Longtime Cuesta Drive resident Liza Coe was out in front of her Los Altos driveway when she was nearly hit by a vehicle swerving out of its lane to avoid one of the newly installed single-lane speed tables.
“I went out to get my mail and saw some cars coming – didn’t think anything about it,” she began. “And when I turned back, the car had actually driven up onto the sidewalk. Oh, God, because we have those asphalt sidewalks and (the vehicle) was cutting around the table.”
Coe jumped back as two other cars swerved out of their lanes, following the first car.
“It kind of scared the whatever out of me,” she said.
A week later, she was backing out of her driveway to go toward Springer Road.
“There was a car coming down the street the other way. … I continued my back-out and by the time I backed out and went to move forward, the guy had cut around the table and I was staring into the front end of a Ford F-150.”
The Ford quickly got back in its lane, but it was enough for Coe to take her case to the May 31 meeting of the city’s Complete Streets Commission.
The same day of the meeting, she said her son got into another close call when he backed out onto Cuesta, heading toward Springer, and a vehicle behind him passed him on the opposite side of the road to dodge a speed table.
“A lot of residents are complaining about these new speed humps that just got installed on Cuesta Drive,” Chris Testi wrote to the Town Crier in early April. “A significant portion of drivers just swerve around them, I see that happening every single time I bike or drive on that road. This is extremely dangerous: The other night while I was biking home, I almost got run over by a car that was avoiding the last speed hump and came into my lane, completely crossing the double yellow line.”
In a letter to City Manager Gabriel Engeland, Testi wrote: “I’m pretty sure that if a police officer was hiding there for just an hour, he would catch dozens of cars speeding around these.”
Ongoing monitoring
The speed tables are the latest in a series of traffic-calming attempts for the Los Altos thoroughfare, spanning four years. After years of complaints from residents in the Cuesta neighborhood, the city installed a first set of speed bumps between the El Monte Avenue and Springer Road intersections. After some complained they didn’t reduce speed enough, the city officials tried again with asphalt tables decried as exceedingly high. When the Santa Clara County Fire Department informed the city the speed tables were not compliant, the city earlier this year removed the old tables and installed new rubberized “split-lane” tables that met the fire department’s 3-inch height requirements. The split-lane design was intended for fire trucks to move around the speed tables in the event of an emergency. Trouble is, other hurried motorists picked up on the maneuver as well.
Police officers said they are keeping an extra eye out on Cuesta, and city plans call for additional traffic-calming options to deter the swerving out of lanes.
“We have been monitoring it and continue to do so,” Sgt. Michael Taylor said. “We have observed the same … with vehicles swerving around the speed tables. As with any new traffic pattern or markings, there is always an adjustment phase. We’re hoping our presence out there will help to deter some of these bad drivers. Unfortunately, we do not have any numbers that would say how often this is occurring, but our officers have been monitoring the area and will continue to do so.”
City officials also plan on additional improvements along Cuesta, according to Marisa Lee, the city’s transportation services manager. Lee said the improvements are targeted at deterring swerving in both directions. They include Botts’ Dots down the centerline to create a rumble-strip effect and delineators, or vertical elements, at the edgeline of each table. Lee did not have a timeline for when the improvements would be installed.
“The police department has been issuing citations for swerving,” Lee said. “I have been in contact with a number of residents. The city and PD will continue to monitor.”
Coe thinks one solution is curbed sidewalks along Cuesta to deter the traffic table evaders.
“We’ve kind of clung to this idea of the rural nature of Los Altos, which I’m totally behind. … But I think we also have to come to grips with the fact that Cuesta is not a rural street,” she said. “It’s a thoroughfare and it’s got a lot of traffic. Some of the neighbors I’ve talked to said, ‘Why don’t they just put sidewalks in with curbs?’ Because at least that would prevent people from coming up onto the sidewalk and provide some amount of protection for walkers and bikers. That seems reasonable to me.”
