1 Melissa Thurman
From: Karen Askey
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2022 8:36 PM
To: Melissa Thurman
Cc: Craig Hughes;
Subject: Comment for 8/10/22 Town Council Meeting
Hi, Melissa -
I am unable to attend the upcoming Town Council Meeting on 8/10/22, and the online submission form did not seem to work for me. Please include this email in the Public Comments prior to the meeting. Thanks.
Re Consent Agenda Item f
I am looking forward to becoming a member of the Parks & Rec Committee, and building community through current and new programs. It would be a pleasure to serve our town of Portola Valley in this manner. Thanks! Karen Askey
ITEM 5.f.
ITEM 7.a.
August 9, 2022
To: Portola Valley Town Council
From: Woodside Highlands Improvement Association
Teresa Godfrey, President
Matt King, Road Administrator
Subject: Comments Regarding Town Evacuation Study
We have polled residents of Woodside Highlands and offer these comments in reference to the Evacuation Study:
• Woodside Highlands neighborhood has two exits at the top of the community that allow traffic to exit without using Santa Maria. It is recommended that these exits: (1) the Fire Road between Upper Russell Avenue and Hayfields Road and (2) the by-pass between Upper Russell Avenue and Wayside Road be hardened to insure both are passable in all types of weather. Currently they are both packed dirt with the Fire Road having some drain rock on top.
• There are several other dirt roads that exist on maps but are currently not in use except for some hikers. It is recommended that an inventory of these be made, and those with the potential of being developed for Emergency egress purposes be identified, and funds allocated to bring them up to practical use.
• The use of Santa Maria for one-way traffic downhill is strongly discouraged--although there may be advantages for having two lanes coming down off the hill, the disadvantages of potential drivers trying to come up the hill outweigh any advantages. • Traffic control at the bottom of Santa Maria with Emergency personnel knowing whether it is more advantageous to exit using either Portola Road or Alpine Road is supported. • There is no mention of the importance of any Evacuation Plan being coordinated with the Emergency systems already in place at the Town--particularly radio communication systems.
• To further constrain this area, all access points to these neighborhoods are located along the San Andreas Fault, which increases the vulnerability to those roadway connections."
o Recommend removing this sentence. It is extremely unlikely that a forest fire will coincide with a seismic event. The community is unaware of evidence suggesting that the San Andreas Fault increases the vulnerability of these areas to evacuation challenges due to forest fire hazard.
• Page 6: Portola Valley has a total of seven constrained parcel groups (CPG) that are in areas prone to seismic, flood, wildfire, and landslide hazards. o Recommend changing "and landslide hazards" to "or landslide hazards" because there is no evidence that these CPGs are prone to all of these hazards. For example, Woodside Highlands is not subject to flood hazards. • Page 17: Based on the analysis, Portola Valley has a total of seven constrained parcel groups (CPG) that are in areas prone to seismic, flood, wildfire, and landslide hazards. o Recommend changing "and landslide hazards" to "or landslide hazards" because there is no evidence that these CPGs are prone to all of these hazards. For example, Woodside Highlands is not subject to flood hazards. • I am concerned that the emergency lane is also sharing the same space as the cyclist lane. Is the assumption that there will be no cyclists around during a fire? If so, that is somewhat naive. We have loads of cyclists all year around, and irrespective of the weather - I even saw them last year cycling in 100 degrees conditions with smoke from local fires and with masks on.... I am also concerned that creating a dual use lane will be abused by aggressive drivers and more likely result in increased risk to cyclists when there is not a fire….Equally, creating a wider cycling lane creates even more reason for cyclists to come, and spread out across the road. This is already an issue when the whole side of a road can be occupied by 50+ cyclists from one club coming all at once and ignoring all the rules of the road. Widening the road will just make this an even more attractive place to come to increasing traffic. Incidentally there is no mention of cyclist traffic and how to evacuate them...
• Removing trees and replacing with more road surface not only will turn Portola Valley into yet another urban spread, but also seems to go against the very issue we are trying to solve which is global warming. Why not pave over everything and be done with trees altogether? We chose to live in Portola Valley because it is rural and wooded. We knew of the fire risk (and earthquake risk) when we moved here six years ago. We chose this town because of these facts and, had we considered the risk too high, we would have opted to live in a more urban setting. Building highways is NOT a solution but part of the problem.
• I am concerned that this road widening will ‘pave the way’ for allowing more development in Portola Valley such as the proposed Ladera development by Stanford thus further increasing fire risk. Stopping further development of housing which places more ‘demand’ on roads is another way to solve this issue. • Most importantly, I live in Woodside Highlands classed as VHFHSZ. Whilst Portola seems content to focus on the bigger picture, we have a serious egress issue that noone seems to do anything about. There is an emergency access road between Wayside Road and Santa Maria. This is situated about half way up the hill, and, in the event of a fire, may be the only way to get out for those houses above this road. The entrance to this road is surrounded on both sides by junk including a firewood store (!), cardboard boxes, and other combustible materials including an abandoned vehicle. On one side of the entrance there is a derelict house that is falling apart and probably a major fire risk in its own right. Surely egresses such as this should be maintained and regulated? Further up Wayside there is a property adjacent to an entrance to the trails that is a store for disused military vehicles, all rusting away. Disused vehicles are a fire hazard in their own right. In the six years that I have lived here, nothing is being done about such hazards…. I would urge members of Portola Valley Town Planning to simply walk around the neighborhood and identify and deal with such obvious hazards first. This costs very little and may actually save lives. Notably this hazard is not mentioned in the report. Did anyone actually survey our roads at all for obvious hazards? If not, then I fear PV is missing the point. If you want to make a place safe, the first priority is to minimize obvious hazards.
• Finally, I note that PG&E is starting the process of 'under grounding' power lines in San Mateo County with the first project happening along Alpine Road. Given this report, and the fact that the northbound exit along Sand Hill Road is the only exit for those living in our area, I sincerely hope that Portola Valley is lobbying for Sand Hill Road to be added to the list. If the choice way between widening a road or spending money for PG&E to bury cables, I would certain vote for the latter. Again, per above point, dealing with the hazard is better than building roads, and a major risk for us is fire caused by downed power lines along Sand Hill Road. I don’t see this listed as a scenario in the report.
We also request that when requesting feedback for such an important study, the community is given more than two weeks to submit comments. Even calling a special meeting takes a few days. During summer vacations, additional time is even more necessary.
Thank you for your consideration.
Compiled from comments received from residents of Woodside Highlands.