ACORNs march for safer traffic

Alice Barnes has lived through seven heart attacks in the past three years.

"I count on the ambulance and firefighters to come to my door when I need them," said the San Bruno resident, who lives on Fifth Avenue.

While Barnes is not an enthusiastic proponent of speed bumps, which she says would delay emergency responders, she feels something needs to be done about dangerously fast traffic in the Belle Air neighborhood, where she has lived for 16 years.

On Thursday evening, approximately 40 residents of San Bruno gathered at Belle Air Elementary School to protest the number of accidents generated by unsafe traffic conditions in the area. Organized by the San Bruno chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the group hopes to persuade city officials to install speed bumps along Third Avenue and a stop light where Sixth Avenue meets San Bruno Avenue.

San Mizirawi, owner of Aroma's Pizzeria at that intersection, said he sees frequent accidents at the corner.

"I've got big boulders in front of my place just in case somebody skids off." Mizirawi said. "An accident this Monday moved one of the rocks."

Mizirawi said he would like to see a traffic light go up at the corner of Sixth and San Bruno avenues.

"Everybody's driving 90 miles per hour out of there. Nobody looks. Nobody sees anything," he said.

Seventh Avenue Robert Riechel said he was not convinced he could prioritize one intersection above all others.

"I don't think that the Sixth and San Bruno intersection is any more dangerous than, say, Fifth or Fourth and San Bruno," Riechel said.

According to data gathered by the police department, there have been four collisions this year at Sixth Avenue. Collisions occurring between First and Seventh avenues make up 3.5 percent of total collisions in San Bruno, Capt Neil Telford said.

"It appears to be proportionate," Telford said. He also noted that when police used radar to track the number and speed of cars traveling on First through Sixth avenues they found that 85 percent of vehicles were going at or below the speed limit of 25 miles per hour.

The only street in the city with speed bumps is Cypress Avenue-they were installed in July. San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson said the city is monitoring the street to evaluate the bumps' impact on traffic patterns.

"There is a review period of six months. A report will go back to the City Council in January," Jackson said. She noted that several neighborhoods have expressed in speed bumps.

From her house near where Fifth Avenue dead ends, Barnes said people are constantly "flipping back and forth."

"The people driving to Belle Air school speed down Fifth and Seventh avenues like a bat out of hell, I kid you not," she said.