San Carlos proposes widening Holly Street…

December 24, 2008

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Widening Holly Street

In what will certainly be a contentious and highly-charged issue, The City of San Carlos today released preliminary details on its proposal to widen Holly Street at Industrial Road.   As it exists today, the stretch of Holly Street leading west from Industrial Road already has 115 feet of widened, 3-lane traffic.   The Holly Street Widening Project calls for that 3-lane configuration to be extended another 205 feet, for a total of 320 feet.   The diagram for impacted areas is at the right –>

While the widening will fit within the 60 foot wide public right-of-way, there will be a direct impact to 9 residential units on this stretch as some landscaping will be lost and sidewalks will need to be re-configured.

Why is the City proposing this?   The Environmental Impact Report that came from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation project recommends widening Holly Street to mitigate gridlock from the increased traffic they'll be expecting once the facility opens for business.

The City has the details of the project, as well as planned dates for community hearings on their website — here's the link:  Holly Street Widening Project.    There's also another picture of the impacted area:

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I hate to be pessimistic, but I'm not convinced the benefits of this work will outweigh the inconvenience to the impacted residences.   If you've traveled Holly Street during the morning or afternoon commute hours, you'll know that it's often completely jammed from El Camino all the way to Industrial Road — sometimes in both directions.  So simply widening another 200+ feet of the road may not make a noticeable difference, especially when the PAMF traffic kicks in.   I think Holly's traffic woes are much bigger than this.

 What are your thoughts on this proposal?

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