Tam Valley residents seek to slow down drivers

Libtards in MArin, Learn to slow down ? Very unlikely.

I meant MErin

A step in the right direction to create crosswalks on Shoreline Highway. However, I see way too many drivers who fail to yield the right-of-way at the Pine Hill intersection now.

I would prefer to see the speed limit reduced to 25 mph, as it does indeed go through a residential area, and stop signs installed at the intersections with Gibson/Flamingo, and at Northern/Maple.

Also in order to reduce speeding and dangerous driving by many parents of Tamalpais Valley Elementary School, I'd suggest stop signs at every block between Laurel and Maple.

We need some serious traffic calming in our area.

It's a state highway...what do you expect. If residences are too close to the hwy. then perhaps we should use eminent domain laws and remove those residences.

How do any of these people know drivers are "speeding?" Are they trained to judge speed with their eyes? Or are they seeing cars driving at 35mph and assuming they are speeding? Unless they are pointing a radar gun at cars and monitoring, they are just guessing and assuming.

God you dudes are just a bunch of d***heads (joe, day hiker etc.)....they are just trying to keep their children safe. People drive like maniacs around here and everyone just needs to chill. The weird thing is, the people driving like maniacs are the same moms and dads who have children.....I just don't understand why they can't put two and two together and realize that it could be their child that could be affected by their maniacal driving.

The most frequent problem with areas where drivers speed is so simple to fix.
Install more speed limit signs! When stopped for speeding, most drivers have no idea what the speed limit is on the road they were stopped for speeding. Just take a drive and look for yourself.
Bigass speed limit signs with the speed also painted on the ground...it there's more than one lane, have multiple signs at each spot...then repeat the signs 50 yards later.

Great idea R. Adar. That is a dangerous area for peds. I hope the painting slows traffic a little (or makes drivers more aware).

Highway 1 through Tam Valley has always been a big problem, and the building of the Fireside apartments down at the junction of 1 and 101 is insane. No residences have ever been built there before, that must be one of the busiest areas in all of Marin.
Just yesterday I was driving right in front of that project, I had just exited 101 and was heading onto hwy 1, where 2 lanes merge into 1. All of a sudden some kook in a blue Prius wanted to be ahead of me, but his lane had ended, so he speeds up and tries to pass me on the left-honking his horn and flipping me off. He was about to run off the road or ram his car into mine and force me to crash into oncoming traffic. It was a case of road rage that happens a lot when 2 lanes merge into 1, very dangerous. I have had many scary altercations at such places, and I found a way to put an end to the danger. The key is to be polite and if someone is ahead of me,of course, let them merge, slow down if need be, and if someone is behind me, let them slow down and merge, DO NOT put yourself at risk by letting them try to get ahead, if they are behind, that is where they stay.
The crosswalk at Tennessee Valley Rd. is a very bad spot, it is on a curve and there are going to be many accidents there with a crosswalk. That is one intersection that should be signalized, with flashing beacons warning of signal ahead well in advance.

Correction, the kook in the Prius tried to pass me on the right, not the left. I guess that the driver was unhappy with the performance of his Prius, he had to stop his car and wait to get back into the traffic lane. Then later at the junction of Almonte and hwy 1, while waiting in line to make a left turn, he pulls up behind me, and after a few minutes he starts honking his horn, trying to make 7 cars run a red light so he can keep moving, maybe his daughter was having a baby.

The crosswalk at Pine Hill and Shoreline is the ONLY crosswalk, to date, between Tam Junction and Stinson Beach. Given that there are 400 elementary students attending Tam Valley School and that at least 50% of the students live on the northern side of Shoreline, there is a tremendous need for a safe crossing across Shoreline for students to get to the southern side, where the local school resides. The students notwithstanding, there are many local adults who need to cross Shoreline as well, by foot or bike, and who are anxious to do so due to the fact that cars typically do not yield on Shoreline. Decreasing the speed limit is unlikely to yield safer opportunities to cross. Countless traffic studies will support this. The presence of additional crosswalks may or may not make a difference in increasing the awareness of drivers of the presence of pedestrians. Unfortunately, the new crosswalk at Tennessee is along a dangerous bend.(Cars routinely nearly rear-end each other near this bend whenever a driver needs to slow to turn left onto Jean Street -- this being the case eventhough there is a sign warning drivers to slow.) What is REALLY needed along Shoreline is a pedestrian-initiated light at a major crosswalk, like the one at Pine Hill and Shoreline. "State Law Requires that You Yield to Pedestrian" signs were installed 1.5 years ago at this crosswalk, and while they make a small difference, by and large, drivers still blow through while pedestrians wait to cross. Worse still, one car will yield while the car behind the yielding car tries to pass on the R or L, putting the pedestrians in further danger. And I cannot even begin to count the number of times that cars have the yielding car has almost been rear-ended.

While CHP says that they patrol the area during peak crossing times, that simply is not so. Nor does the Sheriff's Dept. Between the two, perhaps the crosswalk has been monitored half a dozen times in the past 3 years. A pity really: both departments could make a killing when it comes to traffic citations. And while Caltrans says that there have been relatively few accidents over the years and that the road is not heavily crossed by pedestrians, Caltrans is not taking into account (a) the enormous number of near accidents and (b) the fact that people will not let their children cross due to the dangerous nature of the crossing. It's a chicken and the egg situation. Were it safe, more families would let their children walk/ride to school (thereby reducing crazy-Marin-Parent-hurrying-th eir-kids-to-school traffic congestion, btw), and revised stats would surely reflect increased pedestrian traffic.

We can spend taxpayer money to increase CHP/Sheriff Dept presence, we can wait patiently for a truly awful accident that will cost someone dearly, we can continue to congest the roads with parents schlepping their children -- who could stand the exercise and camaraderie afforded by walking with peers -- to school by car, we could all keep arguing about this topic, or we could simply install a simple pedestrian-initiated light at the existing crosswalk and be done with the whole matter. Seems a simply solution to me...

Finally! Many thanks to Kathy and Charles and CalTrans for making this happen! I can't tell you how many near misses we've had from speeding drivers on cell phones as we try to cross the street to get to my daughter's school. Thank you!!

And I strongly agree with Tired. A pedestrian-initiated light is a must also. But when a group of us contacted CalTrans they were not willing to do it. Incidents of rear-ending are likely going to increase. I, for one, have never seen a sheriff of CHP in the area monitoring traffic and I live right there.

You are right, Steve: Caltrans believes that the current pedestrian traffic is too light to justify a ped. initiated light, which brings us back to the chicken and the egg analogy. Caltrans has suggested increased CHP/sheriff monitoring of the area, but repeated requests for such over the past 3 years has resulted in little to no traffic enforcement. Hopefully they have bigger eggs to fry. A light, like the one in Fairfax, would be the ideal solution. Surely its expense would be cost justified in the LR.

It took McG a YEAR to get two crosswalks striped and one small bike lane on a side street?

THAT'S your problem--get a supervisor who is effective at what counts, instead of one that gets angry when he gets caught paying for "studies" that make him look good.

Rational approach wrote:

It took McG a YEAR to get two crosswalks striped and one small bike lane on a side street?
THAT'S your problem--get a supervisor who is effective at what counts, instead of one that gets angry when he gets caught paying for "studies" that make him look good.

For what it's worth, the crosswalk at Pine Hill has been there for years. And it was a local resident who got Caltrans to install the Yield signs, not McG.

To Paul--it is NOT Tennessee Valley Road where they are putting the crosswalk--it is Tennessee AVE. which is a block or so before 7-11 on Shoreline Highway. And yes, there should not be a crosswalk or a left hand turn lane on Tennessee Valley Road---the left hand turn lane needs to go!!

As a resident of the area, i say hooray and thanks Kathy and Caltrans. Hopefully no more kids will be killed crossing the street.

spicey wrote:

To Paul--it is NOT Tennessee Valley Road where they are putting the crosswalk--it is Tennessee AVE. which is a block or so before 7-11 on Shoreline Highway. And yes, there should not be a crosswalk or a left hand turn lane on Tennessee Valley Road---the left hand turn lane needs to go!!

My apologies, that is a big difference that I missed. But the concerns about the Fireside still will necessitate a crosswalk down in that area also. I agree with everyone who says that the crosswalks should be signalized. That would be the safest solution to the problem. The cost of signals is not much when safety of people are factored in. The thousands of motorists who use the state highway will only have to stop if a pedestrian intiates a call or if an opposing lane calls for service (green time). Maybe Pinehill and Tennessee Aves. do not need to be actuated by traffic, because of the relatively low volume, so CalTrans claims that there is no need for signals, but the ped crossing problem is justification for signals.
But spicey, why do you say the left turn lane at Tennessee Valley needs to go ?. If it was not there, then that intersection would be much more dangerous.

Thanks to the IJ for covering this real issue in a real neighborhood. And three cheers for our local hero Kathy for getting action on this through sheer persistence. It may be a highway as some have suggested, but if Cal Trans is in charge of a highway that runs through the middle of a community they must take responsibility for making it safe for all: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.