Council to study Wolfe Avenue widening

By Sam Scott

At Tuesday's meeting, the City Council inched toward a move that will please anyone who has sat stewing at the traffic light on Wolfe Road at El Camino Real. The council voted to study a proposal to widen Wolfe Road north of Eleanor Way and south of Maria Lane.

The proposal aims to improve the slow-moving commute between the southern residential and northern commercial areas of the city, and to prevent motorists--frustrated by clogged arterial roadways--from seeking shortcuts through residential neighborhoods.

City traffic engineer Ray C. Williamson says implementing the plan could reduce the rush-hour delay in the affected area by as much as 17 percent.

Vice Mayor Pat Vorreiter says that the move is motivated by the city's dissatisfaction with the road's performance. "It doesn't meet the level of service that we would like to see a major thoroughfare meet," she says. "It's pretty well agreed that widening the roadway will really improve the service."

The cost of the widening is estimated at $2.4 million, with the bulk supplied by federal sources and $650,000 coming from Sunnyvale. Williamson says that the plan would not increase speed limits on the road.

The next step for the city, Vorreiter says, is to consult with owners of properties adjacent to the road. She says the council is concerned about the impact that widening the street will have on the neighbors. Adding a lane on either side of the road would mean the removal of quite a bit of landscaping.

"What we have to weigh is that need [of commuters] yet respect the rights of the impacted properties," Vorreiter says.

The project would likely require the city to buy or condemn sections of property along Wolfe.

Contrary to the city's policy to improve conditions for bikes with all new projects, the plan does not call for bike lanes on the east side of Wolfe north of El Camino Real, nor on the west side of Wolfe between El Camino and Fremont Avenue. Installing a bike lane in these spots would mean cutting into car lanes or tearing up the sidewalk, or some demolition work.

"We're constrained by buildings that are very close to where we would put the curb," says Jack Witthaus, transportation planner and liaison to the Bicycle Advisory Committee. He says the plan remains at a conceptual level and exact details on bike lanes won't be known until later.

Williamson points out that the project is still in its earliest stages.

"It was just to ask the City Council if they still wanted to begin all the necessary studies," he says. "It is entirely possible that the city will not do the project."

Williamson estimates that the plan is a year away from being submitted to the council.

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