the specific areas. Any increase in the area discussed? Now we're talking EVIDENCE.
Some people want something to be true so badly, they'll accept anything as support that they were right. I'm not seeing it though. Obviously the jury is still out on this issue except for those who do not need facts to base opinions on.

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

I challenge anyone to post a study showing that sharrows IMPROVE bicycle safety.

Case closed.

Posted by Peter F Carpenter; a resident of Atherton

>> Sharrows actually increase bicycle accident rates: (Web Link)


Posted by Peter Carpenter:

>> I challenge anyone to post a study showing that sharrows IMPROVE bicycle safety.

Posted by Peter Carpenter:

>> Case closed.


It looks inconclusive to me. For example, this simulation-based study found sharrows "beneficial"

UI_1_Y1_Final Report.pdf

While this study found a small, statistically-insignificant improvement:

Web Link

IOW, "case still open".


On a related topic that appears in this and other threads, I found a paper that the abstract indicates shows that "a greater reliance on roundabouts and self-enforcing roads" improve safety, in a comparison of Australian and U.S. safety (paywall, I only read the abstract):

Web Link

Many people who post here reject the idea that "traffic calming" improves safety, but, similar-sounding measures are used to good effect in Australia apparently, resulting in a fatality rate of "5.3 people per 100,000 population on the roads each year, as compared to the US rate of 12.4".

"Design-related differences include a much greater reliance on roundabouts and narrower street cross-sections as well as guidelines that encourage self-enforcing roads. "

It is a mistake to conflate traffic calming measures with design changes that encourage bicycles to mix with or be in close unprotected proximity to automobiles.

Data on the effect of traffic calming measures says nothing with respect to changes in bicycle accident rates.

Posted by Peter Carpenter; a resident of Atherton

>>It is a mistake to conflate traffic calming measures with design changes that encourage bicycles to mix with or be in close unprotected proximity to automobiles.

>> Data on the effect of traffic calming measures says nothing with respect to changes in bicycle accident rates.

I withdraw the misleading word "related". No conflation was intended. I used it because both types of changes are frequently deprecated in the same posts and by the same folks.

I was just attempting to avoid two posts one after the other. ;-)

@resolve,
You request drivers to kindly turn their cell phones off as they navigate the roads - but a bunch are using their phones to do just that - program and navigate “optimally” through our city’s roads....with use of apps. It’s gotten to a ridiculous point.
Drivers, please pay attention to the road and your surroundings and don’t play being a ride-sharing drivers, constantly checking their app.

>> Drivers, please pay attention to the road and your surroundings and don’t play being a ride-sharing drivers, constantly checking their app.

Anyone tempted to distraction while driving should watch the documentary (Netflix and Youtube) "From One Second to the Next":

Web Link