The California Highway Patrol (CHP) announced today it will conduct a pedestrian safety enforcement operation in North Fair Oaks next week as part of a broader strategy to prevent collisions resulting in death or injury.
Held in conjunction with a public awareness program, the enforcement operation will take place Monday, July 15, at Middlefield Road and Pacific Avenue, the Redwood City Area CHP said. The operation will “focus on motorists and pedestrians who fail to yield the right-of-way or who take unsafe and illegal actions,” the CHP said.
For years, local residents have called for a safer Middlefield Road. Those calls led to the $12.5 million Middlefield Road Improvement Project, a streetscape redesign that will reduce vehicular lanes along Middlefield from Pacific to Fifth avenues from the current four to three, add bike lanes and widen sidewalks to make room for benches, landscaping, street art and public spaces. Currently, crews are undergrounding utilities to make way for the project construction, expected to begin Spring 2020, according to the county.
That said, the local regional division of CHP still has its eye on current conditions. Enforcement operations are being conducted at heavily traveled crosswalks within its jurisdiction as part of a prevention program funded by a California Office of Traffic Safety grant through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Citations and warnings are being issued in areas with high numbers of collisions resulting in injuries and death, the CHP said.
According the agency’s statement: “Crosswalk enforcement actions are an effective way to communicate pedestrian right-of-way laws to both drivers and pedestrians. The CHP conducts pedestrian enforcement actions in response to community requests and to educate the public on the rules at marked and unmarked crossings.”
