The City of Mill Valley recently kicked off an effort to make safety improvements to Miller Avenue between the Mill Valley-Sausalito Path and downtown. The proposed designs were shared with the city’s Traffic and Mobility Advisory Committee (TMAC) on March 23rd and the project team will be accepting feedback on the proposed designs until April 20th.
Overall we are supportive of the proposed changes, but believe that they should go farther. Read on to learn more!
Big Recommendations
The key findings were that changes are needed most at two intersections: Miller/Camino Alto and Miller/La Goma/Montford.
Miller/Camino Alto
The near-term recommendation is to remove the weave that westbound bicyclists headed downtown have to make with westbound drivers turning right onto Camino Alto.
Long term, the project team recommended replacing the signalized intersection with a roundabout. This would significantly improve safety and traffic flow at the intersection, and make it so that pedestrians could travel between the northeast corner and Tam HS without having to cross the other two legs first.
It would also have the additional benefit of allowing drivers coming from Gomez Way to reach Camino Alto and westbound Miller Avenue without doing a u-turn past the high school.
Miller/La Goma/Montford
The big problem with this intersection, as anyone who uses it knows, is that it is very difficult to tell whose turn it is to go at a given time.
One way of addressing that would be to reduce the number of lanes on Miller Avenue from three to two. This would simplify right-of-way and would reduce the very long distances that pedestrians must cross currently.
An additional recommendation was that east-west travel between La Goma and Montford travel be prohibited, as many of the crashes occurred while a driver was making that movement.
Minor Recommendations
Beyond the big changes suggested at Camino Alto and La Goma/Montford, smaller improvements were recommended at Almonte (simplifying the crossing) and just east of Tam High School (adding a crosswalk). Lastly, at the two-way way stop intersection throughout the corridor (Reed, Locust, Evergreen, Willow, and Park), visibility improvements were suggested.
You can click here to see the whole presentation on the city’s website.
What We Like
Overall, we think these recommendations are a step in the right direction, particularly the roundabout at Camino Alto and the lane simplification at La Goma/Montfort.
What We Don’t Like
We know from looking at crash data that right hooks are a huge problem on this streets with drivers turning into driveways or right at intersections without yielding to through-moving bicyclists. Here’s what could fix that:
- Add vertical delineators at the approaches to intersections (where not conflicting with a bus stop or driveway).
- Lower the speed limit on the road, which would reduce the likelihood and severity of collisions (Mill Valley recently missed an opportunity to use new legal flexibility to lower speed limits on exactly this stretch of road)
Next Steps
After receiving feedback, the project team will refine the concepts above and present them to the City Council. Should they be approved, the council may direct staff to seek funding to implement some or all of the recommendations.
If you want to copy our feedback, or provide your own, use the link below.
John Brencic
Public Works Senior Project Manager
jbrencic@cityofmillvalley.gov
You can find the project website here, which catalogues the issues identified and comments received at the December 2025 public workshop.