After nearly three hours of discussions and public comments from a packed council chambers, the Gilroy City Council on Monday decided to keep controversial No Turn signs on Upper Welburn and Mantelli Drive and do further traffic studies on the fast-growing section of the city’s west side.
Since January, motorists have not been able to turn onto Upper Welburn from Mantelli Drive, which has proven unpopular with residents in adjacent neighborhoods – a petition to rescind the measures received 460 signatures and nearly 200 residents showed up at a Town Hall in January to voice their concerns.
The No Turn signs were part of a series of traffic calming measures the city council approved back in November after a group of 37 households on Upper Welburn Avenue petitioned City Hall over the course of four years to alleviate speeding and congestion on their stretch of the major thoroughfare.
Sam Herrera, who lives in nearby Rancho Hills, said the No Turn signs did not address the Upper Welburn residents’ underlying complaint – excessive speeding by motorists.
“People who live at the top of Upper Welburn can still speed,” said Herrera. “The only thing that was dealt with was property values [which] just went up. If you put speed bumps [in] maybe it doesn’t go up, [but] you got a private road now – that’s just how I feel.”
Councilman Peter Leroe-Munoz suggested the city remove the No Turn signs and enact a citywide traffic calming policy. Ever since the measures were installed in Upper Welburn, the city has received calls from residents who want to do something similar because of traffic problems in their neighborhood, said city administrator Gabriel Gonzalez.
“We need a systematic approach to address issues like this going forward – to fully vet unintended impacts and to make sure we really are getting at the problem,” said Leroe-Munoz. “We need to have a traffic calming policy in place.”
There was also confusion over whether a traffic study was authorized at the November 21 meeting when the city council approved $25,000 for the temporary measures.
At the time, city staff had recommended, and the city council approved, $15,000 for the signs, striping and other items associated with the traffic calming measures – not all of which have been installed, and $10,000 for follow-up monitoring.
On Monday, the city council decided that monitoring only was not enough, and directed staff to use data collected before the traffic calming measures were installed and during to inform a more comprehensive traffic study of the area.
During a follow-up interview, Mayor Roland Velasco said the additional data collection and analysis would not add to the approved $25,000 cost of the project and considering it’s importance to city council and the community, would be done as soon as possible.
“The study will be comprehensive and data-driven and allow us, as the policy-making body, to receive concrete – versus subjective – recommendations.”
While the results of the traffic study for Upper Welburn will decide the fate of the unpopular No Turn signs, Velasco said a citywide traffic calming policy will help determine whether such measures are needed in the first place.
“The purpose of a citywide policy is to develop criteria to determine if traffic calming measures are even needed.”
