Opinion

The Morgan Hill Downtown Association Board of Directors joins the entire community in the sorrow surrounding the tragic accident on the evening of July 4. While crossing Monterey Road, two young boys were struck by a car and critically injured at an intersection widely known to be one of the riskiest in the downtown.On a night when most of the community was celebrating our nation’s birth, those two young members of our community ended their day in a most horrific way that undoubtedly forever changed their lives, as well as the driver’s and both of their families.As historically safe as our downtown has been, the hard-earned growth in popularity of our businesses may challenge the past record. As the efforts of everyone—from the stalwart businesses of the community, to developers, to city staff—continue to contribute to the success of the downtown, we will see a growing competition for the use of our sidewalks, crosswalks and roadways.We still don’t yet know the details surrounding the July 4 accident. We don’t know if any of the traffic calming efforts like those currently proposed or seen during last year’s Complete Streets Pilot Project would have helped. We have to hope that we have the best possible solution to our traffic calming concerns amongst our current plans or options being explored, but we need to keep an open mind to additional solutions.The recent tragic accident has served as a reminder that we need to maintain a safe environment downtown, but at the same time we want to remind the community that the downtown is a business district that will continue to grow in its role as the community social gathering place and economic driver.Keeping this in mind, we would like to restate some of our previous recommendations that have not yet been implemented:• Install the traffic control signal at Fourth Street and Monterey Road as quickly as possible;• Provide enhanced law enforcement in a manner sensitive to the perception that excessive enforcement may be a deterrent to bringing more visitors to the downtown;• Identify ways to lower and implement a 15 mph speed limit through the downtown core;• Provide user-held crosswalk flags at pedestrian crossings as soon as possible;• Close Monterey Road to vehicle traffic on selected weekends, or on weekends in general.We do not support the following in the downtown core:• Speed cushions or speed bumps;• Raised pavement markers;• Flashing pedestrian crossing lights;• Vehicle speed indication signage.The recently proposed traffic calming strategy of programming the downtown traffic control signals to flash red in all directions (creating four-way stop sign intersections) during off-peak traffic periods should be further considered for implementation.Recent comments by City Council members have indicated an interest in revisiting the lane reduction, as experienced during the 2015 Complete Streets Pilot Project, when the Hale Avenue extension is completed or conditions present a better opportunity for successful implementation. Please consider a resolution stating that under the se conditions that Monterey Road lad reductions could be revisited.Kathleen Sullivan is a board member of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association. She wrote this letter to the City Council on behalf of the MHDA board, and presented it to the council at the July 27 meeting.