Calm down

Hopkins Avenue is what is known as a “collector road” — a wider residential street that moves traffic from smaller residential streets to larger arterials. Hopkins Avenue feeds traffic to and from Alameda de las Pulgas, El Camino Real and Broadway. For years, area residents have complained about traffic speeds and volumes, which not only make things difficult for residents trying to back out of their driveways (most single-family homes in Redwood City haven’t enough driveway space to enable cars to turn around) but also make conditions dangerous for children playing at, or heading to or from, Stafford Park, on Hopkins Avenue between King and Lowell streets. I’ve personally witnessed countless speeding cars (the posted limit is 25 mph), cars using the two-way left-turn lane to pass other cars, and traffic accidents.

In mid-2015, city staffers met with a small group of concerned residents to determine the need for a project. Thanks to a larger community meeting later that year, in which the results of the initial meeting were clearly reinforced, things really got underway. A series of public meetings over the next couple of years culminated in a conceptual design that was refined over the course of additional community meetings and surveys. Along the way a decision was taken to pilot the project, meaning that calming elements would be installed as simply and cheaply as possible while still remaining functional. This allows the city to observe the efficacy of the various traffic calming measures without having to fully commit to them. For instance, the new curbing has so far been implemented with rubber bumpers bolted to the pavement. Thus, median islands, which are a key traffic calming measure being implemented along Hopkins Avenue, can be removed, resized or shifted if needed.

Installation of the pilot began late in the summer of 2019, with the reshaping of the “parklet” at the corner of Hopkins Avenue and Alameda de las Pulgas, and was completed just last week with the installation of the rectangular rapid flashing beacons at either end of Stafford Park. Other major components of the project include a couple of wide raised crosswalks (that both slow traffic and increase visibility of pedestrians using those crosswalks), numerous crosswalk bulbouts (which shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians), additional clearly marked crosswalks, a number of median islands breaking up Hopkins Avenue’s two-way left-turn lane (these make the road feel narrower, causing traffic to naturally slow down), and the replacement of the gently curving left turn from southbound Alameda de las Pulgas onto eastbound Hopkins Avenue with a new, conventional left-turn lane.

All of these elements are far more than the simple stop sign or two that some people assumed would be enough, but, counterintuitively, stop signs are no panacea when it comes to slowing down traffic. Many studies have shown that stop signs are simply not effective in reducing midblock speeds. One study even showed that adding stop signs may actually increase peak speeds: apparently, motorists tend to speed up between stop signs to make up for the time lost while stopping.

Now that we’ve had a few weeks to adjust to the changes, the city is remeasuring both traffic speed and volume at various points along the route. In December, the city will also post an online survey to collect community opinions. Results of that survey, along with the pilot evaluation results, will be presented at yet another community meeting early next year.

In a perfect world, people would actually obey the rules of the road, and thus traffic calming projects like these would not be necessary. We don’t live in that world, unfortunately, so here we are. Anecdotally, it does seem that people are driving somewhat slower on Hopkins Avenue, especially near the park, but we’ll have to wait for the traffic counts and survey results to be sure. Assuming that this project does prove out, the city will have learned some new tricks for dealing with traffic calming, tricks that presumably can be used elsewhere in the city. Hopefully they can be implemented there in a, well, speedier fashion.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.