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Uploaded: Monday, October 15, 2012, 1:34 PM
Tonight: Community meeting on traffic fatalities
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by Daniel DeBolt
Mountain View Voice Staff
A community meeting for residents concerned about recent pedestrian fatalities on California Street and Shoreline Boulevard is set for tonight, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m. in the Community Center at Rengstorff park.
Community members will be to share their concerns and experiences with walking and biking in the area west of Shoreline Boulevard and around California Street. Police and public works officials are expected to attend.
"The William Ware incident has sort of galvanized our community," said Tracy Chu, a Shoreline West neighborhood resident. Ware was hit by a speeding car while standing at a bus stop on California Street at Escuela Avenue on the morning of June 21.
"There's lot of lively discussion about this" among neighbors online, she said. "There are people in the neighborhood who want to get involved."
Chu also pointed to two others pedestrian deaths: Joshua Baker was hit and killed on Sept. 15 while crossing California Street, 500 feet west of Shoreline Boulevard and on April 9, Erik Onorato was struck and killed while crossing Shoreline Boulevard just north of Wright Avenue.
Chu says police are working on a request for more data on collisions involving pedestrians that have resulted in injury or death. The hope is that pinpointing dangerous locations could better prioritize traffic improvements to reduce deadly collisions.
"Our goal is to consolidate a lot of these concerns and suggestions from the community and use it as starting point to engage the city and City Council," Chu said. Residents hope to "bring focus to this issue and drive some improvements in risk reduction."
While a similar effort called the Rengstorff Great Streets Initiative has called for some specific measures, such as narrowing California Street from four lanes to three to slow traffic, Chu said the neighborhood is not ready to back any solutions in particular, but adds that there are plenty of ideas.
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Posted by Fix Drivers, a resident of the Gemello neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 1:45 pm Its not rocket science. We have people behind the wheels of cars who think they are the only thing that matters on the road...well, that and getting ahead of the guy in the next lane.
What we need is a big bump in the fines/fees and heavy enforcement by the police.
Lives will be saved if those two measures are adopted and advertised to the populace.
There is no shame in enforcing speed laws or red light laws, but there is shame in not enforcing them. Example: at 8:30am this morning I saw 2 cars blatently go through a red left turn signal at El Camino and Shoreline. The cop across the intersection should have at least waved at them if he was going to do nothing, which was what happened...nothing. If drivers have no fear of getting caught, they will not alter their ways.
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Posted by CopperC, a resident of the Cuesta Park neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 2:17 pm I drive there a lot. Don't think the streets are to blame. We could change them, hoping that'd make a difference. But we'd be guessing.
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Posted by Deniece Watkins Smith, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 2:34 pm It is an honor to be President of Shoreline West Association of Neighbors (SWAN) and represent such a great group of involved residents.
Tonight's meeting will be regarding traffic safety concerns in our neighborhood. We will submit top priority concerns to the city, who will be in attendance. Residents of SWAN, members of the Public Works Department, and of the Mountain View Police Department will all be there.
This will be the first traffic safety meeting for our SWAN Community, which was only recently (re)organized, less than two years ago. We look forward to hearing input from all those in attendance.
If you have traffic concerns and are a resident inside the boundaries of Villa, Shoreline, El Camino Real, and Escuela, please join us. If you are a SWAN resident, and are unable to join, please feel free to email us at shorelinewest@gmail.com.
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Posted by McGruff, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 2:35 pm Streets do not control the accelerator not the steering wheel nor the brakes.
Why are people so opposed to pointing thr finger where it belongs: driver's behavior. Its the DRIVERS not the streets. Ticket them.
Why haven't we already read the story about how the police will begin traffic enforcement crackdowns???
People are making this more complicated than it has to be.
When it was time to sell the new town homes by St. Joseph's on Miramonte, we had a cop out there EVERY DAY for weeks on end. People mostly go the speed limit on that section of road now. Of course they'll do 45-50 in the 35 zone leading up to that area, but ticketing aggressively has been proven to work.
It'll also make the city more money.
Start doing it cops!
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Posted by resident, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 2:46 pm It is not rocket science. Traffic engineers know how to make streets safer for pedestrians: slower speed limits, fewer traffic lanes and narrower lanes, shorter crosswalks, more visible crosswalks, better lighting, more stop lights. Is the city willing to stand up to the gas guzzler lobby and protect its pedestrians? We will see.
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Posted by resident, a resident of the The Crossings neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 2:51 pm yes it is simple. the police need to crack down on people running the red light. it is now guaranteed to see at least 3-5 people brazenly going through red lights. where are all the police? Target some of the busiest intersections and ticket these red light runners. It really is not that complicated!!!
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Posted by resident, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 3:38 pm The police do have crackdowns periodically in selected areas, including some right now, but they don't have enough staff to be everywhere all the time.
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Posted by Jarrett M, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2012 at 11:37 pm Street design is a huge determinant in the way people drive.
Design a street with multiple, wide lanes, borad curves and a distant horizon people drive faster. Design a street with fewer and narrower lanes, more trees, and sharper corners, people will drive slower and make the street more livable.
Enforcement can only go so far, since once the enforcers leave, behavior returns to what the road design allows. At the end of the day you're still stuck with an unnecessarily wide street with poor pedestrian connectivity and an overall civic blemish.
Check out the Rengstorff Park Great Streets project to see some ideas on how some streets in this area could be more safer, accessible, and livable
greatstreetsrp.wordpress.com
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Posted by Driver Dan, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2012 at 7:30 am The way people drive is a bigger determinant than roads in the way people drive.
Roads do not possess magical powers that depress accelerator pedals nor do they have the power to apply the brake pedal.
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Posted by Otto Maddox, a resident of the Monta Loma neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2012 at 8:51 am Nice way to completely ignore human nature.
Nice wide streets with few stops are, by design, going to see higher speeds.
What's happening is we're seeing more cars and more people trying to use the same space. More accidents are going to happen as a result.
More cops.. higher fines.. not going to make much difference. I worked in the financial district of San Francisco for 4 years. There were traffic cops every block during lunch and a traffic light at every intersection. Traffic never got above 25 MPH (on a good day) and people still got hit and some died.
I'm not saying we shouldn't look at the problem. We just need to keep human nature in mind when talking about the solutions. To ignore it means we're likely to fail before we ever start.
And we need to avoid the "zero defect" mentality. We'll never keep 100% of accidents from happening. You could impose the death sentence for speeding on California Ave. and a few jokers would still speed. Just the way some humans are wired.
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