The Sunnyvale Sun

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Convenience for patients; but headaches for residents

Kaiser Permanente wants city to study adding a left-turn lane

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL

A dozen years ago, while Santa Clara and Kaiser Permanente were planning what is now the new Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center, the city of Sunnyvale fought for--and won--a right-turn-only lane leading north out of the facility's parking lot onto Homestead Road.

The concern at the time was that traffic turning left onto Homestead--the southern border of Sunnyvale--would lead to increased jams on the street and overflow into nearby residential areas.

But on Oct. 10, several Kaiser representatives went before the Sunnyvale City Council to propose a new traffic study, in hopes of finding a way to open Homestead up to westbound Kaiser traffic without hurting the surrounding Birdland neighborhood.

Kaiser Permanente spokesman Karl Sonkin said 35,000 Sunnyvale residents are patients at the medical center, and many of them must cross eastbound Homestead to queue in the left-turn lane to make U-turns before traveling west.

A left-turn lane would allow them to turn directly onto Homestead and head into Sunnyvale or Cupertino.

"We're trying to make it as convenient as possible for our Kaiser Permanente members," Sonkin said. "It's functional now, but we're trying to improve the functionality."

But more traffic on Homestead could mean more traffic into the neighborhood off Swallow Drive.

"We get a lot of traffic as it is; we don't want any more," said Birdland resident Tap Merrick. "People take the side streets to avoid the traffic and the lights and they tend to break speed limits and do other things, like run through stop signs."

Those traffic concerns were at the heart of the city's original attempts to prevent left turns out of the lot.

Sunnyvale communications officer John Pilger said the city originally acted as a "commenting agency" during the planning because it was done by the city of Santa Clara. But because of the close proximity of the site to Sunnyvale, there are tangible traffic impacts on the city.

Sunnyvale does have final say, because the median on the street falls under the city's power. The city could simply use a physical barrier to prevent left turns.

"Because we control the median, we can do what we need to control traffic," Pilger said.

Merrick said he was also concerned because the current traffic load is going to increase within the next year.

According to a timeline from Kaiser Permanente, the center will begin providing hospital and emergency services in the middle of 2007. It currently offers such services as cancer treatments and ambulatory surgery, while emergencies are handled several blocks away at the original Kaiser Santa Clara location on Kiely Boulevard.

"If they're concerned about the traffic now, they need to think about how it's going to increase," Merrick said.

Sonkin said expansion questions and other concerns could be addressed if a traffic study is conducted.

"We want to make this as simple as possible and we're hearing the concerns of the neighbors and we want to make sure those concerns will be addressed," Sonkin said. "We've seen the anecdotal evidence and Kaiser Permanente just wants to take the initial baby steps with the city of Sunnyvale to get a traffic study done."