The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Council agrees to keep Crawford Street barrier By Justin Berton For the second time in as many months, the Sunnyvale City Council was persuaded by the will of a neighborhood to close off its street to car traffic after residents said it was putting their children's safety at risk. Residents living on Crawford Drive, near the S-turn on Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, will now have a permanent barrier in place, ending years of debate on the topic. Councilmembers voted unanimously at the Dec. 8 meeting to go against a 1997 city policy, which was designed to prohibit the construction of "traffic calming" obstacles unless traffic speeds and volumes met a certain threshold. According to a city survey prepared by city traffic engineer Ray Williamson, the volume and speed of cars on the residential street "fall well short of those thresholds." "Rules aren't made to be broken," Mayor Manuel Valerio said before casting his vote. "But there are exceptions to the rules." More than 20 residents from the impacted neighborhood spoke on the topic, which has long presented a contractual problem for the city. According to residents living on Crawford, builders of the homes wrote into their leases that a barrier would eventually be built to block cars coming off Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road. The developers collected money--some say $5,000 per home, others say $5,000 in total. Councilmember Fred Fowler said he researched the cash-for-barrier claim, and found that the homeowners were told by the city a barrier would be constructed, and monies did change hands. Residents also complained that drivers looking for an outlet during rush hour traffic often come recklessly tearing around the corner, putting their children at risk of injury. Worse, the residents said, when frustrated drivers realize the street is a dead end, they flip an angry u-turn and speed down the street once more. Angie Hensen, a resident of Crawford Dr. for 14 years, approached the podium with two of her young daughters and a third friend to emphasize their position: "Please keep Crawford closed," the three girls told the city council in unison. "It's much safer." The issue of safety was the priority for all residents in the neighborhood, but some speakers who have been adversely affected by the closure asked the council for other options. Don Thomas, a father of three and resident of nearby Cherrywood Drive, said his street has experienced an increase in traffic since the barrier was put in place 11 months ago. Thomas added that all residents on Crawford who once exited onto Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, now drive past his house to exit onto a main thoroughfare. Thomas called on the city to allow the residents of the neighborhood to create a three-person council to come up with their own solution to the problem. "We, too, recognize the serenity of a closed street," Thomas said. "But there appears to be an increase of traffic on our side." Just as they did when the council approved a traffic-restricting barrier in a neighborhood at the Oct. 6 meeting, some residents and councilmembers wondered if a precedent was being set for other neighborhoods wishing to slow traffic on their street. At the October meeting, residents in the city's Heritage District persuaded the city to install a permanent restricted-use barrier to calm the traffic flow. At the time, a business owner who said the barrier inconvenienced his customers predicted, "You're setting a very dangerous precedent here. I fear you are opening a Pandora's Box." [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 16, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.