Saratoga News
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Speeding, careless drivers causing many problems on Herriman Avenue
By Shannon Burkey
Complaints of speeding, careless drivers on Herriman Avenue have prompted the traffic safety commission to look into ways to make the street, which runs in front of Saratoga High School, safer for the many children who walk along it each day.
Residents said they have long thought the street was an accident waiting to happen.
In February, their fears came true when a Foothill Elementary School child was hit by a car at the intersection of Herriman Avenue and Lexington Court as she walked home from school. The student suffered a compound fracture of her leg and had to be hospitalized.
At an April 4 city council meeting, residents came out in force to urge the city to look into ways of slowing traffic down on Herriman Avenue and protecting its pedestrians.
The council turned the matter over to the traffic safety commission, which asked city traffic engineer Sohrab Rashid to come up with a plan for making Herriman Avenue and the surrounding streets safer. "There are several issues on the table here," said Brigitte Ballingall, the commission chairwoman. "The speeds on Herriman are bad, the crosswalks are not safe and there is a need for safer walkways on both sides of the street."
During the day students walk along the street on their way to the high school or Foothill Elementary School, but there is no sidewalk on either side. To make matters worse, speeding drivers often do not notice or slow down for the crosswalk at the Herriman Avenue Lexington Court intersection.
"The south side of the street is very, very narrow--less than 3 feet," said resident Walter Shaw. "The kids walk on the narrow side and it sticks them out into the pavement. It's just too dangerous."
The other safety issue surrounding Herriman Avenue has to do with the bike lanes on either side of the street. When the road was repaved at the end of 2006, residents said the lanes were not properly marked as they were before.
The north side of the street includes a bike lane and a parking lane, making it very wide. Because it is not properly marked, cars often mistake it for another lane and frequently drive in it.
Shaw, who frequently walks his dog in the bike lane because there is nowhere else to walk, said he has nearly been hit four times by cars driving in the bike lane.
At its June 7 meeting, the commission was offered several different options from Rashid, who conducted a study to gather traffic volume and speed data on Herriman Avenue, Lexington Court and their adjacent streets. His ideas included putting sidewalks along the street, adding speed bumps, adding in-pavement lighting at the crosswalk and raising the crosswalk to make it more visible.
"From our speed surveys, we know speeds are excessively high at Herriman, so one option we looked at was raising the crosswalk," Rashid said. "The advantages to that are it slows vehicles down and also highlights the location of a pedestrian crossing."
Residents asked about the feasibility of putting a four-way stop at the intersection, but Rashid said it does not meet the traffic warrants in either pedestrian volume or traffic volume.
"There has to be enough friction from the side streets to warrant a stop and in this case there is not," he said.
Commissioners looked over all the information and the different safety issues and came up with a list of priorities. Their recommendations must then go before the city council for approval.
"Our responsibility is to come up with the safest plan to recommend to the council. Then they can decide to take our recommendations or not and come up with the money," Ballingall said.
The commission listed its top priority as the crosswalk and recommended it be raised. Its second priority would be to have a continuous sidewalk on the south side of Herriman Avenue and bike lanes on both sides. The commission would then like to see safe passage put in on Saratoga Avenue in both directions from Herriman Avenue to Crestbrook Drive and more police enforcement along Lexington Court.
