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This story originally was published on Oct. 21, 1994
This one will live in Highway 85 infamy.
The first horrendous traffic jam on the first morning commute on the sparkling new freeway was the result of:
Not a serious accident, not a cop pulling some guy over, but pansies.
Motorists slowing down to look at a roadside display of the yellow and purple flowers brought all northbound lanes to a screeching halt Thursday morning. Caltrans officials, angry that a floral arrangement turned their spiffy new freeway into a parking lot, plan to rip out the pansies as soon as possible.
The 6-by-46-foot bed of pansies — which spells out “Campbell” — was left over from Saturday’s freeway party between Winchester Boulevard and Saratoga Avenue. They created a two-mile backup that began around 7:15 a.m. and lasted more than two hours
“You could see the idiots jerking their heads to the right to see the damn things, ” said a furious commuter, Sue Taft of San Jose. “It stopped everyone.”
But the flowers were only part of the story on day two for Highway 85. After an easy first day’s commute, traffic covered the range of commuter emotions: terrific in South San Jose, awful in Campbell, and unbearable on the old portion of Highway 85 north of Cupertino. It took 17 minutes to cover the final five miles from Cupertino to Mountain View.
And, oh, the metering lights. In the morning there were backups 50 to 60 cars long on metered ramps that connect Highway 85 with Highway 101 in South San Jose, and there were similar jams at the two on-ramps from Blossom Hill Road.
“I was totally shocked to read that 85 was a breeze” in Thursday’s newspaper, said Karen Kessel of Cupertino. “It quadrupled my commute. It’s no breeze for me. It’s a disaster.”
But new Highway 85 continued to be a breeze for many people Thursday. Then those speeding motorists met their match: the pansies.
At 7:30 a.m., cars driving past Campbell took 11 minutes to creep 1 1/2 miles. Speeds never got above 10 mph. At 9:15 a.m., when morning rush hour usually begins to ease, it took 15 minutes to go two miles.
About that time Glenn Pruitt, construction manager with the local agency that built Highway 85, drove past Winchester Boulevard. One look and he knew the problem.
“Amazing, ” he said. “I was surprised people were so taken aback by these flowers. But if you wanted to read what they spelled out, you had to slow down.”
And they did. The first part of the morning drive from South San Jose resembled a Sunday jaunt, with cars in the slow lane clipping along at 67 mph. But then came a sea of red lights.
The flowers were planted on a brown earth berm — and right at eye level. Even the carpool lane came to a dead stop. Once cars pulled five feet past the flower bed, traffic quickly sped up to the speed limit.
The pansies weren’t a problem for the evening drive because most cars heading home use the southbound lane, where it’s harder to see them. But the morning tie-up had the South Bay abuzz.
“I walked into the door today and the first thing the folks out front said was: ‘Did you hear the news” about the flowers? said Nelson Fialho, an administrative analyst in Campbell.
Fialho said the city hoped to keep the flowers, but the berm is under Caltrans’ control and the state wanted them out. They were supposed to have been yanked days ago, but in the last-minute rush to open the freeway, the flowers were overlooked.
Then Thursday, everyone looked.
And a freeway was brought to its knees.