The city of San Jose is planning major new development along Stevens Creek Boulevard as part of its Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan, which will come before the City Council on Aug. 8. As elected leaders of the other two cities along the boulevard, we believe the corridor needs significant transit improvements that are lacking in San Jose’s current plan.Transit follows residential density. Always has and always will. Cupertino and Santa Clara have no residential density on Stevens Creek Blvd and have no plans to build any and are blocking the Urban Villages in San Jose. This call for transit is hollow at best.
We respect San Jose’s interest in economic development and welcome projects that bring new vitality to Stevens Creek. However, we think it would be irresponsible to approve the Stevens Creek Urban Village project without an effective traffic mitigation plan along the Stevens Creek/280 corridor.A viable traffic mitigation plan is included in a supplement to the Implementation Section of the Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan which involves signal timing on Stevens Creek to provide a smooth dense traffic flow Eastbound on Stevens Creek from Stern to Saratoga and beyond to I-880.
Without the disruption of through right turn traffic from Kiely and Albany trying to get into the left South I-280 turn lanes in less than a quarter mile Saratoga Ave has ample capacity to handle through southbound traffic from Stevens Creek and San Thomas Expressway.
Traffic mitigation for the Urban Village will close Urban Village streets including Kiely and Albany to through traffic freeing up the local streets for local vehicles and bikes in shared lanes and pedestrians on improved sidewalks. Current through traffic from Cupertino on Albany would be handled by the improved signals on Stevens Creek to Saratoga. Current through traffic from Santa Clara now using Kiely will be redirected to Saratoga via Stevens Creek and San Thomas all of which have ample capacity to handle the redirected traffic.
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