Emphasizing the precedence of the citywide benefits of the Santa
Teresa Boulevard extension over the potential harm the project will
bring to a west Morgan Hill neighborhood, the city council voted in
favor of proceeding with the design and environmental study of the
new road.
Emphasizing the precedence of the citywide benefits of the Santa Teresa Boulevard extension over the potential harm the project will bring to a west Morgan Hill neighborhood, the city council voted in favor of proceeding with the design and environmental study of the new road.
“This is clearly a community-wide project,” Councilman Larry Carr said before the unanimous vote at Wednesday’s city council meeting. “It has never been about improving the commute, or a back-door way of changing Monterey Road. It has always been a way of getting pass-through traffic out of neighborhoods.”
The Santa Teresa extension has been proposed since 1969 as a bypass around the west side of downtown Morgan Hill. The “gap fill” project will connect Hale Avenue with DeWitt Avenue, from Main to Spring avenues.
The current layout of residential streets on the west side of downtown has been described as a “maze” by city staff and the Santa Clara County Fire Department. Councilman Gordon Siebert said the new road will create “a reasonable approximation of a grid for our downtown.”
The road project is currently budgeted in the city’s five-year capital improvement program, at a cost of about $17.8 million.
Actual costs are expected to be lower than that, as that cost is based on a four-lane configuration, according to city staff. A traffic study completed in 2008 found that a two-lane road will be sufficient for future traffic loads, at least for the next 30 years.
The budget also includes a paved bicycle and foot path on one curb of the new road, similar to that found on Butterfield Boulevard. Attendees at two community meetings on the project held last year indicated a preference for no raised median in the road, with a quieter ambience than the “expressway” that some critics of the project say was previously planned.
Now that the council has authorized city staff to continue with the design and environmental study of the project, engineers and consultants can begin to work out complicated details to address some of the many complaints submitted by residents and property owners of the Santa Teresa corridor who were opposed to the road extension.
Those include how to configure the intersection at the south end of the new road, where it will connect with DeWitt and Spring avenues at an odd angle. Residents and council members indicated they do not want to see DeWitt Avenue end in a cul-de-sac due to the project – a possibility that has been mentioned by city staff.
Other details to be studied include how to mitigate the impact of noise from passing traffic on the Spring Hill neighborhood and what kind of street lighting to use, according to public works director Karl Bjarke.
The road is designed to have a speed limit of 35 mph, Bjarke said.
Both citywide and neighborhood traffic studies completed in recent years indicate that the Santa Teresa Boulevard extension will relieve north-to-south traffic on neighborhood streets such as Main Avenue, Monterey Road and Peak Avenue, which are occupied by schools, churches, convalescent homes and stop signs.
The project has been delayed a number of times, most recently in 2008 while city officials awaited the results of the updated traffic studies.
Residents who own property along the southern end of the new Santa Teresa corridor route have long been opposed to the project, because of the expected noise impact on their homes and the possible negative effects on their property values.
Some of those residents attended Wednesday’s council meeting to submit public comments, as did supporters of the project.
The road will be funded by bond revenues from the city’s Redevelopment Agency.
