Another week and all’s quiet on the Red Phone front. The Crimson
Crusader did take calls over the last few days mentioning a lack of
concrete and crosswalks, and poor planning at a city intersection,
but where is the rest of Hollister and San Benito County?
Another week and all’s quiet on the Red Phone front. The Crimson Crusader did take calls over the last few days mentioning a lack of concrete and crosswalks, and poor planning at a city intersection, but where is the rest of Hollister and San Benito County? Is life so good in this little corner of the world everyone is happy? If not, call the Red Phone and get it off your chest.
Pointless planning
One caller expressed frustration over perceived poor planning and unnecessary traffic delays on Highway 25 at a busy intersection.
“If you come north on Highway 25 from the hospital, when you pass Sunset Boulevard, the road looks like it is supposed to be two lanes,” the caller said. “Somehow, it is shuttled into one lane as you approach Sunnyslope Drive. It just bottles up traffic and all there is there is grass. There is nothing there at all. There’s no reason that road cannot be two lanes except for the stop signs. That doesn’t look like very good planning to me.”
It’s not good planning, according to associate civil engineer for the city David Rubcic, and the reason why Highway 25 has a bypass scheduled for construction to begin this December. The bypass will head north through the orchard located at the intersection of Airline Highway (aka 25), Tres Pinos Road, Sunnyslope Road and McCray Street where it will later connect to San Felipe Road at the Bolsa Road intersection. The plan, according Council of Government Transportation Coordinator Lisa Rheinheimer, is designed to ease congestion at the troubled intersection and take traffic off of San Benito Street.
Where the sidewalk ends
Another caller wondered why Hollister is short on sidewalks, especially in one area in particular.
“There is no concrete sidewalk on Powell Street between Fifth Street and Briggs Alley and there never has been,” she said. “Why is that?”
Red Phone calls to city planners and engineers couldn’t uncover why the area has no sidewalks now, but community-minded citizens could possibly get one put in. Rubcic said the city doesn’t typically install sidewalks but may in this area if funding allows for it during street reconstruction. He suggests people who want action call city engineer and new interim city manager Clint Quilter at 636-4340 or 636-4305 or attend the public comment period of the city council meeting. The council meets every Monday night at 7 in City Hall.
Look both ways
A caller wondered why San Benito Street through downtown has crosswalks in some intersection and not in others:
“I can’t figure out why some intersections have crosswalks and others don’t in downtown Hollister,” he said. “It seems the price of a little paint could go a long way to making it safer for pedestrians.”
According to Carol Lenoir at the Hollister Public Works department, there were crosswalks at every intersection about 10 years ago before Caltrans resurfaced the road. They removed the crosswalks from intersections that do not have a stoplight, she said, because Caltrans believed it gave pedestrians a false sense of security.
