Quick Take:
During a Thursday night Capitola City Council meeting, councilmembers directed staff to install illuminated stop signs at the Bay Avenue-Hill Street intersection.
City of Capitola officials say they’ll install new illuminated stop signs at the intersection of Bay Avenue and Hill Street after residents escalated demands for more safety measures following the death of Debra Towne.
On Thursday night, the city council received an update from staff on plans for short-term traffic safety improvements to the intersection – which will be approved early next year. Solutions include widening the sidewalks and adding large planters to the intersection.
However, prior to the update, Towne’s daughter, Adrienne West, asked councilmembers to also consider installing illuminated stop signs at the intersection. The city had not included such plans among the solutions listed in its update.
“Just outside the police department there are flashing stop signs with yellow reflectors on the bars of the stop signs,” West said during public comment. “Why [can’t we] install those quickly? Explain to me why it’s OK to keep waiting to help the public feel safe walking there.”
Towne was killed Nov. 18 when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver as she walked through an adjacent intersection at Bay Avenue and Crossroads Loop. A resident of a nearby senior apartment complex, Towne regularly walked in the evenings after work with her longtime friend Ray Travers, who asked the city council at the meeting for more police enforcement in the area.
City councilmembers didn’t immediately respond to West’s questions, but later in the meeting they directed city staff to install the new stop signs as soon as they could.
Public Works director Jessica Kahn said staff are working on placing an order for six illuminated stop signs – which should cost less than $10,000. The signs have solar-powered LED bulbs that light up automatically when it gets dark out. Kahn said she hopes to have them installed at the Bay Avenue-Hill Street intersection by the end of January.
City officials had previously said that the type of flashing lights at some crosswalks that pedestrians turn on before crossing the street aren’t permitted at intersections that are controlled by stop signs. But the illuminated stop signs approved by the Capitola City Council turn on by themselves at dusk and stay on while it’s dark out, according to Kahn.
As West said during her public comment, Capitola has illuminated stop signs near the police station at Riverview Drive and Capitola Avenue. Kahn wasn’t aware of other locations of the stop signs.
West told Lookout she feels like the city council finally heard her, and she was proud to hear city officials ask to expedite the installation of the new stop signs.
“If losing my sweet mama in this horrifically tragic way helps drive me to help others, just as she did her whole life, I know she’d be proud of me, too,” said West.
Per West’s request, city officials will also be repaving the crosswalk on Crossroads Loop to improve visibility.
The city is scheduled to finalize its plans for short-term improvements in early 2024 and begin construction in the spring. The results of a traffic study for the Bay Avenue corridor are scheduled to be presented to the city council in summer 2024 and potentially include recommendations for long-term solutions for the area – such as a roundabout at the Capitola and Bay Avenue intersection or a traffic light at the Bay-Hill intersection.
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