Crescent Drive residents probably don't need to read a countywide study to know that they live near one of Palo Alto's most dangerous intersections.

Just last month, as the city's Planning and Transportation Commission discussed new traffic-calming measures in a chronically congested and collision-prone segment of Crescent between University and Hamilton Avenues, Crescent Park resident Greg Welch called the historic interplay of cars and pedestrians in this part of the neighborhood "treacherous" and likened street conditions at the five-point intersection of Hamilton Avenue, Southwood and Center drives to a "demolition derby."

"People would rush in and there was no sense of: Who is supposed to go next? How do I make a left?" Welch told the commission at a June 14 public hearing.

The observations of Welch and his neighbors — 78% of whom supported the pilot project — are borne out in Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's latest analysis of high-collision segments and intersections. The Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP), which the VTA released in September 2022, gave University and Crescent a dubious honor: top ranking on its list of Palo Alto's high-collision roadways, which considers both the frequency and severity of collisions.

Other intersections on the list — in order from highest to lowest score — are El Camino Real and Barron Avenue; Middlefield Road and Oregon Expressway; Alma Street at Meadow Drive; and Embarcadero Road at Middlefield Road, according to the VTA report.

Collectively, these intersections accounted for 51 collisions between 2015 and 2019, the VTA report states. This included 16 collisions at Middlefield and Oregon; 11 at University and Crescent and 10 at Alma and Meadow.

Some caveats are in order. The analysis is based on pre-pandemic data and, as such, considers neither the shifting commuting patterns brought about by remote work nor recent road improvements like the one in Crescent Park.

In addition, city staff note that community engagement for the Road Safety Plan was limited and that equity considerations were absent from the county's analysis and recommendations. To that end, Palo Alto is now launching its own effort to identify dangerous intersections and explore needed improvements.

With the help of a $160,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration, which the City Council approved on June 19, Palo Alto is preparing to develop a Safe Streets for All action plan, a two-year effort that will supplement the county analysis by surveying the public and conducting a fresh analysis of local road conditions.

Sylvia Star-Lack, the city's transportation planning manager, told this publication that the plan will "use collision data to identify the city's priority projects needed to enhance road user safety."

"The plan will also be informed by citywide community engagement efforts to understand road user experiences in Palo Alto," Star-Lack said in an email.

For the council, the new study is a central component of a "safe streets" policy that members formally prioritized in April after heavy lobbying by local bicyclists. The city's recently adopted Sustainability and Climate Action Plan also includes a "vision zero" policy that aims to "reduce injuries to all road users, particularly vulnerable road users" and to "reduce traffic injuries to zero."

Getting to zero

The VTA report suggests that Palo Alto has a long way to go to reach the "zero" ideal. The VTA report identified 1,802 collisions that occurred on Palo Alto roads between 2015 and 2019. Of these, 1,110 led to complaints of pain and 647 involved visible injuries.

According to the VTA, 45 collisions led to serious injuries and 10 led to a fatality. Nearly 90% of the collisions that involved pain complaints occurred at intersections, according to the report. Rear-end and broadside collisions were the most common, making up 35% and 33% of the total number, according to the analysis.

The VTA report also identified 555 collisions involving bikes and pedestrians over the study periods. Of the 416 that involved bicycles, 254 led to visible injury, the report states.

In addition to pinpointing the most dangerous intersections, the county's road plan also identified Palo Alto's most collision-prone corridors. The worst of the bunch is a 1.4-mile stretch of Oregon Expressway between Ash Street and just east of Louis Road, an area that saw 66 collisions between 2015 and 2019, according to county data.

It is followed on the list by four other busy commute arteries:

• El Camino Real, between Lambert Avenue and El Camino Way;

• Embarcadero Road between Byron Street and Newell Road;

• University Avenue between Crescent Drive and the eastern edge of the city; and

• Middlefield Road roughly between Portal Place and Garland Drive.

Some improvements at these high-risk areas are already being made. Around Crescent Drive, for example, the city has already implemented a traffic-calming project with a traffic island and new stop signs, among other things. Welch told the commission last month that these improvements have been effective at making things safer, and the commission agreed to retain them beyond the trial period.

Other changes are on the horizon. The county plan notes that the state Department of Transportation is preparing to repave El Camino later this year, which the agency indicated could include replacement of parking spaces with bike lanes all along the corridor. Caltrans has not yet released a formal proposal for the El Camino bike lanes, an idea that has proved polarizing in the past.

The county study also recommends targeted enforcement efforts at high-collision corridors where speeding and stop sign violations are common; an education campaign on the dangers of speeding and causes of rear-end collisions; and road features such as raised medians, splitter islands, raised pavement markers at intersections and flashing beacons.

Updating the city's master plan for bikes, pedestrians

Many of these improvements will also be explored as part of Palo Alto's update of its Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan, a 2012 document that has helped steer the city toward recent projects like the new bike bridge over the U.S. Highway 101 and new bike amenities in areas like Ross Road and East Meadow Drive.

Spearheaded by the consulting firm Kittelson & Associates, the new plan will rely on state and local data to analyze "the state of biking in the city of Palo Alto," according to the consulting contract. This will include information related to "demographics, commuting and travel characteristics, counts/activity, existing and planned pedestrian and bicycle facilities, access to transit stations, presence and availability of bicycle parking, Walk & Roll routes to school, comfort, safety, barriers and connectivity."

It will also examine pedestrian conditions and assess "major barriers and impediments to pedestrian travel," including sidewalk gaps, missing curb ramps and "presence of water bodies and rail lines that results in discontinuous routes."

Notably, the new plan will look at the impacts of the pandemic on transportation patterns.

"Information derived from this analysis will be used to identify specific locations for field review that require improvement, and possible enhancements in motorist, bicyclist and pedestrian awareness and educational programs, including at key locations such as downtowns, near and at transit stations, employment and schools," the agreement states.

For local bike advocates, the new planning effort offers a chance to advance new projects and revisit old debates. Eric Nordman, vice chair of the Palo Alto Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (PABAC), said he hopes it will lead the city to reconsider its opposition to placing barriers on bike boulevards to separate cars from bicycles.

It was this policy, Nordman said, that hindered the city's efforts to create a bicycle boulevard on Ross Road, a project that proved so contentious that it forced city staff to effectively halt work on all other bike boulevards.

While many local residents complained about a new roundabout that the city installed on Ross Road, Nordman suggested that the bigger problem is the city's tendency to "squeeze" cars and cyclists together by installing bulb-outs and narrowing the roads.

Nordman said he wants the city to reconsider this approach and instead focus on creating bike expressways — streets where the configuration of stop signs and traffic lights enable smooth cycling with few stops and where barriers deter cars from speeding.

He also said he wants to see the city improve its east-west connections, which remain much more difficult than north-south. The city's recent effort to revamp the busy Charleston-Arastradero corridor took about two decades to implement.

And while the plan will explore other road improvements to improve safety for all types of commuters, Nordman suggested that this will prove challenging in south Palo Alto, where many neighborhoods were designed primarily for cars

"You can make improvements, but it's always going to be more difficult when you have these meandering roads that don't connect and major arterial roads where all the cars are directed to," he said.

Rather than simply focus on improving dangerous corridors and intersections, some bike advocates hope the new planning efforts will consider new bike routes that will allow cyclists to avoid these high-stress areas altogether.

Nordman cited the approach used in the Netherlands and in Scandinavian countries, where bicyclists and drivers are each steered toward road networks that are designed for their needs. Robert Neff, who also serves on PABAC, said he believes the city can do more to guide people to safe routes.

"I think that besides going through and figuring out what is the most dangerous place to be on a bike and how to fix it, I think we can do better on wayfinding and helping people figure out where the good routes are and making it something more obvious around the city," Neff said.