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A suite of safety upgrades at the site of a fatal car crash will be discussed by the Mountain View Bike and Pedestrain Advisory Committee on Wednesday. City Public Works officials are recommending a package of new lighted crosswalks and signs at the intersection of El Monte Road and Marich Way. Not part of the plan is something many were hoping for: a new stoplight.

In late 2015, 54-year-old Michelle Montalvo of Los Altos was crossing the street in a marked crosswalk at Marich Way when she was hit by an oncoming vehicle and killed. She was apparently not seen by the driver.

In the aftermath of the crash, Montalvo’s family and the public rallied to demand safety improvements at the intersection. Mountain View officials quickly installed new warning signs and repainted the crosswalks to make them more conspicuous to drivers while they studied further options.

The city hired the consulting firm Kimley Horn to analyze whether a new traffic signal would be appropriate at the Marich intersection. Completed last year, that study determined the intersection didn’t meet any of the five requirements Caltrans officials require for installing a new traffic signal, even including its history of accidents.

Over the last five years, at least seven accidents had occurred at the Marich crossing, not counting the crash that killed Montalvo. Four of the those accidents involved bicyclists or pedestrian injuries, but staff members said they didn’t believe a stoplight was appropriate there.

Even without a stoplight, the city is proposing other safety upgrades for pedestrians and bicyclists, said city senior traffic engineer Lorenzo Lopez. One option would be to install a new road median on the southern crosswalk, which would provide a “refuge” for pedestrians crossing El Monte. Alternatively, traffic engineers are also mulling taking out the crosswalk on the north side of the intersection. By funneling all pedestrians onto only one crosswalk, this would eliminate a hazard for drivers not seeing pedestrians as they make a left turn onto El Monte, he said.

“With this alternative, you have only one crossing to focus on as a driver,” Lopez said. “Drivers might thinking they’re OK (making a left turn) and then suddenly there’s a pedestrian crossing. This would eliminate that conflict.”

In either option, city engineers also want to install new signs equipped with flashing lights to alert drivers when a pedestrian is crossing. The safety improvements will be discussed by the city Bike and Pedestrian Committee on Jan. 25.

In related news, a criminal case is moving forward against Los Altos resident Glenn Kawaguchi, the driver involved in the crash that killed Montalvo. He is facing one count of vehicular manslaughter based on police officials’ conclusion that he failed to yield to a pedestrian. According to the police report, Kawaguchi was not intoxicated at the time, and he handed over his cellphone to show he wasn’t texting or chatting while driving.

If convicted, he could face a year in jail, as well as fines. His case is scheduled to go to trial on Feb. 21, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.

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  1. Removing one of the crosswalks and illuminating the other will certainly help. I used to drive in that spot every day before 8am when this happened, and I was driving by minutes after this accident happened. The visibility there is absolutely terrible around dawn, with long shadows making visibility really poor, and there are no lights to illuminate crossing pedestrians. I can totally see how a driver who isn’t actively scanning for pedestrians could miss seeing someone out of the corner of their eye.

  2. Removing crosswalks means that some pedestrians will to use 3 different crosswalks to simply cross the street. This makes their journey 3 times more dangerous as well as 3 times longer. That is obviously the wrong “solution”. Much better is to find ways to get car drivers to slow down and pay attention at intersections, since all intersections are crosswalks by default.

  3. The bureaucratic largesse at City Hall is the real danger. Some one needs to head down to the Public Works Department and clear them all out of their sleepy, cob-webbed filled little cubicles. Get them all out in the field preventing problems rather than reacting to them.

  4. Regarding removing crosswalks, I think it’s good. Adding 20 feet distance to make the crossing safer is no big deal. Look up the El Monte / Marich intersection on a map – there are 3 crosswalks making a C shape. Two of them are back to back on el-monte, which is huge. The proposal was to remove one of those two, leaving only one which would then be lit up and made visible. Pedestrians won’t be crossing 3 times, just having to cross Marich in addition to El Monte. The Marich crossing is far safer since it’s a T-junction and only one lane in each direction.

  5. I have called the City Transportation dept and emailed all the council members regarding the crosswalks on Castro St. between Evelyn and Villa. It is way to dark at night time to see pedestrians step out in the middle of the block on the unlit crosswalks. The crosswalks aren’t marked well and something needs to be done before a horrific accident happens there too. I live here so I know to look carefully but we have a lot of people coming into downtown for dinner. It’s a disaster waiting to happen and I will hold the city responsible if something happens as I’ve repeatedly commented on this to no avail.

    The only note I received was two years ago when I was told they would put this note on the list …. REALLY? Does it take another death for people to pay attention to two crosswalks int he middle of the road that are hard to be seen.

    Perhaps someone can help to get this discussed too.

  6. Yes! Lighting the crosswalk at El Monte @ Marich would do wonders for visibility. A pushbutton for pedestrian access as was done at Showers/Latham would also count for a major improvement. A stoplight might be nice, but since it impacts on traffic flow and, apparently, city budgeting, seems remote.
    Take a good look at what is happening with traffic on ECR/ El Monte. Traffic is already impacted during the morning and evening commute, even before tenancy is fulfilled with the Prometheus development. After the pedestrian crosswalk at El Monte/ECR, there are NO pedestrian crosswalks defined until ECR/Shoreline. Thats about 1/3 mile where pedestrians
    hike thru six lanes of traffic, depending on breaks between traffic pulses with no defined pedestrian crossings. The median with left-turn lanes serves as a momentary pause between hops. I live in this area with occasion to use both the ECR and Marich crossings regularly, so I speak with experience.Perhaps an arched pedestrian overpass would work nicely, but is it likely??

  7. The City should take into consideration the lighting – no, not street lighting but the shadowing produced by the trees, etc. on the CVS side of the scene. It is easy to drive into shadow from bright light and not quickly see people crossing the street at that terrible location. I’d put a traffic light there (though no one stops for them anymore anywhere either).

  8. I’d agree with Professor Stellar. The light at that crossing is terrible. At night and rainy days, you can’t see anyone due to the trees and shadows from light at the shopping complex. In the morning the shadows are just as bad. Since the terrible accident i’ve been much more cautious but there are a lot of people who use that road as a short cut to google from 280 so people unfamiliar with the intersection barrel down there every day. Another way to curb traffic might be to install a traffic bump so as to get people on springer to slow down – that would make it easier for people to turn left from CVS more easily too.

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  10. The fatal accident was 15 months ago. What is taking so long? Right after the accident Los Altos added blinking lights on their Stop signs 2 blocks away.
    Creating one safe main cross walk is a great idea, let’s not wait another year.

  12. Thanks go to Palo Alto residents living on Middlefield who gathered data and lobbied hard! And thanks go to city staff Josh Mello who was thoughtful and professional every step of the way.

    Being proactive saves lives. Middlefield soon will have lower risks for injuries and property damage. Mt View City Council, too, realizes the value of being proactive.

    http://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/01/24/city-eyes-safety-upgrades-at-fatal-crash-site

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