Almost a year has passed since 84-year-old Sal Sanchez was killed in a crosswalk on his way to breakfast in downtown Los Gatos, triggering calls for a stop light at the busy intersection of Highway 9 and Massol Avenue.

The intersection won’t be getting a stoplight, but plans recently approved unanimously by the Los Gatos Town Council call for a $112,000 LED flashing beacon to be installed.

“This would be more of an ‘in your face’ type of thing for the drivers, to let them know that a pedestrian is in the crosswalk,” said Los Gatos Parks and Public Works Director Matt Morley.

The crosswalk currently has a round beacon that can be triggered by pedestrians or bicyclists, but the flashing beacon Morley described is rectangular, resembling the emergency flashers on police cars.

The intersection will also be getting green bike lanes.

Thousands of vehicles, and hundreds of pedestrians and bicyclists, pass through the Highway 9/Massol intersection daily.

Sonia Saucedo has a birds-eye view of the area since she works at a dry cleaners that’s adjacent to the intersection and crosswalk.

“It’s pretty bad because a lot of cars don’t stop for pedestrians or bicyclists,” Saucido said. “I saw an accident about a month ago when a car stopped for a pedestrian, but the guy behind him didn’t stop.”

Sixteen accidents were reported at the Highway 9/Massol intersection between 2013 and 2017, half of which resulted in injuries, a recently-completed Highway 9 safety and traffic study shows.

The accident that killed Sanchez happened Sept. 1, 2017.

The traffic study looked at alternatives to the flashing beacon, including a stop light and a HAWK system. HAWKs use double red signals and one yellow signal to grab drivers’ attention.

A HAWK installation could cost about $476,000, but would likely need a federal grant to pay for it. With no guarantee the grant would be approved, that idea was shelved.

A stoplight could cost approximately $722,000 and would likely cause unacceptable traffic delays, Morley said.

The Highway 9/Massol intersection is already rated “E” during the afternoon drive and “F” in the morning. An “F” means an intersection is considered broken and beyond capacity.

The Los Gatos Town Council also considered adding a raised crosswalk to the intersection that would ramp the crosswalk up to sidewalk level. But there was concern that bicyclists going as fast as 30 mph could be “launched” into the air when they hit the elevated section, so that option was tabled and will be considered later.

Funding for the flashing beacon has not been approved, but the Town Council will likely do that in February during its mid-year budget review. Design and construction of the new crosswalk will take another six months.