Cars back up on Saratoga near Highway 85
By Clarence Cromwell
A newly completed traffic study shows that Highway 85 has decreased traffic on most Saratoga streets and hasn't created major snarls.
Although residents living near Devon and McFarland avenues complained about freeway-related traffic driving through their neighborhood when Highway 85 opened, Saratoga Public Works Director Larry Perlin said the study indicates that the problem has been solved.
The city hired Campbell-based Traffic Data Services to count the number of cars passing 55 spots on 30 separate streets. The study, performed in October and November 1995, was aimed at learning the effect of the new freeway on local traffic. A similar car count was taken in 1994, prior to construction of the freeway.
Drivers are now using Highway 85 for northward and eastward travel rather than alternative surface streets, such as Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road or Prospect Road, Perlin said after comparing the studies.
Traffic on Prospect Road diminished by 27 percent just west of Miller Avenue. That section of road went from 22,697 cars a day last year to 16,663 this year.
A counter on Saratoga-Los Gatos Road east of Fruitvale Avenue tallied 60 percent fewer cars than in 1994, dropping from 29,501 per day to 11,807.
Although fewer cars now traverse most streets, a few thoroughfares became busier
after the freeway opened in October 1994.
Drivers may feel a little more crowded on Saratoga Avenue just north of the freeway, where technicians recorded the biggest increase in cars. A machine tallied 42,511 cars, 65 percent more than the 25,726 cars that passed the same place the year before.
Traffic between West Valley College and the Highway 85-Saratoga Avenue interchange accounted for most of the other large increases. On Saratoga, Fruitvale and Allendale avenues, the increase in traffic varies between 22 percent and 29 percent.
But sections of Allendale, Cox and Fruitvale not lying along the commute route lost about 20 percent of their traffic.
McFarland and Cox avenues and Bucknall Road also have 26 percent to 33 percent higher levels of traffic than last year. Perlin said numerous drivers use those roads to travel from neighborhoods east of Saratoga Avenue to the interchange.
Perlin said a decrease in Quito Road traffic means drivers are no longer cutting through the Devon Avenue-McFarland Avenue area from western San Jose neighborhoods. After residents complained last September of drivers using neighborhood streets to shortcut from Quito Road to the freeway, the City Council approved measures, such as new stop signs to make the route less attractive to commuters.
"If you look at the numbers for Quito Road, where people would be turning to get through the neighborhood, the numbers are down," Perlin said.
Although some streets have more traffic than ever, Perlin said, the city doesn't need to expand any of them now.
Two busy Saratoga Avenue intersections that may need improvements in the future are those at Lawrence Expressway and at Cox Avenue, Perlin said. The Saratoga-Lawrence intersection is under the county's jurisdiction.
Perlin said he's not sure how troublesome traffic is at those intersections, but he'll have a better idea after reading the results of a study now under way that will show how many cars pass through and how many turn. He said additional left-turn lanes may be needed.
A traffic light may also be needed for at least one of the unprotected intersections in the Saratoga Park Woods neighborhood, where residents must turn onto busy Saratoga Avenue to leave the neighborhood, Perlin said.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, Wednesday, January 2, 1996.
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