Town's traffic nightmare spurs calls for better communication
Town Council may decide on when to close on-ramp
Car fire caused congestion
By Jeff Kearns
A car fire at The Cats restaurant that partially closed Highway 17 last week and snarled traffic in downtown Los Gatos for hours has renewed calls for a town emergency plan to deal with traffic disasters, possibly by closing the S. Santa Cruz Avenue on-ramp to the highway.
The Town Council asked staff to come back with a report on the overflow traffic problem. The police department has had a closure plan for a year and a half, but the council has never made a decision on whether or not to close the on-ramp. Councilmembers will get a staff report on the issue at an upcoming meeting (no date has been set) and will have a chance to decide what the town's policy should be.
Last week's backup started when a fire broke out in the back of a pickup driving southbound on Highway 17 at the start of the evening rush hour on July 6. The driver pulled over to the shoulder, and by the time fire crews arrived at the scene the pickup was totally engulfed in flames, which had spread to the steep hillside.
Fire crews had the flames out within an hour and held the brush fire to only a small area. A California Highway Patrol spokesman later said the fire was caused by a gas-powered floor-polishing machine that caught fire in the truck's bed, then spread to a gas can.
The highway stayed open the whole time, the CHP said, with one lane partially blocked by fire trucks, but the roadside spectacle slowed traffic through the area to a crawl. Traffic stretched all the way up Highway 17 past Campbell for hours, and drivers flooded onto downtown Los Gatos streets.
Downtown business owner Larry Arzie blasted the town at the start of that night's council meeting, calling for a clear strategy for dealing with the occasional influx of commuters looking for a shortcut around the backup.
"Tonight the crisis in the traffic reached epidemic proportions," Arzie said. "We've been talking about shutting down the southbound access from Santa Cruz Avenue for years. We need an emergency plan. ... I hope that you all will ask the police department to investigate this matter and come up with a practical solution to mitigate these problems."
Councilman Joe Pirzynski said he remembered talking about the same issue more than two years ago while sitting on the General Plan Committee. That night's experience, he said, made it obvious that the town hadn't solved the problem yet.
"The Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department was not informed for a good 30 minutes after the fact, when people started asking officers, 'Why are the streets so jammed?' " Pirzynski said. "So there isn't even a communication methodology that's standard operating procedure between ourselves, the CHP, county fire and Caltrans."
Although Randy Attaway said he hadn't been in favor of the plan in the past, he joined Pirzynski in calling for some kind of solution. "I've always been resistant to it in the past, but I think Mr. Arzie brings up some good points, so I think we should look at it again," Attaway said.
Pirzynski asked town staff to take up the matter. One possibility, he said, might be to create a radio frequency for the town (like Saratoga's) that could be turned on in emergencies, with signs advising motorists of the broadcast, and to station police at crucial intersections to deal with the traffic crunch.
The town and Caltrans agreed on a plan in early 1998 that gives the police shift supervisor the authority to shut down the on-ramp and turn on the changeable message signs on the freeway--but since that agreement was finalized, the on-ramp has never been closed.
A memo dated February 1998, from police Capt. Jeff Miller to department sergeants, sets up guidelines for when to shut down the on-ramp--that is, only for closures and serious emergencies, not for normal backups or beach traffic--and how to get the message out to Caltrans.
In a later interview, Town Manager David Knapp said the changeable message signs have been turned on to keep shortcut traffic out of downtown since they were installed last year, but nobody paid attention. "We've used it several times with no impact," he said.
Police Chief Larry Todd told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times that severe backups on Highway 17 can turn downtown into a mess about six to 12 times a year. Todd says the on-ramp closure plan wouldn't work because it would just direct traffic in circles.
"People are creatures of habit, and they frequently don't pay attention to signs, or they'll take the chance that it will stay open," Todd says. "The only way to do it is to permanently shut down that ramp, or if not that, then we need signs everywhere."
That's one of the main problems officials have with the system: there are only two signs, on Highway 85 just before Winchester Boulevard and on southbound Highway 17. Drivers approaching Los Gatos from other directions don't see the changeable message signs. And during severe backups, traffic streams into the town down Winchester Boulevard and Bascom Avenue.
The signs weren't turned on during last week's situation.
As for communication between agencies, Todd says that a car fire and a backup on the hill isn't the kind of news his department would routinely hear from the CHP or Central Fire. Los Gatos-Monte Sereno dispatchers called the CHP dispatch center to find out what was happening with last week's traffic jam.
Los Gatos dispatch wasn't notified of last week's mishap, Todd says, "because the accident had no impact on our community." The department has a countywide mutual aid system set up for use in natural disasters or major emergencies, and dispatchers can call other police departments for backup, but agencies don't routinely alert other dispatch centers to smaller-scale problems.
Pirzynski says he wants to see a better system in place, where Los Gatos dispatchers will be able to get word fast if there's a nearby incident that may affect the town, which would give local officials time to close the S. Santa Cruz Avenue on-ramp if the need arises. "Why should we have to make a phone call to CHP?"
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
