Local drivers, beware
– southbound U.S. 101 through Gilroy has become a dangerous
place.
Of course, locals and San Benito County commuters and shoppers
are used to the jams that occur around the Leavesley Road off-ramp
during the holiday shopping season as thousands of shoppers looking
for bargains back up onto 101 waiting to exit the highway, headed
toward the outlets.
Local drivers, beware – southbound U.S. 101 through Gilroy has become a dangerous place.
Of course, locals and San Benito County commuters and shoppers are used to the jams that occur around the Leavesley Road off-ramp during the holiday shopping season as thousands of shoppers looking for bargains back up onto 101 waiting to exit the highway, headed toward the outlets.
But with this year’s opening of numerous big box retailers at Highway 152 and 101, the Tenth Street/152 exit has become a second dangerous backup.
We hope construction on the redesigned off-ramp, soon to be complete, will alleviate most of the problem, but we’re betting that even after the road work is done, peak holiday shopping times will wreak havoc on southbound 101 traffic.
So here’s a word of advice to San Benito County residents: Avoid the freeway during peak shopping times – evenings and weekends leading up to Christmas, and during the after-Christmas price-slashing sales.
Take the back roads and avoid a traffic headache and possibly worse – we’re predicting record numbers of accidents at these off-ramps as drivers are surprised by stopped off-ramp traffic spilling onto the freeway.
And here’s a word of advice to Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage and new Gilroy Mayor Al Pinheiro: Invite a few VTA directors, management honchos and traffic engineers on a peak shopping hour tour of South County traffic. Take the agency’s suits and staff on a tour of South County, motoring down 101, showing off the bottlenecks where more cars than road to handle them cause frustration and accidents. Take a quick trip down to the Highway 25 interchange where traffic backs up onto the freeway, where people who can’t believe there isn’t a stop sign or traffic light at the end of the exit ramp stop and further jam traffic.
Next stop, after a quick ride up 101, is the Gilroy Foods parking lot. We suggest timing this stop for an end-of-the-workday shift dismissal. Witness the non-stop stream of traffic making it nearly impossible for Gilroy Foods employees to head west on 152 toward home.
Since the tour members won’t want to wait to turn left onto 152, make the easier right turn. But be sure to slate the tour for a getaway Friday, so the VTA representatives can get a good look at the dangerous mess that is the intersection of Highways 152 and 156 near Casa de Fruta.
Be sure to have statistics ready on the number of serious injury and fatal accidents that have occurred along this stretch of freeway used by hundreds of thousands of travelers to and from the Bay Area, consistently named as one of the Bay Area’s worst traffic trouble spots.
Perhaps a long, frustrating tour of the area’s traffic issues that negatively affect business, health, public safety and quality of life will have an impact on the VTA’s priorities.
In the meantime, for their own safety and sanity, we urge all San Benito County residents to avoid these intersections whenever they can. If you must use them, please, be very careful.
