WATSONVILLE — Concerned about speeding on your street? Get together with your neighbors and form a neighborhood traffic group, city officials advise.
Residents are being encouraged to gather together and educate themselves on traffic laws and bring forward issues that need to be remedied.
The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday approved an updated version of the city’s Neighborhood Traffic Plan, which was developed in 2001. The multi-tiered plan aims to address speeding and other complaints within neighborhoods by including education, enforcement and street modifications.
The 2017 update, among other things, adds a discussion on traffic calming.
Public Works and Utilities Assistant Director Maria Esther Rodriguez said the plan is designed to bring neighborhoods together to improve traffic behavior on their streets.
“Community involvement in this effort is crucial,” she said.
If residents are concerned about speeding on their street, they can contact city staff to request police presence, as well as a placement of a radar trailer.
Watsonville Police Sgt. Donny Thul said police loan out radar guns to residents who want to track the speed of drivers through their neighborhoods, which allows them to gather data and report “problematic” drivers.
“What we want to do with this is curb the poor driving habits before they start,” he said.
If those efforts are unsuccessful in curbing speed, a neighborhood can move into the next level of the plan, which is to form a neighborhood traffic group. The group consists of a number of residents who agree that traffic is a problem, and they work to educate themselves about traffic laws and work with city staff to develop a plan.
That plan could include holding neighborhood meetings and distributing temporary speed awareness signs.
If those efforts still aren’t successful, the group can request physical modifications to the street, such as median islands, curb extensions and speed humps. These would need approval by the police, fire and public works departments, and be prioritized based on funding and other factors.
Arthur Road resident Jim Borrego said his neighborhood worked with city staff a number of years ago to install a stop sign at the intersection of Hammer Drive. The road had been a popular way for speeding drivers to get from Freedom Boulevard to Main Street, as there were no stop signs throughout Arthur Road, he said.
Now, Borrego said neighbors would like to see a stop sign on Arthur Road at Alta Vista Avenue.
“It’s gotten worse over the years,” he said. “There’s been accidents and a lot of near misses. Something needs to be done there.”
Fellow Arthur Road neighbor Edward Carbajal said he worked to gather data with the radar gun, which eventually led to the stop sign being installed. But it took two-and-a-half years for the city to get it installed, he noted.
“I just had a car go by last night going 65 miles per hour,” he said. “They stop at the stop sign and then they take off. If you put a stop sign at Alta Vista, it will slow people down.”
Martinelli Street resident Maria Carranco said her neighbors have had a number of their parked vehicles totaled due to speeding drivers losing control.
“We hear a lot of screeching, almost every night,” she said.
Councilwoman Trina Coffman-Gomez said the city needs to work on its response time in addressing residents’ speeding complaints.
“If it took them two-and-a-half years to get a stop sign, that’s not acceptable,” she said.
Residents who are interested in forming a neighborhood traffic group can visit www.cityofwatsonville.org/1483/Neighborhood-Traffic-Plan or call Customer Service at 768-3133.
