Modern Transit
Society
moderntransit.org PO Box 5582, San Jose CA 95150 phone:
408-221-0694
June 27, 2004
To: Jane
Decker, Deputy County Executive, Santa Clara County
Cc: Supervisor Pete McHugh,
Chair, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Supervisors with discriminatory, illegal signs in their district today:
Supervisor Blanca Alvarado
Supervisor Jim Beall
Supervisor Liz Kniss
Debra Cauble, Deputy County Counsel, Santa Clara County
John Sullivan, Chair, VTA BPAC
Jim Stallman, President, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition
Subject: Mr. Murdter continues
stonewalling on sign removal
Photo: Example of many prohibitory signs that Mr. Murdter told
the BOS that he would remove (in his staff report of May 4) but did
not.
Dear Ms. Decker,
Summary:
Mr. Murdter has only removed about
one-fourth of the signs that he told the Supervisors he would remove in his
staff report to the BOS, which was accepted by the Board on May 4. These
remaining signs represent not only a broken promise made to the Supervisors,
but violate the law, BOS policy, and the State-protected right of pedestrians
to use public roadways. These violations are detailed in this letter.
New information in this letter shows
more violations of the California Vehicle Code that were recently brought to my
attention. Half the prohibitory signs posted today on County expressways are
not approved by Caltrans, are illegal, and must be removed. The remaining
prohibitory signs are all relatively recent postings, and were posted as a
result of local authorities or MTS forcing your staff to comply with the law
and remove prohibitory signs elsewhere. We designate them “revenge” signs, of
which an example is shown in the photo above. Without exception, all
prohibitory signs posted today on County expressways either must be removed by
law, or are the “revenge” signs and should be removed. Full details are
contained below.
Broken promises on San Tomas Expressway:
Update: Mr. Murdter was correct that San Jose ordinance bans use of pedestrian paths on San Tomas and needs change.
The ordinance also bans walking on paved sidewalks of Lawrence Expressway, but allows walking on shoulders of all other expressways in the City.
No signs were removed on San Tomas
(including pictured, at Payne Ave), despite the table in the staff report by
Mr. Murdter stating that signs would be removed on San Tomas between Williams
Ave and Campbell Ave, which is a distance of 1.5 miles. BOS policy (County
Expressway Plan) supports walkers’ use of pedestrian paths.
Repeal of (or lack of) a prohibitory ordinance; more promises to
comply are broken:
Mr. Murdter states:
[The]
Department is in the process of removing the prohibition signs because ... the city with jurisdiction has recently changed its municipal code to allow
pedestrian access (e.g. Sunnyvale).
On Foothill Expressway, the City
of Los Altos repealed the prohibition of pedestrians and all signs
in the City must be removed. This fact was verified by Mr. Jon Elson, Branch
Manager, in August 2003, but in our
meeting the same month he stated to me that he did not believe he had to comply
with the law. This statement is not only outrageous by itself, but also
demonstrates the attitude of the County highway engineers towards the Vehicle
Code. While most of the Vehicle Code is relevant to road users, some sections
are relevant to highway and traffic engineers, and what your staff violates
today is CVC 21960. This attitude is also demonstrated by your Department’s
lack of adherence to proper roadway design and is shown by their “acceleration lane” on
Montague (at Kruse) that failed to meet both federal standards and BOS
design requirements (as stipulated in the County Expressway Plan).
Roads and Airports Department has
ignored the City of Mountain View with regards to sign removal. Dennis Belluomini, City Traffic Engineer, in his email (copied in
the appendix below) stated he will inform Masoud
(County traffic engineer) to remove the prohibitory sign on Central Expressway,
and he informs about the City code. This was last September, but he was and is
ignored by your staff, just as your staff ignored Sunnyvale staff for about a year. Mr. Belluomini
gives further information: Why it is important to NOT post prohibitory signs.
Anyone can easily determine whether or
not a city prohibits pedestrians by using the Internet, as described on our Expressway topics,
links page.
Update: City of San Jose Municipal Code #11.32.070
will automatically be complied with by complying with the right--of-access of walkers described in next section.
Mr. Murdter did remove all illegal
signs in Sunnyvale, after a year of stonewalling.
Mr. Murdter continues to ignore “right of access”; he promised
to act but did not:
State law prevents prohibiting
pedestrians unless all property owners of every abutting land in one block has
signed a contract with the road owner (the County) that they will never again
set foot or bicycle or drive on the roadway for accessing their property.
Mr. Murdter states:
The staff
research to date indicates that ... the County owns the necessary access
rights. ...Staff continues to research the records to verify the
freeway declarations and access rights for a small number of locations.
Update: Mr. Murdter did not keep his promise because not one sign was removed in this regard.
Most notably, Palo Alto, the only city banning walking on Foothill Expressway, has driveways proving right of access was not acquired.
Mr. Murdter was correct in stating (to Supervisor Beall in August 2004) that he was directed to remove signs on Foothill by the Board:, as they are all illegal,
and Mr. Murdter agreed to comply by both his quoted statements above (one for absence of a city ordinance, the other for absence of access rights).
If Mr. Mudrter carried out what he said in his above quote,
and actually complied with the findings, this issue would be resolved today. But he actually set up the situation for more endless stonewalling
by using misleading or irrelevant statements or clauses.
Here are four counterpoints to his quote:
First, Mr. Murdter's statement that staff
“continues to research the records to verify ... access rights” is just
another stonewalling tactic because they would have done the work by now.
In fact, no property records need to be checked if prior procedure is followed.
Where there is a driveway or pedestrian entrance, all signs must be removed in
that block. You can verify this information from the Manager of the County
Expressway Study, Dan Collen. MTS (with help for VTA
BPAC and Supervisor Alvarado) forced Mr. Collen and superiors to remove
signs in a fight lasting over a year (1996-7), wherever there was a driveway
along Capitol Expressway. MTS forced other staff to remove signs prior to that
using the same criteria on many other “expressways.” If Mr. Murdter disagrees
with former procedure, he only has to check the property record of one property
in the block to prove the point, at the driveway, which takes about 15 minutes
per driveway, or totaling less than a two-hour job for all locations
illegally violating right-of-access today.
Second, Scotty Bruce, when he
was a manager of the County highway engineers (now retired), informed me
that right of access was NOT acquired at many locations, which contradicts
indications of Mr. Murdter. In fact, just one such property in a block will
result in all prohibitory signs being removed from that block.
Third, for checking of property
records, the County Recorder should do the work and do it at your request, and not at the request of Mr. Murdter. I don’t trust
the highway engineers (including Mr. Murdter) since they may attempt to
influence the “facts,” and fabricate their “findings,” just as Mr. Murdter made
incorrect legal statements in his HLUET report, despite possessing County
Counsel’s legal opinions on the topic. The requester should be yourself, representing the interests of the Board of
Supervisors, because a request by Mr. Murdter would place influence on the
“findings.” The property division of Roads and Airports Department
itself should be barred from making any findings, as they made gave false
testimony against me in court that resulted in my wrongful conviction. I
proved by going to property records and making a copy for the judge, that all
right and easement of access was not acquired in that block where I was accused
of violating the prohibitory signs. This was at the entrance of Nvidia Corporation located at 2701 San Tomas Expressway. I
claimed the signs were illegal. Roads and Airports falsely claimed
otherwise. Apparently, the judge thought it more likely that I fabricated
the copy of an official County document than Roads and Airports making a verbal
false statement! I would have appealed, but it would have cost me more in
legal fees than just paying the fine. A year later, the signs were removed
because the City Council and City Attorney of Santa Clara did agree with me
that the signs were illegal, and ordered their removal. Your signs
prohibiting legal access to other properties for those using transit, walking
(and formerly, bicycling) are just as illegal. This access right is
protected by the State!
Fourth, the time spent on “freeway
declarations” is completely wasted. Declaring a pubic road a
“freeway” does not mean that the access rights were purchased from all abutting
property owners. (Moreover, the BOS recognized that all expressways are in fact
arterial roads in the policy of August 19, 2003, thus contradicting, superseding and nullifying the
freeway declarations of 40 years ago.)
Mr. Murdter needs to stop wasting time
making irrelevant, misleading and false claims in his attempt to continue
violating the law.
A tactic of Roads and Airports: reposting signs after they
were forced to remove them:
Roads and Airports Department, after losing a
fight to remove illegal prohibitory signs and then running out of
stonewalling tactics, have in many cases put the signs back up years
later. An example where such a
replaced sign is posted today is at the pedestrian entrance to condominiums on
San Tomas [photo, right], near Forbes Ave. The City of Santa Clara, at our request, forced the County highway engineers
to remove these illegal signs in 1988, but they were re-posted several years
ago. They are still posted, despite violating “right of access” as
described above.
Another sign they posted just the past
week is on San Tomas at Stevens Creek Blvd., at the southwest corner. The staff report
(graphic) of May 4 even shows no sign being posted here. Safety cannot be
the issue, because a paved sidewalk exists at both ends of the block (one to
the bus stop, the other to condominiums), and in between the shoulder is wide
and wide shoulders are acknowledged to be safe even by BOS policy (the County
Expressway Plan). The only plausible reason for posting is to demonstrate
animosity towards pedestrians and to create hardship for them, because there is
no convenient alternative route.
Another tactic: posting signs elsewhere which never existed before,
called “revenge” signs:
There is also a history of your staff,
after being forced to remove or told to remove prohibitory signs, of posting
new prohibitory signs elsewhere. In fact, about half the signs posted today
which prohibit pedestrians are the result of such “revenge” acts upon
pedestrians by your staff. Most of these were posted in 1989 as a result
of the City of Santa
Clara ordering
your staff to remove all prohibitory signs on Central Expressway. Instead
of complying, your staff doubled the number of signs from two to four per
intersection. Then, they did that on all expressways. After months
of more stonewalling tactics, your staff did remove the signs on Central,
including the ones they newly posted, but left the new signs posted elsewhere.
The most outrageous posting of new
signs was after Sunnyvale repealed the bicycle prohibition. Pedestrians were
always allowed to cross under Central Expressway –most
were Caltrain patrons going between the Lawrence Station and
nearby industry-- using the pedestrian underpass at Lawrence. Simultaneous to removing “Bicycle Prohibited”
signs, your staff posted new “Pedestrians Prohibited” signs at all approaches
to the underpass, forcing Caltrain patrons to jay-walk across Central
Expressway, from 1988 to 1991. After Santa Clara (City) specifically allowed walking in that block and
using the pedestrian underpass in 1991, and after going through a fight with
your staff to remove signs, they were removed. A year later, they were
re-posted. After another fight, they were removed, but then again
reposted a year later. The staff responsible --or rather, irresponsible and
incompetent-- for this repeated episode, Masoud Akbarzadeh, is still on your payroll, and along with Mr.
Murdter, is causing the violations and continued stonewalling today.
In the unlikely case you do not know,
it must be stated that most traffic engineers consider jay-walking the most
dangerous act of pedestrians, and consider a pedestrian underpass or overcrossing the safest crossing. Mr. Akbarzadeh,
whose title I believe is County Traffic Engineer, acts as if thinks the exact opposite. In
the defense of Mr Akbarzadeh,
he cannot alone be blamed because he may have obtained orders from higher up. Both his boss (Elson), boss’s boss (Murdter) and
predecessors –except for the brief management of Scotty Bruce-- have shown
themselves to
· have an anti-pedestrian attitude,
· have a lack of respect for the law and,
· have a lack of regard for true pedestrian safety
–because the prohibitory signs actually increase risk.
This mentality was formerly similarly
applied to opposition to bicycle use of expressway shoulders, of which many
became official “bike lanes.” The problem is really from the top down, and will
continue unless direct action by higher authority is taken to overcome it.
About half of the prohibitory signs are unapproved by
Caltrans, are illegal, and must be removed:
vs. 
Shown to scale: large vs. small sign. (Actual dimensions are 35 x 28 inch vs.12 x 24 inch.)
UPDATE: Also see why the large signs increase accident risk to both walkers and bicyclists.
While all small “Pedestrians Prohibited” signs on expressways (above right) are the
result of “revenge” tactics (described above), all large “Pedestrians [blank]
and Equestrians Prohibited” signs (“unapproved signs”) (above left) [or see example posting] violate
signage regulations of the State, including the one newly posted last week
(described above). Under State law, all regulatory signs (most have a white
background) must be on the list of approved signs by Caltrans. Please see
Caltrans’ Uniform
Sign Chart --Regulatory Signs and notice that no such sign is approved. The
Vehicle Code sections violated are 21401 (Conformity to
Uniform Standards) and 21100.1 Traffic
Control Devices --Uniform Standards while 21400 (Uniform
Standards) provides information. All unapproved signs currently posted on
County expressways must be removed. This matter is newly brought up, and is in
addition to the fact most of these signs must be removed for other reasons
as well: lack of a prohibitory city ordinance and/or not all right of
access having been acquired.
A history of stonewalling tactics:
Almost every time a city repealed a
prohibitory ordinance, the County highway engineers and Mr. Murdter resorted
to stonewalling tactics on sign removal. You saw first hand just one
of these tactics: Mr. Murdter’s false claims to the BOS that he can prohibit
pedestrians at will. We went through this same fight in 1996-7 (and with others
in the department prior to Mr. Murdter)! After they are told by higher
authority to remove signs, the County highway engineers, and Mr. Murdter
presently, resort to more stonewalling tactics, which you are now witnessing.
The fight for bicyclist and pedestrian rights has often resorted to a
block-by-block fight for achieving compliance with the law.
History is repeating itself today. The County highway and traffic engineers, including
Mr. Murdter, act as if they are above the law. This is the only reason that
removal of signs is an issue. Only one Supervisor, Mr. Gage, expressed
anti-pedestrian sentiments. In the 1988 BOS vote, only one Supervisor, Legan, was anti-bicycle and the County highway engineers
lost that fight also. But, as (then) Vice-President of SVBC, I still had
to go through huge fights to get the County highway engineers to comply with
BOS policy that “[BOS] supports bicycles on expressways” and to remove illegal
“bicycles prohibited” signs.
Why waste 100 to 1000 times more time and money fighting compliance
than complying?
Lastly, in this time of budget
problems, I appeal to not wasting staff time, and therefore, money. The
entire episode of going before the Supervisors was nothing less than one in a
series of stonewalling tactics by Mr. Murdter and subordinates. Mr.
Murdter ignored all legal opinions by County Counsel. He succeeded in delaying sign removal by about
eight months (so far) by asking the BOS to violate law and BOS policy.
MTS and SVBC have never lost any of the
20 major battles we fought to remove pedestrian and bicycle prohibitory signs.
This does not include the block-by-block fights that were too numerous to
count. I estimate that, on average, staff wastes about 10 times as much
time fighting compliance with the law than we spend fighting for the rights of
pedestrians --and formerly, bicyclists-- because time of meetings has to be multiplied
by the number of those attending, plus writing staff reports, and the time
wasted of the Supervisors and their respective Policy Aides for
Transportation. When compared to the time to comply by simply
unbolting and removing signs, your staff has spent 100 to 1000 times more
time (and therefore budget money) fighting compliance. This time was utterly
wasted because your staff was always eventually forced to remove the signs.
The County highway engineers and Mr.
Murdter get paid by the hour to perform these make-work stonewalling tactics.
Ending these would benefit everyone else:
· The County budget and taxpayers,
· At least four of the County Supervisors and Aides,
· County Executive staff,
· Transit/pedestrian/bicycle advocates, and most
importantly,
· The pedestrians who are placed at increased risk of an
accident by the prohibitory signs --by misleading drivers, and by unnecessarily
forcing extra intersections to be crossed, since most accidents involving
pedestrians occur when crossing an intersection.
We went through major efforts that
resulted in:
1) repeal of
discriminatory ordinances: taking an average of 2 years per city.
2) change in
BOS policy which now supports pedestrians: 1.5 years. It is part of the County
Expressway Plan.
3) promise by
your staff to comply with law (and simultaneously, BOS policy) by removing
illegal discriminatory signs: half year
The last step is not yet accomplished:
4) carrying
out that promise by unbolting and removing the signs: 1.5 months and counting
(for a 3-hour job!)
Furthermore, unapproved prohibitory
signs must be removed as detailed above.
New info: Time Magazine article
The Time Magazine special issue
“Overcoming Obesity” [June 7, 2004] has this quote of Mayor Hindman of Columbia, Mo. [page 94]:
“Everyone is
created to walk. But we designed our streets to create barriers to an
obvious, efficient activity."
Because expressways are arterial roads
(as recognized by both BOS and VTA), and because all road users are forced to
use arterial roads by the hierarchical road pattern (as recognized by VTA), the
pedestrian prohibitory signs are a major barrier to walking.
Conclusion
I recommend that you give a direct order to Mr. Murdter to:
·
promptly comply with the law and perform sign removals as he promised
the Supervisors on May 4, and
·
promptly comply with State engineering and traffic standards —and
law— in all other respects, including removal of unapproved signs.
Such a direct order would prevent a repeat of the drawn out
conflict –often block-by-block and lasting years-- that occurred for the
bicycle prohibitory sign removal effort.
Sincerely,
Akos Szoboszlay,
President
Appendix
Email (excerpt) from City Traffic Engineer of Mountain View, with important sentences boldfaced by MTS.
========================== start copy
===========================
Subject: Repeal of Bike/Ped Prohibition
in Mountain View
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 11:39:02 -0700
Mr. Akos Szoboszlay:
According to my files, the City of Mountain View never had an ordinance
prohibiting bicycles or pedestrians from using Central Expressway.
Many
years ago Santa Clara County installed signs along Central Expressway
prohibiting bicycles and pedestrians from using the
Expressway. However,
the City never took any formal action to prohibit
bicycles or pedestrians
from using the Expressway.
The County wanted to prohibit
pedestrians from walking along the Expressway
because there were no sidewalks along the roadway for
pedestrians to use.
However, in Mountain View there has always been a sidewalk along the north
side of Central Expressway between Rengstorff Avenue and Mayfield Avenue.
In fact, a few years ago, the City and
County used TDA funds to improve and
widen this sidewalk. In addition, the City is working
with the County on
installing sidewalks along other sections of the
Expressway. Therefore,
adopting an ordinance to prohibit pedestrians from walking
along the
Expressway contradicts the efforts
to install sidewalks.
Regarding the existing prohibition
sign on Central Expressway at Castro
Street, I will ask the County to
remove this sign. [Boldface by MTS.]
Dennis Belluomini
City Traffic Engineer
======================== end copy
============================
Links
Montague at
Kruse (true danger example): http://moderntransit.org/expy/safety-actions2.html
The main
expressway topics, links page is at: http://moderntransit.org/expy