The following section deals with issues regarding and improvements to Highway 17 in Santa Clara County. This section is organized from south to north.
Highway 17/Highway 9 Interchange:
This interchange is a major bottleneck and safety hazard. The problem is, as usual, too much traffic--more than the antiquated interchange was designed for. Unlike many cloverleaf interchange which has access ramps parallel and detached from the main highway (called collector-distributor roads), on Highway 17 they're attached, giving traffic coming onto the highway or trying to get off of the highway a very short distance to merge in and out of traffic. This becomes even more complicated in the mornings when northbound traffic backs up, allowing no merging due to the dense, stopped traffic.
I have had a couple of solutions to this problem in the past. My latest one is probably my best if not the most feasible, and is keeping with current Caltrans protocol for rebuiling old cloverleaf interchanges (like at Lawrence Expressway and US 101 in Sunnyvale a few years ago). My new solution would convert the exising cloverleaf into a beefed-up diamond interchange with loop ramps onto Highway 17. The two loop ramps from Highway 17 onto Highway 9/Saratoga Avenue would be demolished, and the remaining two ramps from Highway 17 onto Highway 9 would now meet Highway 9 at two separate signalized intersections on opposite sides of the overpass.
Many changes have occurred and are planned in the future along Highway 17 from Highway 9 to Interstate 280 within the 1990's. In 1995, Highway 85 and its new interchange with Highway 17 opened to traffic. In 2000, Highway 17 was repaved between Scotts Valley and Los Gatos, including a complete replacement of the roadway surface between Highway 9 and the Blossom Hill Road overcrossing.
In the next five years, more changes to the corridor are proposed by the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), the Santa Clara County transportation organization. The most significant proposal is the widening of Highway 17 from four to six lanes between Highway 9 and Highway 85. Major traffic jams occur every morning and afternoon between these two highways, as the highway is at 3 lanes north of Highway 85, but only two lanes to the south. My observations of traffic along the corridor is that traffic in Los Gatos that used to use Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and De Anza Boulevard to reach I-280 are now using Highway 17 to Highway 85 instead, causing some of the congestion on Highway 17 between Highway 9 and Highway 85. A similar congestion situation to Highway 17 south of Highway 85 occurred on Highway 17 between Highway 85 and Camden Avenue right after Highway 85 was opened in 1995, and Caltrans eventually extended the third lane (on both sides of the freeway) down from Camden to Highway 85, eliminating that bottleneck instantly. The widening will occur within the existing median.
As to the transition between the two-lane and three-lane sections, I suggest that the lanes end at the northern ramps at Highway 9 by shifting the existing lanes inside by one lane, as shown in the drawing to the right. In this way, the northbound Highway 17 onramps from Highway 9 dump traffic directly into a northbound lane, and the southbound right lane become an exit-only lane onto the southbound offramp.
VTA also proposes to add auxiliary lanes on northbound Highway 17 between Highway 85 and Hamilton Avenue. This will also help improve traffic flow on Highway 17, especially north of Camden, which can be gridlocked northbound during the morning commute. Adding the lane north of Camden will also require widening of the bridges over Campbell Avenue and the Los Gatos Creek, which currently do not have shoulders wide enough to accomodate an additional lane. Construction of the segment from Camden to Hamilton is currently unknown, with the segment from Highway 85 to Camden already completed some years ago.
In terms of intersections, a few major and minor improvements are proposed along the corridor between Highway 9 and I-280. The two largest improvements are at the Highway 17/Highway 85 interchange. VTA proposes adding a new flyover ramp from northbound Highway 17 to northbound Highway 85, replacing the existing loop ramp. This ramp was originally proposed to be part of the interchange, which was first proposed to have no circular loop ramps, and you can even see part of the concrete abutment for the proposed ramp on your left alongside the short upgrade on the northbound ramp leading to the existing loop ramp. There is also no firm date for construction of this improvement.
VTA also proposes to reconfigure the southbound onramps and offramps on Highway 17 between Highway 85 and Lark Avenue. What is proposed is to replace the southbound 85-to-southbound 17 onramp and southbound Lark Avenue offramp with what VTA calls 'braided' ramps that overlap the two ramps. Exactly how the ramps will be configured is unclear at this time, but my guess is that the Lark Avenue ramp will be reconstructed to go over the Highway 85 ramp, possibly requring some slight modification to the Highway 85 ramp. Again, there is no set date for construction of this improvement.
Other proposed changes involve ramp improvements at the Camden and Hamilton interchanges, probably including signalization and reconfiguration of the intersection of the northbound Highway 17 offramp onto White Oaks Avenue near Camden, activation of the ramp metering signal on the southbound onramp at Camden, and other miscallaneous improvements. Improvements will also Avenue/San Tomas Expressway between Highway 17 and Winchester Boulevard. VTA has since scrapped the improvements at the White Oaks intersection, due to local area opposition.
VTA at one time planned to complete everything by the middle of 2004, although that was based on a "late 2000" start time; obviously they haven't started yet on any of these. The original start times of 2002 were in an August 2001 Gary "Mr. Roadshow" Richards article in the San Jose Mercury News. Since that time, with the economy and state financing being rather problematic, the construction date of these improvements has become more open-ended.
Comments? Questions? Corrections? E-mail Jeff Waller