Tenth Street median proposal aimed at preventing jaywalking died
without funding
Gilroy – School is out, and traffic can’t stem the tide of Gilroy High School students, darting across 10th Street to grab a ride home. It’s not a big deal, says 15-year-old Marissa McBride.
“I don’t have time to go over there,” she says, gesturing to the Orchard Drive crosswalk. Besides, she adds, “no one cares.” Behind her, a girl strolls casually across multiple lanes of traffic.
Parked outside of GHS waiting for his daughter, Mike DeJesus says he’s watched “a lot of kids dodging in front of cars.” With three police cars circling the school, picking off speeders, drivers are finally slowing down, he says. But the teens haven’t changed.
The problem isn’t new: years ago, school resource officer Mike Terasaki, now retired, spearheaded a plan to combat it. Teresaki envisioned a median, lined with a short fence, to block would-be jaywalkers between the crosswalks at Orchard Drive and Princevalle Street. Roger Cornia, GUSD safety officer, was a member of the committee that developed the proposal.
“The median would force the students to cross at the corners, instead of jaywalking,” explained Cornia. “Now, parents drop off people on the other side of the street, and sometimes they run across.”
To fund the fence, the city applied for a Safe School Route grant from CalTrans, said city traffic engineer Don Dey, who was not involved in the application process. The proposal was rejected three times, he said. Last year, the city didn’t reapply.
A CalTrans District 4 representative was unsure why the proposal had been rejected, and could not provide more information by press time.
Since then, the idea has floundered. Mayor Al Pinheiro said he knew of no other potential funding sources, and Cornia said he hasn’t heard it discussed since Teresaki’s departure, more than a year ago. Without the grant, he said, the idea is dead.
School resource officer Cherie Somavia isn’t convinced that a fence would work. She attributes the problem to the sheer volume of GHS students and the distance between the two 10th Street crosswalks on Princevalle Street and Orchard Drive.
“An island wouldn’t prevent the kids from crossing,” she explained. “A cement barrier wouldn’t prevent the kids from crossing – it’s easy to hop over, it might prevent a handful. And realistically, are you going to put a 6-foot wall there? It’s pretty unlikely.
“If the kids had a crosswalk that was a little closer, I’d like to think they’d use it,” she said, “but that wouldn’t necessarily happen.”
City Councilman Craig Gartman was frustrated to hear that the idea had been dropped.
“They need to find some money to do this,” he said. “I can’t believe it would be that costly to put up a fence along there. We seem to be coming up with tens of millions of dollars to improve how our schools look, but we can’t seem to find money to provide a safer environment so kids don’t get run over.
“Do we have to wait for a kid to be under someone’s wheel before they take action at the high school?” asked Gartman.
Dey mentioned the idea at a Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Council meeting late last month, but later cautioned that a fence alone may not curb reckless crossers.
“It’s not known at this point whether putting in a median and fencing is the best solution,” said Dey. “We have to consider: Why are pedestrians crossing at that point, versus other points?”
Planted on one of Gilroy’s busiest streets, GHS gets hectic when kids are coming and going from school. Parent chauffeurs sometimes park across from school, then beckon their kids across, said Somavia. Superintendent Edwin Diaz said the school district had discussed creating an off-street pick-up site by paving over some of the school’s fronting green space, but the idea had fizzled.
Ultimately, the problem is taming teens’ behavior: a tall order for a short fence.
“These kids know better,” said Gartman. “But when you’re a teenager, you’re invincible.”
