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Cornhole sets, picnic tables and water barricades are among the new additions you might have seen at Lawrie Duncan Park in recent months.
On March 26, the city closed the northeast tip of Southgate Street, which intersects with the park, to pilot a project that would connect the two grassy islands. The goal is to calm traffic while augmenting park and recreational spaces in the area.
Neighbors are split in their opinions about it.
The roads around Lawrie Duncan Park are notorious for high-speed traffic and tricky turns. Some residents welcome the change as a safety improvement, but critics say it has made intersections riskier and question whether the site is a good location for a big park in general.
The impetus for the project came from the 2018 Redwood City Parks and Recreation Facilities Needs Assessment, which found that to accommodate its “unprecedented economic growth,” it needed more green spaces and play places, including near Lawrie Duncan Park.
The latest needs assessment of 2018-19, in tandem with the Engineering Department’s long-term plan to change the geometry of Brewster Avenue’s five-leg intersection that has a “history of accidents,” laid the foundation for change, according to Malahat Owrang, the city’s principal transportation planner.
Brewster Avenue saw at least 26 collisions between 2017 and 2024 and the city received multiple requests for traffic calming measures at that location toward the end of 2024, the city’s Communications Manager Nick Mathiowdis said.
While Brewster is eligible for traffic calming, Mathiowdis said that such projects are typically multi-million-dollar capital investments, and plans to update other corridors in Redwood City are a higher priority. The Lawrie Duncan pilot, he said, aims to “address some of the safety concerns with quick-build and short-term solutions.”
The city said it made multiple efforts to notify residents about the pilot before it began — a point of contention among some neighbors who later said they were caught off guard.
The city sent mailers to residents within 500 feet of the Brewster-Nevada intersection on March 14 to inform them of the upcoming Southgate Street closure and new additions to the park. Initially, these included synthetic grass, picnic tables and Adirondack chairs.
The city also held a community meeting at the park on April 16, where residents asked for minor active features. In response, officials added cornhole boards, which have been popular with neighbors, according to Mathiowdis.
After the first phase of the park expansion was completed, the Parks and Recreation Department conducted a community survey in April and May to garner community feedback. The vast majority of survey respondents, 236, supported closing that portion of Southgate Street permanently and augmenting Lawrie Duncan Park, as opposed to the 79 who wanted to end the closure immediately.
Residents are divided, with many raising traffic safety concerns.
“I fear for my safety each and every time I leave my neighborhood now,” Patricia and Rosemary Girardi, who live in two homes at two addresses on Inner Circle, wrote in a letter. “Cars go up and down Brewster too fast and that has not stopped by closing the parkway.”
They said they’ve nearly been hit several times and feel like “you are putting your life in jeopardy and hoping and praying that no car is coming” before initiating that “left turn onto Brewster.”
Both Brewster Avenue and Nevada Street, which border Lawrie Duncan Park, are through roads that sit on hills and have fast-moving cars.
The closure of Southgate Street has redirected traffic so that drivers must make a 270-degree left turn to get onto Brewster Avenue or Nevada Street from Outer Circle, rather than having what they consider to be a safer approach through Southgate Street.
Another neighbor, Barbara Schwan, said that “this project has led to more near misses and accidents, not fewer.” Similarly, she said that “you take a chance every time you make the turn.”
Critics of the closure, like Inner Circle resident Wyatt Hamon, point to nearby parks like Stafford and Red Morton as adequate, and offer the addition of stop signs, speed bumps and/or a roundabout to more effectively address traffic calming.
The city should work with the Public Works Department “to develop the many pieces of land that are fenced off or simply unattended to,” he pitched for upping local parks, and pointed to the stretch from Avenue Del Ora Avenue to Cordilleras Road.
The city debunked concerns of traffic congestion, especially in reference to fire emergency response, citing coordination with the Redwood City Fire Department and traffic studies that showed “no traffic diversion or impact to the surrounding streets” as a result of the pilot program.
“The majority of feedback we have received thus far has been positive and in support of an extended closure,” Mathiowdis said.
Now used by bicyclists and joggers as a protected road, one camp of residents appreciates the new space for leisure and finds it to have improved the overall safety of what was a five-leg intersection.
Roger Hagman, for one, feels the project combines “two useless park-lets into one usable and enjoyable park.” Moreover, he thinks the update has “slowed traffic” and reduced “side shows” and “donuts.”
Another neighbor, Jean Yang, said she’s seen “lots of folks bring their children and dogs to use the park addition.”
While the city referred Yang to this news organization as an advocate for the pilot, she did say she’d “prefer that the city decouple the issue” of adding park space from addressing traffic safety. The park extensions, she said, “improve quality of life, but don’t address a pressing issue.”
The city also introduced a new, popular crosswalk last winter at the Nevada-Brewster intersection to improve pedestrian safety and intends to add other “improvements” around the site to facilitate walking access to the park, the city’s communication manager said.
Staff will evaluate the success of the pilot project based on community feedback, observed levels of park usage, traffic patterns on surrounding streets and pedestrian safety.
If studies and resident feedback show that Southgate Street could stay closed without a negative impact on the area, then Lawrie Duncan Park would expand. If so, the city plans to “make some improvements” to better traffic circulation and pedestrian crossing.
Currently, water barricades close the lane and will remain for several months until the city decides to either progress with the project or nix it. Delineators would be used in the next phase, and community and council discussions about the prospect of a more permanent closure would follow.
Should the city choose to proceed with the project, a land survey and greater study would come next, which could take up to three years, according to Owrang.
At this time, the city does not have a cost projection for a permanent project.
Some residents have voiced discontent about the process by which this project has been carried out, confused how the city could progress with a closure without what they consider to be robust community and City Council discussion. Because the project is just a pilot at this step, Mathiowdis said the city does not have to follow the formal traffic calming project process.
The city does not have a “master list” of all of its pilot projects, and does not have an official law to govern them, Redwood City’s communications manager said. “This is an independent project.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct Jean Yang’s comment.
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