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City Beat
Wrong-way warning now has teeth
'Severe tire damage' means exactly that
By Michele Leung
After waiting 10 long years, the residents of Meredith Avenue are breathing a sigh of relief now that a tire grate has finally been installed in the parking lot behind the Garden Theater. But it's the business patrons who are seeing red now.
The tire grate prevents traffic from exiting onto Meredith. From now on, cars must exit the lot onto Willow Street. Painted speed bumps and a large red sign with floodlights at night warn motorists not to leave through Meredith. If they do leave that way, they should expect to add new tires to their shopping list.
Not everyone is heeding the new sign. An informal 45-minute observation during the evening hours on a weekday showed two cars going over the one-way tire grate. One blue Ford Taurus went across at such a speed that bystanders heard the tires pop. "The driver probably doesn't even know that he has four flat tires," says Jeff Michel of the White Dove Cafe, who witnessed the incident.
Michel has seen his customers irate because of it, but concedes that the neighbors waited 10 years for the installation. "I don't want to hurt my business, but this has been such a problem," he says.
Michel estimates that he has seen at least 10 other cars doing the same thing. "One woman threatened not to come to my business again," he says. "A parking attendant told another man [not to head out through Meredith], but he said, 'I don't care. I'm late for my appointment.' So he flew over it."
Aaron Surani is another Garden Theater employee who has heard complaints from patrons who suffered similar tire damage. Surani, who works at Footworks Etc., was on the receiving end of a tirade the first weekend the grate was installed. Still, he's amazed at the frequency at which cars go out the wrong way. "It's not hidden," he says. "They've painted all the arrows and the speed bumps. There are floodlights at night. That's enough."
Surani says that in the past, he observed incoming and outgoing cars come "nose to nose and hit the brakes because that's a blind corner," but those close encounters are not so frequent since the installation.
Kathy Stevenson, owner of Nail Time, sees the tire grate as a welcome addition and feels it will teach drivers to pay attention when behind the wheel. She recalls a recent Garden Theater customer who wasn't so fortunate. "[The tire grate] is a good idea. But last week, a woman [lost her tires], but it was her fault because she was talking on the phone," says Stevenson. "She wasn't paying attention, and she started yelling at me. I told her she can't come to me yelling, and she didn't even apologize."
Neighbors feel they have waited too long already, and have no complaints. Ted Essen says that he still hears a lot of car doors slamming, but he has definitely noticed that traffic has gone down. "We had gone to City Council and all those meetings. I didn't think they would ever follow through and do it," he says.
Essen, whose house faces the Garden Theater driveway, has no sympathy for drivers who complain about their popped tires. "You just have to watch road signs when you drive," he says.
Michelle McGurk, Councilman Frank Fiscalini's chief of staff, says that the Garden Theater project was atypical as far as the length of time it took to meet all the permit conditions. According to her, the property has changed hands several times, but when the project first began, there was no one whose job it was to make sure all conditions were met. The city's code enforcement department now provides a staff member who makes sure projects meet permit requirements.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
