Not sure how they generated that stress-level map, but it seems to be an unreasonably simplistic approximation. For example, there is a dedicated bike path along the 101 from the region marked "North Bayshore" all the way past the top-left corner of the map. That entire stretch is less stressful than any place south of El Camino. By extension, most of northern Palo Alto should be dark green instead of yellow and pale green. There's also a dedicated bike trail from very close to the San Antonio Caltrain station all the way to Google, but that path is not evident from the map.
I'm mainly saying that the situation is actually much better than depicted for most of Palo Alto. By contrast, the situation is worse than depicted everywhere south of El Camino except very close to bike crossings.
I'm speaking from personal experience here. I've biked from Crescent Park to Google every day for over a year. I also don't own a car and bike throughout Palo Alto most weekends with no stress.
EDIT:
There is a second stress map in the full plan (Figure 5) that shows "average" stress as opposed to "total" stress and represents much more accurately, in my opinion and apparently the opinion of the plan's authors, the true stress associated with riding to Google from each point in the South Bay. In that map you can clearly see the positive effects of the trail to Palo Alto (green blob at top left) and the trail through central Mountain View (green blob center right), as well as the negative effect of El Camino and the 101 (red blobs across those roads).
As a planner and a person with a quantitative orientation, I think you've just illustrated some of the wickedness of many problems in planning. You've talked about stress, which will be dependent on the user--one user's stress is another user's expedient route. Then there's the hyper-local urban form characteristics that you allude to.
That isn't to say we shouldn't apply quantitative analysis to such problems. It just should illustrate how easy it can be to oversimply problems involving highly stochastic human behavior and preferences. And, since there is no complete theory of Urban planning, we should be prepared to exist in an uncomfortable state where neither the ends or means are universally agreed on.
I used to bike commute on rare occasions from near Levi stadium up to around where Oracle is in Redwood Shores. I don't remember a dedicated bike path along 101 at North Bayshore. I'd usually leave Moffet, cross under 101, go up Middlefield to Rengstorff, then ride past Google, turn left, past Intuit, then follow East Bayshore (the road) the entire way until I cut through EPA towards what is now Facebook HQ (used to be Sun).
Has something changed?
Also, the trails they show up by the bay are all super-optimstic. First of all, I think they're pretty much all gravel, they meander all over the place, and they don't GO ANYWHERE.
I live off of Marsh now and my commute involves more East Bayshore, cutting through Pete's Harbor, saying hi to the homeless people under 101, riding over the pedestrian bridge by the VW dealer, etc. I'm actually fairly lucky in that I have little traffic on my commute, but it's not exactly low-stress with a few high-traffic crossings. The worst is crossing 101 at Marsh. There's a hidden crosswalk to cross 3 lanes of the highway 84 onramp onto 101. I hate that traffic engineers decided to use the shortest-distance method and hide EVERY crosswalk behind a blind corner.. especially those on FREEWAYS, for god's sake. And then, it's pitch black at night...
I'm mainly saying that the situation is actually much better than depicted for most of Palo Alto. By contrast, the situation is worse than depicted everywhere south of El Camino except very close to bike crossings.
I'm speaking from personal experience here. I've biked from Crescent Park to Google every day for over a year. I also don't own a car and bike throughout Palo Alto most weekends with no stress.
EDIT: There is a second stress map in the full plan (Figure 5) that shows "average" stress as opposed to "total" stress and represents much more accurately, in my opinion and apparently the opinion of the plan's authors, the true stress associated with riding to Google from each point in the South Bay. In that map you can clearly see the positive effects of the trail to Palo Alto (green blob at top left) and the trail through central Mountain View (green blob center right), as well as the negative effect of El Camino and the 101 (red blobs across those roads).