Chynoweth road diet angers some San Jose residents

QI have lived on Tomahawk Drive in San Jose for over 40 years and the major crossing is Chynoweth Avenue. It has been a twolane road in each direction joining Monterey Road and Snell Avenue.

Recently, without apparent consultation with any neighborhood input, the city restriped Chynoweth to a single lane of traffic in both directions to accommodate bicyclists. It has created a considerable bottleneck from people on side streets. At least, with two lanes, you could still exit/ enter Chynoweth within a reasonable time and with safety.

That has now greatly diminished and is causing more congestion and road rage with impatient drivers using the painted/ striped areas and bike lanes to circumvent the idiotic design.

AChynoweth underwent a road diet last year — a 4-to-3 lane reduction with the center lane for left turns — and bicycle lanes were added. The city held a meeting last June at the Edenvale Community Center and meeting notices were sent to each address on Chynoweth and also publicized by community groups and on Nextdoor.

Chynoweth carries 3,234 vehicles per day. One travel lane in each direction typically accommodates up to 15,000 vehicles per day. Over the last 5 years, 103 crashes were reported on this portion of Chynoweth, including 3 fatalities, 4 major injuries, 7 involving a bicycle and 4 involving a pedestrian. The road narrowing should lower speeds, shortening crossing distances and give bicyclists more protection.

QHas there been any effort to measure if all these road diets have been effective in reducing cars and increasing bikes on the roads?

AOn Lincoln Avenue through downtown Willow Glen where there was much anger when that road diet was done two years ago, the bicycle and pedestrian counts taken during two, 2-hour peak-period counts in one day were:

Bicycle activity increased from 113 to 207, while pedestrian activity increased from 506 to 607. Only one of seven nearby intersections had worse traffic. Delays at Coe got slightly longer. As for safety, between March 2015 and February 2016, there were 22 crashes that occurred between Paula Street and California Avenue, a slight reduction from the average annual number of crashes in the preceding five years.

QMany years ago, the one-way portions of 3rd and 4th streets in San Jose were put on road diets and cut from three to two lanes. The roads worked well together with the lights. But now I hit every red light between Virginia and Santa Clara on 3rd. Can something be done?

AYep. The signals have been out of sync because the city lost power to one of the lights. Repairs should be done any day now.