A Grand Opening of a Closure

Your Boulevardier, accompanied by the Trusty BoulevarDog, braved the morning chill to watch the glorious chaos on Strobridge Avenue. It was not an original idea; a dozen Baywood-area residents, including two other fine-looking dogs, had turned out to cheer as cars took the Strobridge Avenue exit from 580 only to find their favorite shortcut now cut short. No longer will persons passing from Tracy to San Mateo use neighborhood streets to shave their commutes.

The viewers had strived mightily with the county and other public agencies to get Strobridge Avenue closed to southbound traffic. The goal was, in essence, to reclaim their neighborhood streets from persons who would drive very rapidly (often while talking on the telephone, shaving, applying makeup, or reading) down Strobridge, up Hobert Street, down Bedford past Strobridge School, and finally down Grove Way to meet Foothill Boulevard. The preferred route, as the traffic planners envisioned it years ago when 580 was widened, was for motorists to turn right at the bottom of the Strobridge Exit from 580 Westbound, turn right, circle Fast Food Island, turn left on the Boulevard, and proceed down Mattox Road to Foothill Boulevard. As the young people say, "Yeah, right." Often, two or three cycles of the stoplight are required to simply make the left turn onto Castro Valley Boulevard. So motorists found they could cut through the quiet streets of the Baywood District to connect to Foothill Boulevard and points south and west. As growth exploded in the Tri-Valley and Central Valley area, cut-through traffic grew accordingly. And the drivers were rude -- pity the residents of Hobert who would wait fifteen minutes some mornings for the opportunity to exit their own driveways. Not to mention the poor crossing guards at Strobridge School, who risked life and limb on a weekdaily basis to shepherd the children to school. Neighborhood residents suffered impacts of cut-through drivers for years before organizing, mobilizing, and eventually prevailing. Thus the blockage.

And now, as previously noted, those residents were on the street, in the cold of the morning, watching a nearby Highway Patrolman issue tickets said to be in the amount of $250 to those who, upon encountering a half-dozen immense signs announcing that the road was closed, decided that their time was still more important than the quality of life of Baywood residents and drove around the barriers. Other drivers turned right on Gary Drive (it's said that the gates on either end of the Mesa Verde community were left open, but it remains to be seen how long that will last) or turned left, back onto 580 but eastbound this time, to take the Redwood Road exit and follow the six-lane Redwood Road and A Street in Hayward to their appointed destination.

A celebratory mood prevailed among the barrier watchers. A card table with coffee and snacks was set out; cheers arose when motorists got tickets. (Two were issued in the time Your Boulevardier and the Trusty BoulevarDog were in attendance; it was said that a handful had been given since 7:00 a.m.) Mostly, the purpose of the residents' gathering was to see and congratulate one another and bear witness, perhaps, to the reclaiming of their neighborhood.

A map of the area discussed in this post may be found here.