On November 13, 2024, the City of East Palo Alto will be installing its third temporary traffic circle which one day may be a permanent mini roundabout.

Last year I wrote about the City of East Palo Alto's progress in having 2 temporary traffic circles installed on Pulgas Ave. Today I am sharing that City Council has approved a third temporary traffic circle at Fordham & Notre Dame, which was advocated for by the Safe Routes to School team that I volunteered on. It will be installed on Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at no cost to the City as the ~$20k funds are provided by the San Mateo Office of Education's Safe Routes to School, School Travel Fellowship.

Converting Two East Palo Alto Temporary Traffic Circles to Mini Roundabouts

I am on the San Mateo County Office of Education School Travel Fellowship team, looking to make it safer for students to get to school by converting two temporary traffic circles on Pulgas Ave to mini roundabouts.

East Palo Alto SunChristopher Kao

This past year, I have volunteered on East Palo Alto's School Travel Fellowship team, and we partnered with the Costaño School of the Arts located in University Village (north part of East Palo Alto). My teammates included members from the City of East Palo Alto Public Works Department, the Ravenswood School District,  the San Mateo Office of Education, and San Mateo County Health.

Why

We want to improve walkability for students of the Costaño School of the Arts so that students are safe and get exercise. Additionally, we want to improve traffic calming and reduce rush hour congestion in the University Village neighborhood.

Walkability Safety for Students

1. Parents had called out the Fordham & Notre Dame intersection as the main reason why they did not feel safe having their children walk to school, even though they only lived 6 minutes away.
2. Parents have low visibility when crossing the intersection, due to cars blocking the view from cars to the crosswalk. One resident had mentioned they felt safer crossing Notre Dame mid-segment between Baylor St and Fordham St rather than cross at the Fordham & Notre Dame intersection.
3. The temporary traffic circle installation would also include red striping some distance from the stop signs, so that cars do not park too close to the stop signs which blocks the view from cars to pedestrians crossing the street intersection.

Traffic Calming for University Village Residents

1. There is evidence of cars speeding past this intersection without stopping. Both residents and a SamTrans 280 bus driver (who passes this intersection many times every day) have confirmed this.
2. Car drivers do donuts in this intersection which residents do not want to see.

Reduced Rush Hour Traffic

1. Encouraging more students to walk to school would lead to a decrease in vehicle trips which also alleviates rush hour traffic. We want to increase the percentage of students who walk to school from 12.9% (2021-2022) to 20% or higher.

Status Quo - Drone Photos

Here are drone photos I took on Sunday, November 3, 2024, of the intersection before temporary traffic circle installation.

How This Will Look

The temporary traffic circle will look similar to the ones installed on Pulgas Ave, as shown in the previous blog post linked at the top of this post. There will still be stop signs. If everything goes well, then we hope that the City will allocate funds to design and construct a permanent mini roundabout which likely will not have stop signs.

For an idea of how the permanent mini roundabouts could look, please reference the City's Pulgas Avenue Mini-Roundabouts webpage which at the time of this writing includes 50% design plans.

Outreach

Starting in March 2024, our team met with University Village (East Palo Alto) neighbors to hear about their concerns related to safe routes to school. In April 2024, we hosted a walk audit in conjuction with Alta Engineering. We identified several areas for improvement, and one of these was the Fordham & Notre Dame intersection.

We did not hear push back from the University Village residents we talked to, but I know there are East Palo Alto residents who do not like roundabouts. Some residents do not like the confusion that the Pulgas Ave temporary traffic circles have created for drivers after they were installed. I am not concerned about this long-term based on studies referenced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: "A study of a pair of two-lane roundabouts near Bellingham, Washington, found that confusion about some aspects of navigating the roundabouts persisted one year after the construction ended (Hu et al., 2014)."

Conclusion

I am excited about the improvements that East Palo Alto has been making to its public infrastructure. While a temporary traffic circle is not the final state vision for the Fordham & Notre Dame intersection, it is a nice incremental improvement that offers improved walkability and traffic calming.

I also think it is great that the City has not had to spend any funds to construct the temporary traffic circle. Rather than incur a bigger financial risk by jumping straight to a permanent mini roundabout, our approach of first installing a temporary traffic circle helps de-risk by collecting data and using it to make a decision on whether to eventually advance to a permanent mini roundabout.