For years, I lived in the Cambrian section of San Jose and attended school on that side of town. We later had to move to the other side of San Jose to a bigger house. Not wanting to change schools, we used our prior house address that we had lived in (but were now renting to another tenant) to stay at the school I was attending. Anyway, where this is going is that commute from the new house to the school took my folks and me down Leigh Avenue 5 days a week, 2 times a day.
Where to begin, Leigh Avenue from Hamilton Avenue to Dry Creek Road contains no traffic lights, 4 lanes of traffic with no center turn lane and numerous residential streets that terminate onto it with stops signs provided. This is the only form of regulation provided and that is for the side streets only, traffic on Leigh Avenue (North and Southbound) does not have any regulations at these streets.
I have seen many accidents, cars barreling quickly as they cross Leigh from one side to the other via the residential side streets, the same goes for turning left onto each of these side streets from Leigh Avenue (north or southbound) there is no control, the driver must yield to all oncoming traffic before completing the turn. This has also resulted in many accidents and is also attributed to speed of the vehicles along Leigh. Given it is a long straight stretch with no signals, people tend to go in excess of 35 MPH. It always baffled me that there could be so many blocks without a traffic signal or other form of control. I have even witnessed pedestrians and bike riders traversing across Leigh Avenue via the side streets, a often dangerous feat in of itself.
Why is there such an issue here and no form of control present, well I came upon a Mercury News article recently that is bringing attention to the need for change here. But there is one issue with this stretch, multiple entities are involved and those are the Cities of San Jose and Campbell and Santa Clara County. From what I took away from the article, it seems like there is a lack of coordination between San Jose and Campbell over proposed fixes for one intersection (Campbell Avenue at Leigh Avenue)
It seems as though both should work together to implement a similar plan to improve the intersection, further, like others have brought up in the article, it should address the need for change along the whole road, not just one intersection. If changes are put in place at Campbell Avenue, it will only shift it to other streets. Leigh is a primarily residential area yet it is treated often as a high speed corridor. Speed response signs along with more patrols were implemented long ago, but this has only helped somewhat.
Better uses such as a traffic island from Dry Creek to Hamilton should be explored, of course it will not come cheap but perhaps San Jose could partner with either Campbell or Santa Clara County to implement this. It would only allow turns at select intersections, provide a landscaped area and even a place of refuge for pedestrians if new crosswalks were installed (there currently are none along the mentioned corridor)
It's something I never gave much thought to until now with having seen the article, but it did help jog my memory of all the times we went up and down Leigh Avenue for years and having witnessed first hand the issues along the corridor.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/08/residents-clamor-for-action-to-stop-accidents-at-leigh-campbell-intersection/
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