Wide roadway seems like a thoroughfare, invites speeding

By Kathleen Acuff, Town Crier Staff Writer

Bill Crook addresses the Springer Safe Routes to Schools meeting, while crossing guard Carol Curtis-Barnes listens.

Within a week after a Springer Elementary School student was hit by a car on his way to school, a Springer parent came up with a plan to make getting to and from the school safer for children who walk or bike there.

Zack Schmidt presented his Springer Road Safe Routes to Schools plan Dec. 18 in the school’s multipurpose room to several dozen concerned neighbors whose comments echoed those heard by the Los Altos School/Traffic Committee in early 2000.

Notes from the school site meeting almost four years ago include the statements that a student had been struck by a car on Rose Avenue in front of the school 18 to 24 months earlier and that a parent had narrowly missed being hit in the crosswalk. The notes can be found at www.ci.los-altos. ca.us/boards-commissions/traffic/ springer-comments. pdf. The student who was struck earlier this month was trying to cross the street at Cuesta Drive and Springer Road, a busy intersection without a crossing guard.

With help from traffic guru Bill Crook and local residents, Schmidt is moving quickly toward the Jan. 12 deadline for presenting the plan to the Public Works departments of Los Altos and Mountain View. If those departments approve the plan, the Los Altos City Council will consider sponsorship and prioritization of the plan in a public hearing Jan. 27, and the Mountain View City Council will hold a public hearing to consider approving the plan. Feb. 27 is the deadline for submitting the plan to CalTrans in the hope of obtaining $500,000 in federal funding from the Safe Routes to Schools program. If the funding comes through, construction could begin in the spring.

Because the west side of Springer Road is in Los Altos and the east side is in Mountain View, neighbors at the recent meeting heard from both Thomas Ho of Los Altos Public Works and Dennis Belluomini of Mountain View Public Works.

Local residents who addressed the meeting reiterated Schmidt’s opening remarks: Both traffic and speed on Springer Road are “out of control.” They agreed that while speeding commuters who use Springer Road and Cuesta Drive as a shortcut are a problem, parents who drop their children off at Springer then transform into commuters themselves are also a significant safety problem.

A father said, “The ugly truth is it’s our own parents. The drivers aren’t going to change; we have to change the street.”

Belluomini agreed, “The parents that come to the school make a lot of the problem.”

Carol Curtis-Barnes, a crossing guard at Springer Road and Rosita Avenue, said, “It’s really amazing to me the things that happen out there.” She told the crowd that drivers - even Springer parents - routinely pass on the right or fail to make a full stop at the crosswalk.

“I’ve heard it all, I’ve seen it all, I’ve been called names,” she said. She added that a police presence helps but that drivers “go back to their bad behavior” as soon as the police leave. “Drivers are on the phone, they’re looking down, they’re drinking coffee, they’re not paying attention,” she said.

Several neighbors said that their children call Springer and Rosita “the Intersection of Doom.” The intersection has “too many choices,” they said. One worried mother said, “You can’t look in every direction. We have to restrict (the choices there). We can’t let people make all the turns now allowed.”

Some at the meeting called for a consistent 25 mph zone on both sides along the length of Springer Road. The Mountain View side of the street has a variety of speed designations. Although most of the Los Altos side of the street is designated a 25 mph zone, Ho said the street is not designed for 25 mph traffic. Springer Road is a collector street, designed to handle 9,000 vehicles a day, he pointed out.

Ho suggested installing a median island on Springer Road to slow traffic by obstructing “the straight shot from one stop sign to the next.”

Neighbors at the meeting considered the following changes to the route:

• Signal light at Springer and Cuesta

• Pedestrian crossing light at Springer and Rosita

• Raised crosswalks at Springer and Rosita

• New raised sidewalk on Springer

• ‘Class 1 Bike Path’ on Springer Road

• Raised planted median to narrow Springer Road

• New signage: School Zone; 25MPH School Zone; 25MPH

• Police visible during morning school commute at Springer Road and Rosita Avenue and at Cuesta Drive and Fordham Way.

Crook said that competition for Safe Routes to School grants is very stiff; he recommended choosing only one or two of the items for the proposal to CalTrans. Ho, a traffic engineer, explained that engineering and other costs usually reduce such grants by 25 to 35 percent, which would limit the scope of improvements.