Association struggles to find answer to traffic on Lincoln

Members of WGNA board disagree on how to involve other groups

By Kate Carter

A subcommittee of the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, in an effort to lead the community in resolving speeding and pedestrian safety problems on Lincoln Avenue, presented a list of traffic-calming ideas to the rest of the board last week. But the board voted to give the list some fine-tuning before showing it to other community groups.

Some board members wanted to make suggestions of their own and also to work more closely with District 6 Councilman Ken Yeager's office to make sure the proposals were actually legally and financially feasible.

Traffic subcommittee members J. Michael Gonzales, who is also WGNA's president, and Vern Ladd had hoped to receive approval to show their suggestions to the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association and Willow Glen Elementary School's Parent-Teacher Association, among others. But other board members said they preferred to have more time to refine the ideas and language used in the list, and even involve the association's general membership at their May meeting before making it public.

The other traffic subcommittee member Jim Gardner was not at the meeting.

Gonzales and Ladd emphasized that their list is merely a draft of "thought-starters," to encourage the Willow Glen community to think about ways to improve Lincoln Avenue. They said they weren't too concerned with what was, or wasn't, possible with regard to city requirements at this point, but just with brainstorming a variety of solutions.

"What we want to do is move it forward and improve it," Gonzales said. "Our intent is to go out and talk to people about it. As an association, we have an obligation of coming up with some leadership."

Board members John Gibbs and Lynn Repetsky, however, said they were afraid that sharing the list would indicate that WGNA supported the ideas it included. They said they didn't support much of the list because of how they saw the suggestions impacting their own nearby neighborhoods.

"Each and every item on here needs a whole lot of thought," Gibbs said. "Everything impacts everything."

The March 14 discussion came on the heels of a WGNA email list discussion initiated by Ladd, who is also a member of pedestrian safety advocacy group Walk San Jose. Ladd had asked members of the elist to provide comments about how their suggestions would make Lincoln Avenue a place more conducive to pedestrian traffic. Some of his suggestions included narrowing the four-lane thoroughfare to two lanes and adding angled parking on either side.

Responses by people who live on streets parallel to the business district expressed concern that cars now traveling on Lincoln Avenue would avoid increased congestion there by going through their residential neighborhoods.

Yeager aide Denelle Fedor, who attended the WGNA meeting, said that it's important to consult the residents before proposing changes in their neighborhoods.

"We don't want to impose traffic-calming measures on people who may not feel the same way," she told The Resident.

Fedor said Yeager has been meeting directly with people affected by speeding and traffic problems throughout District 6, to address the specific needs of their neighborhoods. As vice chair of the city's traffic calming committee, Yeager is in a position to see that city money is directed to address Willow Glen's traffic-calming needs, she said at the meeting.

Yeager has been working to address concerns about traffic on Lincoln Avenue, Fedor said, and some possible solutions that have been proposed include narrowing the street, increasing enforcement of the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit, and improving the visibility at crosswalks with up-lights that alert drivers to pedestrians.

Fedor told The Resident she had a chance to see the WGNA subcommittee's list of ideas, but was hesitant to comment on it, because it had not been approved by the board. She and Yeager welcome WGNA's involvement in their efforts to solve traffic problems on Lincoln Avenue and elsewhere in Willow Glen, she said.

"Whatever WGNA decides to do, they can work with Ken," she said.

The office and the association haven't yet explicitly worked together on the issue, and Fedor couldn't say when, or if, they will.

Fedor, who said she attends all WGNA's board meetings, said it was important to consider the concerns of people who don't attend the meetings, or who aren't even members of WGNA, before making decisions.

She also said people need to recognize their own contributions to problems of speeding traffic.

"We're all part of the solution and the problem," she said, "and we have to recognize that."

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