People will generally concur that the Arastradero-Charleston corridor is quite a mess to navigate during the early morning commute to school or work. The Palo Alto City Council, realizing the flaws in the corridor’s current state, intends to implement a solution starting this year that will make this stretch of road safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.

In addition to added safety, this plan will decrease morning traffic congestion and reduce average speeds while maintaining existing commute times. The solution that theoretically enables these benefits consists of decreasing the number of lanes on the road from four (two running in each direction) to three. It is a novel concept, but one that is rather wanting for sound logic. The best solution, one completely congruous to the belief system of the Council, would be to do away with all those troublesome roads. Vehicle traffic would be eliminated in one fell swoop. Commutes would certainly be safer, but then the City Council would be faced with woes of congested sidewalks due to our devotion to achieving a zero-carbon emission bubble.

First, however, the details of this utopian solution must be examined. The three-lane “hybrid” road will for the consist of “a three-lane cross-section from EI Camino Real to Donald/Terman, including one travel lane in each direction, a wide striped median and left turn pockets at intersections,” according to the City Council report.

The Arastradero-Charleston corridor is about two and a half miles long and carries commuters to 11 schools. The total cost of this plan, which includes installation of road medians, traffic signals and lighted crosswalks among other amenities, will be a sizable $6.2 million, according to the City of Palo Alto.

Despite its admirable aims, the entire plan is completely ridiculous. Arastradero sees an average of 18,300 cars pass through it each weekday. According to TJKM Transportation Consultants, the volume of cars peaks to over 1,000 every hour in the morning. Reducing the number of lanes will only lead to greater traffic congestion than before. The proximity and slower speed of traffic will likely increase the incidences of road rage and bad driving, both of which produce an unsafe environment for all commuters—drivers, cyclists and pedestrians alike. Simply put, if more cars are placed in a smaller area, the likelihood of an accident increases exponentially.

The reduction in lanes will force a greater bulk of the traffic flow onto residential streets, which will make mornings more dangerous for all commuters. It fails to take into account the parents that must continue along the corridor to get to work after they drop off their children. Reducing lanes and backing up traffic will make this already difficult feat neigh impossible.

Even though the plan is advocated as a means of increasing cyclist safety through wider bike lanes, it still falls short of meeting its goal. There are safer bike routes to the campus via the pedestrian path from Georgia Ave. Bikers always have the right of way when biking from the Georgia entrance to the bike cages. However, if bikers choose to use the Arastradero entrance, they will still be faced with incoming traffic going into the drop-off area and parking lot for staff and students. Therefore, they must have a heightened sense of caution, whereas if they used the Georgia path, they could easily cruise into the bike cages.

Taking into account the tremendous cost of the plan and its adverse effects upon commuters, this plan should be promptly dismissed. Allocating such a large amount of precious city funds to increase traffic and overall frustration with the Arastradero-Charleston corridor is just irresponsible and wrong. Hopefully, the next time the City of Palo Alto goes back to the drawing board they will find a better way to use the millions of dollars residents entrust in them.