Q: Road diets like the one being planned on Hillsdale Avenue in San Jose are a cancer on the streets we taxpayers have funded for our cars.
Tom Walker
A: But today critics like Tom are taking a backseat to many who endorse plans to reduce Hillsdale by one lane each way and add bicycle lanes. Work is starting later this year on the road diet, designed to slow speeders, reduce collisions and improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Q: Hillsdale is a ridiculous road, an avenue designed like a freeway. For a pedestrian, seven lanes is impossible to cross unless you’re a fast runner. This is an obvious project.
Kirk A.
A: And …
Q: Hillsdale is a crazy road — extremely wide (too wide, really) and passing through residential areas. Getting some control over that is a good thing. … I’m happy that San Jose is becoming a safer place by re-designing roads, considering how many accidents happen every year. … Bike lanes on 40-plus-mph streets don’t get many riders, because fast traffic separated only by a few inches of paint feels unsafe.
Sergey Bialko and many others
A: And …
Q: Having worked in the Hillsdale area for many years, I can tell you that the vast majority of vehicle collisions were caused by one party making an unsafe left turn across traffic in front of an oncoming vehicle.
P.F.
A: Which is why they are reducing left-turn locations.
Q: Because of the high speeds, I generally choose to bicycle on narrow and bumpy Foxworthy Avenue rather than to risk having to be scraped off some distracted driver’s bumper on Hillsdale. I have seen motorcycle cops enforcing the speed limit, but it never seemed to slow things down. I will definitely be using Hillsdale when there are bike lanes. I only wish they could extend the bike lanes all the way to Curtner just before Highway 17.
Craig Foster, San Jose
A: The bike lanes will stop at Ross Avenue. Extending them from Camden Avenue to San Tomas Expressway will be considered later.
Q: At 40 mph, assuming you make every light on Hillsdale from Almaden Expressway to Leigh Avenue, it takes 4½ minutes. At 30 mph, six minutes. Just 90 seconds more is not a sacrifice.
Francis Fiesler
A: You are so right.
Q: As a person living in an area where the road diet reduced lanes and added bike lanes, the majority of effects are entirely positive. And there’s no question that this cuts down on speeding.
Dan Mitchell
A: That’s the goal.
Join Gary Richards for an hourlong chat noon Wednesday at www.mercurynews.com/live-chats. Look for Gary Richards at Facebook.com/mr.roadshow, or contact him at mrroadshow@bayareanewsgroup.com or 408-920-5335.
