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City Beat
City staff and Glenites brainstorm solutions for traffic
Residents vent frustrations about speeding cars
By Chantal Lamers
About 75 District 6 residents gathered at a city-sponsored meeting to discuss methods to slow traffic in their bustling neighborhoods. The two-hour meeting gave residents the opportunity to tell city leaders how and where they'd like traffic eased, as well as a chance to vent their anger about those same speeding cars.
The Feb. 28 meeting held at Bellarmine Prep was the last of three sponsored by San Jose's Department of Streets and Traffic. The idea for the neighborhood meetings began about eight months ago when the city council requested that the traffic department work with the community to give San Joseans a better, safer place to live. Among the many gathered there were city planners, police officers, firefighters, district attorneys, council members, members of Walk San Jose and dozens of Willow Glen residents.
After a presentation by the traffic department on new ways to ticket speeders and slow cars down, residents, planners and police broke into six groups to discuss six different problems facing the city, including the most emotional topic--speeding.
Glenite Denise Brady, who lives at Minnesota and Willow, said that over the past three months speeding drivers have terrorized her neighborhood. Brady said her dog was run over, a speeding driver hit her neighbor's tree and a drunk driver spun out of control and smashed his car through the garage of a neighboring home.
Brady said she has been working with Vice Mayor Frank Fiscalini's staff for solutions and surveying her neighbors for traffic-calming ideas. Neighbors would like the street blocked off, made into a one-way street or have speed bumps installed.
But other issues prevailed, too. Residents asked one police officer why drivers aren't ticketed when driving five miles over the limit, and they expressed frustration that the city has been raising the speed limits throughout their neighborhoods. "If we have a 25 mph zone, why can't you ticket at 30?" one resident asked. "What's the detriment of lowering the speed limit in a neighborhood?" another resident asked.
Officer Alan Cavallo explained that it's difficult to uphold a ticket in court when drivers accelerate just five miles over the speed limit. Cavallo also said the police department has limits on the number of officers it can appoint to ticket drivers in a city whose population has burgeoned over the past decade.
Glenite Helen Solinski has been working on a plan since August to try and get her street blocked off. She and neighbors want to block the stream of traffic that flows through their neighborhood. Another frustrated resident asked if "No Through Traffic" signs could be installed in neighborhoods. Planners said no such signs exist in San Jose, that the streets belong to the public and every individual has the right to drive on them.
Comments and suggestions from the city-sponsored meetings will be forwarded to the City Council.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
