The San Jose Department of Transportation conducted a traffic study following a recent multi-car accident in the neighborhood, and the result have now been made available. There have been a significant number of car accidents in and around the area as denoted by the cities Crash Data map, it's important to note that this data does not include accidents that have occurred after 2015, (collected May 2018):
The study conducted on April 3rd and 4th of this year collected information on cars traveling through the neighborhood in 3 different location, noting data like time of day, direction of travel, and speed. It's important to note that this is a snap-shot of traffic patterns in our neighborhood over a very limited period of time.
Two traffic counters were deployed on Menker Ave, one north of Scott St, the other South, and a fourth counter was deployed on Scott St between South Buena Vista and Chiechi Streets (referred to in the reports as being "W of S Willard Ave". Menker Ave is of significance because it provides access to the north-bound I280 onramp at Parkmoor Ave; Scott St is a neighborhood collector street which is suppose to function as a minor arterial for neighborhood traffic as it moves to surrounding arterials, Bascom to the west, W San Carlos to the north, and Meridian to the east.
The information collected is supportive of the anecdotal evidence reported by neighbors that cars have a tendency to travel over the speed limit in the area with some vehicles far exceeding the safe speed. All areas studied have a posted limit of 25mph, standard for a residential street, yet there was at least one vehicle traveling at least 78mph on Scott.
The study does support the idea that most cars traveling both north and south between Scott St and Parkmoor Ave on Menker are exceeding the speed limit.
A copy of the raw data captured by the DOT is available here; this includes the car counts during each interval and the speeds of the vehicles.
While the city has not stated what actions, if any it will be taking to address the issues with excessive speed, they do adhere very strongly to the Traffic Calming Toolkit, a standard operating methodology used throughout the state of California.
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