GILROY
– The City Council has approved new stop signs in the Northwest
Quad on a split vote, but will also discuss an overall approach to
deal with such requests in the future because of worries the move
has opened a Pandora’s box of nasty precedent.
GILROY – The City Council has approved new stop signs in the Northwest Quad on a split vote, but will also discuss an overall approach to deal with such requests in the future because of worries the move has opened a Pandora’s box of nasty precedent.
Acting against the advice of city traffic engineers, Council voted 4-3 Monday to approve a four-way stop at the intersection of Bay Tree and Lions Creek drives. Councilmen Roland Velasco, Peter Arellano and Al Pinheiro dissenting.
“What do we do with these things now?” asked a seemingly frustrated City Administrator Jay Baksa after the vote. “Do we bring every one in front of you?”
In a staff report, city engineering staff had said the four-way stop wasn’t warranted at the intersection, which already has stop signs on Bay Tree Drive.
While new signs are usually warranted when five or more correctable crashes occur in a year’s time, engineers said just one collision was reported there in 2002 – and it was caused when someone ran one of the existing signs.
They also said the estimated volume of 620 vehicles a day that use the intersection is below minimums needed to yield a new sign. Meanwhile, police posted in the area found no significant violations, and engineers found no obstructions to limit visibility.
While average speeds hover around 32 mph – above the 25 mph limit – engineers requested additional use of a Gilroy Police speed enforcement trailer to combat it.
However, Mayor Tom Springer, who brought the stop sign issue to Council at the request of a citizen, said the intersection lies along what has apparently become a heavily traveled shortcut on the way to Luigi Aprea School.
Meanwhile, several accidents have apparently occurred there, but have gone unrecorded because they did not involve injuries, Springer said.
“I did observe it’s a heavily trafficked area,” he said.
But Velasco, who also visited the site, argued that the city has trained professionals to provide tangible analysis.
“That process is fair to everybody – it’s not you or I eyeballing it,” he said.
