Council will review circulation element

By Kara Chalmers

The circulation and scenic highway element that the Saratoga Planning Commission unanimously endorsed on July 26, will come before the Saratoga City Council in September for a vote.

The circulation element, one of the seven elements of the city's general plan, is a long-range traffic plan, which also addresses future traffic conditions. Scenic highway designation and corridor preservation are also addressed in the element.

Since the fall of 1999, the city has been updating the element, which has not been updated since 1983. The reason is that since then, Highway 85, a regional freeway, has opened and the whole county has grown in general--rapidly.

While many streets in the city were specifically designed to discourage cut-through traffic, such as cul-de-sacs, the increased congestion on Saratoga Avenue due to the interchange has led people to look for back roads, which means increased cut-through traffic through neighborhood streets.

Also, according to the document, since Saratoga is built out, the future projected increase in traffic will result from "through" traffic--vehicles that do not have an origin or a destination in the city.

Many residents in different neighborhoods have said the volume of traffic and the speed on local streets has increased because of the change in traffic patterns due to the freeway's opening.

The problem has led the city to undertake another traffic study of a specific neighborhood. The city hired CCS Planning and Engineering to study the Prides Crossing neighborhood, which is bounded by Highway 85, Prospect Road, Cox Avenue and Saratoga Creek. Once completed, the city will have a model on which to base other neighborhoods' traffic problems. The city is commissioning the study since the circulation element's update is too general to address such problems as speeding on certain streets.

The study will show the need and feasibility of using traffic-calming measures for Pride's Crossing. Traffic-calming measures can include physical measures like islands or speed humps, or the enforcement of speed limits. These measures and how they would be funded and implemented will be the focal point of the neighborhood traffic management plans.

The city has held community meetings to gather comments from the public on the circulation element, and there were three planning commission hearings, as well.

The final product the commission is recommending to the council includes a section about possibly planning for another Highway 85 interchange, either at Quito Road or Prospect Road, as a solution to the forecast increase in congestion at Saratoga Avenue. But the city would have to conduct a much more extensive environmental review before considering a new interchange.

The document classifies all roadways in the city as either freeway (the only freeway in the city is Highway 85) or expressway, principal arterial, minor arterial, collector and minor collector. Major arterials are four- or more lane roads that serve both local and through traffic. Minor arterials are two- to four-lane streets that generally serve local traffic. Collectors connect local streets to arterials and local streets and primarily provide access to residences.

The goals, policies and implementation measures section of the element says that the city should maintain a level of service of D for intersections. The document labels the city's intersections with letters ranging from A through F, with A identifying places where there is a free flow of traffic with little or no delay. Level F means the conditions are oversaturated with excessive delays. Level E represents conditions at capacity. The city does not have an adopted level of service standard, but D is usually accepted as a minimum.

According to the document, there is only one intersection that operates at level E--the one at the corner of Saratoga and Fruitvale avenues. It only operates at this level during the peak traffic hour on weekday mornings. It is probably due to West Valley College-generated traffic. But many more road intersections are projected to operate at an unacceptable level, either E or F, during one or more peak travel hours by 2025.

According to the document, 89 percent of residents commute alone to work. Saratoga is served by only six bus routes, one commuter route and paratransit service. All of the bus routes that operate in Saratoga terminate at West Valley College and only provide service on Saratoga Avenue, Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, Saratoga-Los Gatos Road, Quito Road and Allendale Avenue.

According to Valley Transit Authority (VTA) statistics, usually only 5 to 21 percent of the available seats on the bus routes are used.

The document suggests that the city investigate the feasibility of a local shuttle service within the city. The updated element is posted on the city's website at www.saratoga.ca.us.

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