People who live in Los Gatos are bracing for a long, hot summer, anticipating they’ll once again see thousands of vehicles overflowing onto neighborhood streets as motorists try to find a shortcut to the beach. That spectre caused Vice Mayor Steve Leonardis to remark, “Pray for a cold summer.”

Leonardis’ comments came at Tuesday night’s Los Gatos Town Council meeting, when council members decided the southbound entrance to Highway 17 at Wood Road will remain open this summer. The freeway entrance was closed on summer weekends in 2015, ’16 and ’17.

Beach traffic has been an issue in Los Gatos for decades, but the town says the problem has been exacerbated in recent years by smartphone apps that direct drivers off freeways and into downtown and East Los Gatos neighborhoods. As a result, major arteries like Highway 9, Winchester Boulevard and Los Gatos Boulevard are gridlocked, with the overflow heading into neighborhoods.

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“My own mother could not get across the street with her wheelchair due to unyielding motorists,” downtown resident Lisa Mammel said. “Cars with frustrated motorists don’t focus on safety issues, as noted by the example of my mother, as well as two injuries related to summer cut-through traffic. One of them included a child hit by a motorist where the police car sent to the emergency location could not get through the street and ended up perched on a sidewalk.”

The council also discussed placing cones or barricades on neighborhood streets. But that was unsuccessfully tried before; Mammel showed photos from 2015 of cones that drivers ran “over and over again.”

The council decided to set aside $50,000 that can be used to setup barricades on downtown neighborhood streets if the situation this summer becomes dangerous. Town staff can draw on the funds if and when it’s deemed necessary for public safety.

There was some talk of posting “No through traffic” signs in neighborhoods. Los Altos tried that to ease its commute traffic problem, but apparently it was unsuccessful because the signs are not enforceable. “It was not as effective as they’d hoped,” Los Gatos Parks and Public Works Director Matt Morley said.

Morley tried a similar approach in East Los Gatos last summer with signs that prohibited left and right turns, but he said it didn’t work because not all the traffic apps recognized the signs.

Can you “game” the apps? Councilwoman Marcia Jensen thinks not.

“In talking to people I know that are very involved with Google, they find it rather amusing that we would try to game Waze or Google Maps because they have a cadre of engineers ready to change that algorithm the moment that you do something to it,” Jensen said. “So, I don’t think it’s at all productive to get into a fight with engineers.”

Jensen added, “I would not close anything and I would see how it went.”

And that’s what will happen since no summer road closures are planned at this time.

Downtown Los Gatos merchants and restaurant owners have been particularly hard hit by cut-through beach traffic. So, the Chamber of Commerce asked if a portion of North Santa Cruz Avenue could be closed to vehicles on three summer Thursday nights to encourage residents to patronize local businesses. The council agreed to add $9,000 to the town’s event fund for that purpose.

In another development, the town has been working with the Valley Transportation Authority to secure funds for improvements to the Highway 17 interchanges at Highway 9. The town expects the interchange improvements will be funded by Measure B sales tax revenues. To augment that project, the town and transportation authority are now looking at adding an auxiliary lane to Highway 17 south that would start at Lark Avenue and continue past the Highway 9 and East Los Gatos exits, ending in the vicinity of South Santa Cruz Avenue near the Wood Road on ramp.

That’s expected to cost $50 million. In addition to Measure B funding, Los Gatos intends to seek state funds for the project.