Willow Road at Highway 101 remains a major migraine

Q I’m sure I can’t be the only person complaining about the terrible traffic on Willow Road in Menlo Park at Highway 101 going toward the Dumbarton Bridge during the evening commute. — Karen Chiu, Cupertino

A Oh, my gosh, you are not.

Q Ever since they’ve made changes to the ramps, traffic has been an absolute nightmare. It takes me over 30 minutes to travel the 0.2 mile from the VA Hospital to the 101 south on-ramp. — Karen Chiu

A Come on, that has to be a typo.

Q No, that is not a typo. Literally, 30plus minutes to go twotenths of a mile. Then it takes me another 30 minutes to go the rest of the 15 miles to Cupertino. One hour total, half of which is spent traveling 0.2 mile. Seems pretty ridiculous.

Is anyone doing anything to remedy the situation? — Karen Chiu

A Caltrans is trying. The Willow interchange is being reconfigured from a full cloverleaf to a half cloverleaf. However, to build the new $70 million interchange, the state had to close two of the leafs, with the other two converted into twoway traffic to accommodate new ramps.

Traffic exiting 101 used to have a yield sign at the top of the ramp where it intersected Willow. In other words, Willow had the right of way and exiting freeway traffic had to squeeze in the openings in the queue from Willow.

But now the freeway is moving better but not traffic on Willow, and that has caused severe congestion.

On the eastside, people are complaining that traffic is cutting through neighborhoods to avoid the backup, while on the westside residents say they can’t get onto Willow because it’s jammed.

Caltrans has reset signals at the Bay, Newbridge and O’Brien intersections and Menlo Park will retime the light at Dunham. Not sure how much this will help because Willow narrows in both directions after the overpass and therein lies the problem. The narrowing is causing the backups. More warning signs are coming and Menlo Park has placed “No Thru Traffic” signs onto some of its streets.

But the best advice is to avoid this area if you can. Since Caltrans installed temporary traffic signals three weeks ago, it’s been a mess and will remain so for another six months until Caltrans moves onto the next phase of work.

The new interchange ought to ease the weaving woes as drivers exit and enter 101 at Willow. But the entire project will extend through the end of next year.