Photograph by George Sakkestad
David Simons and his dog, Stanley, go for a ride and run down Mary Avenue.
When David Simons looks out on the road from his home at 1514 Mary Avenue and sees speeding cars, he's reminded of two deaths.
A child and a Homestead High School girl were killed in separate traffic accidents near his home within the past six years.
Joined by 30 other neighbors, Simons has petitioned the city to do something before another accident occurs.
As a way to curb speeding and reduce traffic volume, the group wants the city to reduce the number of lanes from four to two on a mile-long stretch of Mary Avenue between Homestead Road and Fremont Avenue, an area with about 100 homes.
They also want a center turn lane, which they said would allow residents to turn into driveways more safely.
"At times this area becomes a drag strip," Simons said. "Cars get up to 70 miles an hour."
The speed limit is 35 mph, he said.
The Sunnyvale City Council has agreed to study the proposal, principally because of a request from the city's Bicycle Advisory Committee, of which Simons is a member.
City officials are concerned, however, that approving the plan could spur other neighborhood groups to make similar requests.
If those are granted and more lane-reduction projects are carried out, motorists might look for other streets to use during peak commute hours, causing traffic jams elsewhere in the city, they said.
The city is currently studying ways to curb heavy traffic flow and speeding cars through neighborhoods. City Traffic Engineer Ray C. Williamson said the study will look at whether fewer lanes will result in safer driving and whether traffic on the rest of Mary Avenue will be diverted to other streets.
The public will be involved in the study, he said.
"We are glad they have given it a higher priority," Simons said of the council's plan to study his group's proposal. "We have had this thing before them for two years, but it didn't make the cut until now."
Williamson said the city is equally concerned about the safety of residents on that strip of Mary Avenue.
But the city is not "advocating any position" on whether or not to implement the group's plan, he said.
The city didn't give more serious consideration to the request in the last two years because other projects, including those asked for by the bicycle committee, had higher priority, Williamson said.
These projects involved studies of ways to make road improvements for bicyclists, including restriping lanes on roads to accommodate them and motorists, he added.
As for the death of the two children, the current four-lane configuration doesn't appear to have been the cause, Williamson said.
Julian Hawawini said she worries for her two sons when they take their bicycles to school. They attend West Valley School and Cupertino Junior High School.
Dr. Nisar Shaikh, who lives near the junior high, said cars landed in his front yard two different times last summer in accidents that occurred shortly before classes let out.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 12, 1997.
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