San Carlos slows streets around schools

“So thrilled we’re doing this before school starts,” said Mayor Sara McDowell. “That’s going to be a really valuable tool to increase safety and help parents feel safer about kids walking or biking to school.”

Streets around Arundel Elementary, Arroyo Elementary, Brittan Acres Elementary, Clifford Elementary, Central Middle, Heather Elementary, St. Charles Elementary, Tierra Linda Middle and Mariposa Upper Elementary School and White Oak Elementary schools will all be affected.

Additional signs warning drivers of the change will be distributed and the Sheriff’s Office will also play a role in educating the community. Grace Lee, the city engineer working on the program, said deputies will likely take a softer approach at first.

Councilmembers lauded the change which was initially proposed by McDowell during the council’s annual retreat. But the city officials were also interested in seeing additional roads added to the program around private schools and areas where seniors frequent.

Lee said city staff was hesitant to expand the program beyond public schools before having a better understanding of how well it would be implemented and also worried the city could face legal challenges. Instead, Lee said staff could return in a year with an update after gathering data that could be used to defend the city and its push for safer roads.

“This will be a good start to gather data and see if there’s anything we can tweak before expanding or moving it into a bigger program,” Lee assured the council.

During Monday’s meeting, councilmembers also agreed to task its Planning Commission, now the Planning and Transportation Commission, with fielding complaints, advising the council on transportation improvements, assessing transportation issues related to new development and weighing in on preliminary plans of capital improvements having to do with transportation.

Many of those issues already come before the Planning Commission and council, the only two bodies with governing authority whose members already shape the city’s transportation and circulation visions, said City Manager Jeff Maltbie.

Staff ultimately recommended the commission be consolidated after it struggled to find a quorum, meaning enough members were present to hold a meeting. After resignations and departures from the city, the committee had one member left. Finding enough work to keep the commission busy dealing with important issues also became difficult, Maltbie said.

If the workload around transportation grows in the future, Maltbie assured the council they could reform the commission but the city has already considered some of the biggest transportation and circulation projects the body would have been tasked with assessing.

“I don’t want anyone to think this reflects on our traffic and circ commission or its members. That not really at all what it’s about. It’s about how work gets accomplished in the city and who is working on it,” Maltbie said. “Between the City Council and the Planning Commission, we feel like we’ve got ample capacity and energy to continue to move these traffic and circulation issues forward in the community.”

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