13,000 Vehicles Daily Traditional Cache
virtualdavid: Road construction has obliterated the cache and its immediate vincinity. Once it is complete, I'll restore it if possible.
- David
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A camouflaged micro cache that explores local neighborhood history.
This quiet street used to be a major thoroughfare. People were cutting through to avoid traffic on El Camino and get to California Avenue, with thousands of cars a day coming through here, many driving at over 35mph. After a major push by the neighborhood association, the city installed barriers like this one.
The results have been dramatic and the benefits have been huge! The neighborhood blossomed, and has become a strong community, fun and family-friendly. Check out a nearby barrier at 37° 25.741' N, 122° 08.726'W to see where major cut-through was converted to a cul-du-sac and now kids play in the street.
But there was a cost. The sleepy office buildings here once housed some exciting retail stores. These stores became stranded and lost the traffic to survive, killed by the barrier.
People still shortcut here, driving the wrong-way on the one-way segment. Sometimes cars come the wrong way, and lurk for a while as the driver tries to decide what to do. Sometimes they drive through the wrong way very quickly, I guess in hopes of avoiding being caught. Once a fast moving car veered and crashed into the nearby wall, punching a big hole.
To get the history of these barriers, I talked to the neighborhood association president, who was one of the leaders in getting the barriers installed. I’ve omitted his name for privacy reasons, but the following is quoted from him:
“There were ~13,000 vehicle entries and exits daily; ~3,000 were generated by neighborhood residents, servicepeople, guests, and other drivers with legitimate reason to drive in the neighborhood (e.g. police, public works, school buses); the other ~10,000 (one entry, one exit per trip) were generated by short-cutters.
There were about 700 licensed drivers living in the neighborhood (including the apartments on College and in the blocks near El Camino). About 500 of these and about 3,000 other individuals drove the neighborhood streets daily.
The neighborhood-related drivers traversed less than half the neighborhood on a typical trip. The short-cutters traversed the whole neighborhood. Primary short-cutting routes were: Park; Park/Birch/College/Birch (and return); Stanford/Park (and return); Stanford/Ash/College/Birch (and return); College/Park (and return). There was substantial "around the block" traffic to and from El Camino using Ash and the 400 blocks of Park Avenue, Leland, Stanford, Oxford, and College. Short-cutters accounted for about three-quarters of the vehicle miles driven on neighborhood streets.
There were more than a thousand trips per day where Birch met College in the block between Birch and Oxford. There were also almost a thousand per day on College at that point. There were about two thousand per day on Birch between College and Cambridge. There were about 4,000 at the Park one-way (then two-way) was. One of six cars on Park, and one in ten on College(!) traveled faster than 35 mph.
Many of the short-cutting drivers were aiming to avoid congestion on El Camino. At the time closures were installed, El Camino traffic volumes were, I think, less than one-third of what they are currently.
I consider the traffic controls an unfinished work which I will be delighted to finish before I die.”
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
N frrzvatyl beqvanel bowrpg