HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/6/2025 Item 7c, Alonso, K.
Kelly Alonso <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Tank Farm Road Opinion
Please consider Alternative 1 (Vehicle Lane Reduction) when redoing Tank Farm Road. I
live in the flowers and have worked for many years on Sacramento, though I recently
moved to a coworking space along the bike path. So 2017 - 2020, 2022 - Jan 2025
biking and walking to work on Sacramento everyday. And Feb to present to OfficeHours
along the bike path. Now at times it has been uncomfortable due to people living in their
vehicles etc but for the most part, the ride has been wonderful, especially when the bike
path was added along Righetti removing the need to use Sacramento on bicycle which
always felt terribly unsafe.
I would recommend setting up cameras along Sacramento before making decisions. I
have seen some truly appalling things walking to and fro around 11, 12 daily (I would
bike there and walk home for lunch, walk to the office, then bike home at the end of the
day). So many large trucks are trying to get in and out of driveways, drivers are in a
hurry to get by. Near the Tortilla Works factory, there is a Construction company that
uses the bike lane as their own personal property. Not so bad now (maybe the last 8
months), but they used to have folks parked in it several times a day, to the point where
I was going to suggest the city pass all maintenance fees for resurfacing and potholes
etc to them as they consider it theirs. Whatever is between the Tortilla Works factory
and the condos up until January of this year still periodically parks some sort of pickup
with a large trailer in the bike lane for quite a bit for loading or unloading. Cars swerve
around them sometimes at very unsafe speeds, into oncoming traffic or into the bike
lanes. Some of the parking is used for employee parking, like UPS workers or people
living in the little neighborhood next door to UPS but much seems to be used by
homeless people. So whatever the solution, it will need to take into account all of the
semis and delivery trucks, but mostly the assholes who cut from Tank Farm Road, go
behind Vons, right onto Industrial and then go speeding down Sacramento. Maybe the
easiest is just to make the alley behind Vons one way, only South and one can only then
turn right on Tank Farm Road? Or add a gate so people need to be buzzed in and out?
Or some police officers could just go park their vehicles across the exit and eat their
lunches in a relaxed manner and only move if a truck is delivering goods to one of the
businesses. And once they notice someone doing a u turn they could have another police
car block the other exit, trapping the car inside the alley, for a nice leisurely lunch and
when people find out it takes 3 hours rather than the time one needs for a stop light or
two, well, three. It might be four really if one counts the ones folks are skipping on
Orcutt Road by doing this. I mean they skip the Tank Farm one, the Industrial one, the
Orcutt one, the Sacramento one. If nothing else, it would give the SLO PD a list of
licence plates of drivers who know for certain they are too special to follow the rules.
Wow. Think of the shortcuts they are taking everywhere. If only the PD knew they were
douchebags, revenue could be generated for all of us when they ticketed them for
every little infraction. Also, this reeks of a failure to safely design roads.
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Tank Farm Road also feels unsafe. Cars drive very fast. When I walk to work around
6:20 am I frequently see people take the curve near Sunrose with part of the car in the
bike lane at 50+ mph. There is nobody on the road at the time, but they are going too
fast coming down that hill to stay in the car lane. There is another car lane right next to
them, but they borrow the bike lane every single time. Around 4:10 every afternoon lots
of high schoolers one by one run across Tank Farm Road near Sunrose/Morning Glory
while those cars come barreling down the hill, possibly with the sun in their eyes if it is
winter. Other kids cross using the railroad bridge (yikes!). While cars coming down the
hill are travelling at unsafe speeds due to hill and wideness of the lane plus the fact
they've given themselves permission to use the bike lane when needed, the cars going
up it aren't much better. They need to speed along on the right to pass that car in front
of them before the road narrows at the railroad bridge. Not entirely certain why this is
important, as they seem to reach the roundabout with the way-too-slow car right behind
the asshole car, well, usually truck. So much compensation here. Maybe the city could
invest in some special (male-member) enhancing pumps for the drivers? Like the one in
Austin Powers? Once they hit like 2 inches (hard) or 3 they might make more
responsible vehicular (and economic) decisions? In the end, the distance between Vons
and the railroad bridge is not so great that cars really need to be passing there, though I
will concede it is nice when pulling out into traffic to know somebody who suddenly
appears right behind you at 50 mph can move to the left lane.
The United States has an obesity problem as well as mental health problems. For so
many kids a healthy lifestyle is out of reach because both parents have to work or a car
is broken or someone took the car to work. SLO Kids need to be able to get to
Sinsheimer where they can be on a swim team. They need to be able to get to French
Park and Islay Park and Damon Garcia for practices. Kids should be able to safely make
it to Vons to buy some ingredients for dinner or some kleenex. Depression is an indoor
disease. Getting kids (and all humans) outside is the answer. Kids need to feel needed
and useful. When we design our streets so our children can navigate them safely on
bikes or walking today, we are designing them so that when we are elderly we can make
it safely to aqua aerobics at Sinsheimer or to CVS to pick up a prescription after our
children take our licenses away and we are getting around with a walker or scooter or a
cane. We will love the feeling of being independent and useful. The price of setting the
car at the center of everything is a terrible one and it will be paid by future us when
health insurance costs are prohibitive because of health issues resulting from a
sedentary lifestyle for anyone who can't afford a gym membership, crazy high housing
costs as more and more land is eaten up by free parking and wider roads for more and
more cars, generations of young people who cannot function enough to hold down a job
and pay into social security and medicare due to their mental health issues, some legit
and some thanks TikTok convincing them they don't need a medical diagnosis, just a
quick video they identify with, and some thanks to the fact that anybody sitting on their
ass all day staring at electronics would have mental health issues, some due the parents
who have spoiled them, some due to their addictions to electronics, and the schools who
require kids to use electronics all day long despite all these issues, putting parents in the
tough position of not being able to take them away. It all adds up and while we can't fix
most of it, we can prioritize future us in this one stretch of land where passing is of little,
if any, value.
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Alternative 1 please
Kelly
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