Description

Please, please, please add stop signs on Oak St at the intersection of San Antonio Ave.

Another car accident occurred at this intersection today, March 17, 2022.

I live a few buildings south of the intersection in a house on Oak. All day, every day, I constantly hear honking from drivers confused by the intersection.

Low visibility and a single, inexplicably-painted crosswalk with no supporting stop sign both contribute to the confusing nature of the intersection.

Unfamiliar cars coming to one of the two existing stop signs often assume that perpendicular traffic also have a stop, causing them to enter into the intersection in front of traffic.

For drivers not required to stop, I still observe lots of hesitance to enter the intersection since there is a solidly-painted crosswalk, which often suggests that a stop sign is also present.

The existing stop signs are placed so far back from the intersection that stopped cars have ZERO visibility unless they inch beyond the stop-line into the intersection to be able to see if it's safe to continue. I can't count the number of times I've almost been struck as a pedestrian walking across San Antonio by drivers who were rolling forward just to be able to get sight of the traffic on Oak which is not required to stop.

The intersection experiences a high amount of foot traffic in all directions, especially with downtown and Alameda High school so close in proximity. Without the support of a stop sign, the painted crosswalk at this intersection provides no safety or reassurance to pedestrians walking across Oak.

Living on Oak St, parallel to Downtown Park St, I regularly witness first-hand that many drivers choose to circumnavigate the stop lights of Park by driving on Oak. This results in increased traffic along Oak St. If cars were required to stop while driving along Oak past San Antonio, this would discourage some people from misusing the road as a way to circumnavigate what should be the major thoroughfare (Park St) in favor of a residential road on which they otherwise have no reason be to be driving.

There is an excess of speeding and inappropriate acceleration that occurs on Oak, and part of this behavior is encouraged by the fact that there is no stop sign regulating speed for drivers going between San Jose Ave and Encinal Ave.

Adding an additional two stop signs to the intersection of San Antonio and Oak would help to address all of these issues.

I see that there are complaints here on SeeClickFix.com from mid-2021, and I'd bet money that there have been complaints for many more years leading up to the ones documented here. It's a shame to see that this issue has been formally recognized by the city of Alameda and has still not been acted on. There was a notice that four parking spots were to be removed from the corners of the intersection to help improve visibility, but that does nothing to alleviate the confusing nature of the intersection which is the ultimate source of the danger here.