Willow Glen, California Since 1992
City Beat
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By Juliane Ngan Helen Brady will never forget watching a 13-year-old girl be hit by an oncoming car when she stepped off a bus late one afternoon. By the time the girl reached the hospital, the entire lower right section of her body had been removed, and she was announced dead on arrival. The incident occurred 36 years ago, and Brady, a Dry Creek Road resident for the past 33 years, said her concern for this particular girl stemmed from the fact that her own daughter was also 13 years old at the time. Now Brady, a former nurse retired from Community Hospital of Los Gatos, is worried about the safety of students at Willow Glen High and Middle schools. Brady and a group of Willow Glen residents expressed their concern regarding the March 26 move of school bus loading zones from Cottle Avenue to Dry Creek Road at a Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA) meeting June 12. Their campaign began in early April, and they have made several attempts to get the attention of the San Jose Unified School District and the San Jose City Council to make sure that the school bus loading zone will not become permanent. The group has also requested that its members be informed of any neighborhood meetings that occur regarding their part of the neighborhood. Around mid-April, the residents received a flier informing them of a meeting to discuss the traffic issue on Cottle Avenue that didn't indicate there would be any discussion about school buses or Dry Creek Road. A day after the meeting, a Cottle Avenue resident approached Brady and said, "I feel so guilty I have dumped the school bus problem from my street to yours."Shortly after, Brady received a letter informing her that curbs from Cottle Avenue down to the sixth house on Dry Creek Road would have their curbs painted red. After struggling to get answers from the city, the group didn't know where to go. "We know [San Jose City] Councilman Ken Yeager's office is listening to us,"Brady said. "But we just don't think they're doing anything about it." The group spoke out at the WGNA meeting with determination and said that with support from more Willow Glen residents, something would be done. Brady contacted the neighborhood association shortly after the school bus issue arose, and recently the group attended a WGNA board meeting. The school district and the San Jose Department of Transportation had moved the school bus drop-off location to lessen the amount of traffic on Cottle Avenue. That traffic involved a mixture of school buses, students driving to and from school, parents picking up and taking their children to school, Valley Transit Authority buses and nearby residents driving through the area. Moving the school bus drop-off location only changed the situation from school buses creating traffic on Cottle Avenue to "cars dodging students, students dodging cars,"said Brady. Now students are being dropped off in the middle of Dry Creek Road and have to cross Cottle Avenue with traffic coming from both directions in order to get on school grounds. "They have removed children from a grassy loading area in front of schools, where there's no traffic between children and the buses, to a loading area where they must crisscross through a school parking lot with 87 cars,"Brady said. WGNA has agreed to work with the group by writing letters to Yeager's office and the school district with hopes that they will think of another solution for the school buses other than dropping them off on Dry Creek Road. "The more you watch it,"Brady said. "The more you realize it's a dangerous situation. Even the school security guards say it's an accident waiting to happen." One solution to the problem is to have the school buses drop students off on campus, but it may not be feasible due to heavy foot traffic on school grounds. "I think overall the letter we're sending to both the school district and Mr. Yeager will say that they need to come up with a solution that doesn't just move the problem from one street to another but addresses it overall,"said John Gibbs, WGNA president. A representative from the school district met with Brady and a neighbor, assuring them that the loading zone would only be on Dry Creek until September. However, after attending a few meetings regarding the school bus issue, that same representative said that the move had succeeded in reducing traffic congestion on Cottle, and it was suggested that the loading zone stay there for another two to five years. Brady is far from impressed with the little progress that has been made on the issue. "They need to show us that they care about the students' safety. Five years is too long to wait, and one child's life is too much to lose in this unsafe situation,"Brady said. Toward the end of April, Yeager's office wrote a letter to Brady that read, "We want to make life better for you, not worse." Ironically, a few weeks later, Brady and other nearby residents encountered increased traffic—:the result of several turn restrictions signs that were posted in the Hicks Avenue area. This group also spoke out at the WGNA meeting regarding the 'no left turn' and 'no right turn' signs that have been posted in the Hicks Avenue area of Willow Glen. |
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