For the past several years, residents in the El Quito neighborhood have been seeing an increasing number of drivers using the residential streets as a shortcut to get from Highway 85 and Saratoga Avenue to the Quito Village Shopping Center. Residents said these commuters were driving well over the posted 25 mph speed limit, some driving as fast as 45 mph.

Lori Grobe, a resident on Paseo Lado, said she was especially concerned about the speed issue because of the young children who live in the area.

"This is a family-oriented neighborhood," she said. "There are a lot of kids who play in the streets and ride their bikes."

There are also a lot of pets in the area, according to her neighbor, Ron Kountz, who said that his wife's pets have been hit by drivers shooting by.

Jordan Katz, another resident on Paseo Lado, said he's had some close calls in the past with drivers speeding down the lane while on his weekly walk to the market across the street.

"I would always have to look back every couple of seconds to see if there was a car coming," he said. "I almost got run over one time by a car that seemed to have come out from nowhere."

According to Elizabeth Lara, incidences like Katz's are not uncommon on Devon Avenue, where she served as a street representative and collected petitions showing support for the improvements back in 2002. She said that her neighbor, Barbara Suit, and her two children had a near-miss one day when two cars racing side by side down Devon Avenue jetted past them and came close to hitting them.

"Devon Avenue was turning into Devon Expressway," said Lara. "What so many local drivers were forgetting is that this is a neighborhood where people live, children play and people go for walks."

Michael Bustamante, a street representative for the adjacent street McFarland Avenue, said he was almost sideswiped by a driver while retrieving trash from the street. He attributed the speeding problem to the wide streets that "make drivers feel that their speeding is safe."

But since the safety features, which include 13 speed humps, six cobblestoned medians and 10 speed limit signs, were added on all five streets—Paseo Lado, Devon, McFarland, Martha and McCoy avenues—residents said traffic has gotten a lot calmer.

"The speed humps and medians have made a huge difference," said Bob Clunie, who volunteered to have a speed hump placed in front of his house on Paseo Lado. "Traffic has slowed down considerably. More drivers are rolling at the regular and safer speeds."

Clunie said that the median at the corner of his street and Paseo Presada has forced him to change his own driving habit of cutting corners. In addition, he said he would like to see another median placed next to the entrance on Quito Road.

A neighboring resident, Denise Bravo, said she's relieved to see speed humps because it makes it safer for her daughter to ride her bike in the neighborhood. She added that she would like to see more speed humps along the street and wouldn't mind having one placed in front of her property, although it is only two houses down from Clunie's residence.

"Driving through the neighborhood used to be a drag," said Richard Finlayson, who has lived in his corner house on McFarland Avenue for the past five years. "The traffic flowing through McFarland Avenue used to be constant, but now there are fewer cars passing through. The area is back to being an actual neighborhood instead of a thoroughfare," he said.

Bustamante said that the noise level has also decreased since the roads were improved. He said that there is a noticeable noise difference between a car traveling at 20 mph compared to one going 35 mph.

"The improvements have made the neighborhood feel more quaint," he said.

Though many residents said that the speed humps and medians were a step in the right direction, some, like Jesse Guiterrez, said they still see drivers, especially young adults, speeding by. Guiterrez said that the road safety features, which cost approximately $66,000 to install, were "a waste of time and money" and he would prefer to have a motorcycle police officer patrol the area.

Other options that were discussed but not favored by many included adding peninsulas that would jut out into the streets, making them narrower and less prone to high speeds, and closing off some entrances into the neighborhood from Quito Road.

The El Quito neighborhood is the first project that operated under the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, which helps residents identify appropriate traffic control measures that can be used to address specific traffic problems like speeding and traffic congestion. The program was established in Saratoga in August 2001 and is gaining popularity among residents who want similar improvements done on their streets on Bellgrove Circle and those north of Cox Avenue. For more information on the program, visit www.saratoga.ca.us.