11 Responses to “Traffic Study Will Be In Place Until Fall, City Officials Confirm”
Comments
June 27th, 2012
How nice. Inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people on PCH, and make transiting onto Carnation a bigger pain in the neck than it already is so those of us who live near the beach can't get to our houses at all. All to enable a few private businesses to squeeze a few restaurant seats onto the public sidewalk and profit from public funds. The end result is going to be to backup traffic toward Jamboree. I was all for the city taking over PCH from CalTrans. In hindsight however I'd havepp to say it was one of the stupidest things I've supported. Instead of improvement we have gridlock, as engineers forecast . This will just extend the gridlock past Avacado and make it harder on local residents. It doesn't need a summer long study to see that.
June 27th, 2012
already a traffic jam there every day anyway so i don't see the difference. gotta test somehow.
June 27th, 2012
Jamie - Try Avocado or Bayside
June 27th, 2012
What Ryan, so I'm supposed to drive blocks out of my way so some business can make even more money using our taxes? I think not. And what is this new bike lane further restricting traffic? And how exactly are we supposed to safely cross the north bound traffic and that extremely dangerous bike lane clear out in the middle of the northbound highway to make a left turn at Avacado? And thanks to the new city hall it will soon be impossible to bypass onto Avacado at San Miguel due to additional traffic there. No, congratulations the City has managed to overwhelm a nice community and turn it into a gridlocked neuvo-sorta-riche yuppieville, while simultaneously making it impossible for the residents who foot the bill to even get in or out.
June 28th, 2012
Jamie-On numerous occasions I have seen you post this nonsense about how private businesses on PCH are going benefit from this project by allowing them to squeeze a few restaurant seats onto the public sidewalk and profit from public funds". As an owner of a business on PCH (although I'm located further south, and would not be affected by this project), I can tell you that you don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about. There is a very clear line between what is MY property and what belongs to the city, and I am not allowed to place ANYTHING on the public sidewalk. Not a plant, not a bench, not a sign, and certainly not a bunch of tables and chairs. And before you ask, YES, they do patrol looking for offenders. A few months ago I purchased some pots for plants to put in front of my windows and one of them extended about 4 inches onto the public sidewalk, and within two weeks I had a letter from the city demanding its immediate removal or I would be fined. So the pots are gone. Personally, I don't have have any strong feelings about this project. I like the idea of anything that makes our city more attractive, but not at the cost of increased traffic. Jamie, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but at least be honest in your arguments. Leave us evil, greedy merchants out of it.
June 28th, 2012
I think that this project is fantastic for the city. I have no care for how fast or slow cars travel through the city. In fact I think the slower the safer. I don't care if there is gridlock! There is an option to by-pass the city if one chooses. If you live in the city then there are ways to go around and/or avoid PCH. I live in CDM with my wife and two children and we love to ride our bikes everywhere. I can't wait till the bike sharrows trial gets off the ground? This will make it more fun and safer to get around on a bicycle.
June 28th, 2012
I drove through the traffic study for the third time today at about 1:45 and did not notice any issues. The usual slow traffic awaited me a block further east on PCH, but there was no bottleneck prior.
June 28th, 2012
David, you drove through on a weekday. Try it again on the weekend and let us know how it goes. For Ryan, I appreciate your views. As an evil, greedy landlord and budding industrialist myself I took my company to a state that has better things to do than measure pots and appreciates my jobs. I have also taken a second, fresh look at this test merging plan. There are some flaws other than my rabble rousing over the diversion of tax money. First of all, nobody has offered a solution as to where the nine lost parking spaces will go. The only place I can see is to put them where the park on Carnation is. I don't think residents want to trade any more green space for asphalt, and that park is all that is left of my elementary school. Plus it is two BLOCKS away from the lost spaces. I would think this would negatively impact the affected businesses, since their customers will not be able to easily access them. Case in point, I ordered take out from Panini's last night. For the past several years I would squeeze my giant truck in someplace along the curb and run in to pick up dinner. Well now there is no place to stop, legal or otherwise. There's lot's of great restaurants where I don't have a hassle parking. The next problem is the turn onto Carnation. The traffic backs up on PCH from Goldenrod to Carnation, Residents could by-pass the backup and use the "third" unmarked lane or shoulder to turn onto Carnation and avoid the traffic jam. This has been taken away now, forcing cars to remain in line, which will back up onto MacArthur and make it more inconvenient to transit CDM. As someone suggested earlier Jamboree and Bayside are often not viable alternatives when one is driving to the freeway or Irvine, Jamboree is in the opposite direction, and you have additional stoplights to deal with. The idea to make Carnation one way I think is the best one so far. In reviewing that, most traffic on Carnation is toward the ocean. Before the gridlock we used to drive to the highway on Carnation then turn south on the highway and make a U-turn to reach MacArthur. The traffic made that impossible about 10 years ago. Now we go up Avocado and cross all the traffic lanes in one block to make a left onto MacArthur. Having a monster truck with a big steel bumper helps in this frightening procedure. But I don't recommend it to you Beemer folks unless your insurance is paid up. The new merge lane might actually make the transition easier as there will be one less lane to cross. In looking at this today and trying to be objective about it, I think that if there is going to be a transition is needs to be north (west?) of Avocado. They are starting it a block too short. If you look at the traffic patterns, had the merge started 500 feet up the road then the entire business section of CDM would be two lane and the merge would be pushed north (west) to where there are no other issues. Finally, the turn onto Carnation could be improved by moving the curb line to the north (west) about 80 feet thereby leaving the shoulder / right turn lane onto Carnation as a third lane for local traffic. I could live with that.
July 3rd, 2012
So Jaime was just mad that she can't nearly side swipe the rest of us racing to get to that right turn on Carnation.... almost taking out anyone trying to cross on foot is my guess. I'm happy to see everyone have to slow down. Too many people that don't think about others causing problems in that little section. Now if they could just figure out how to get the drunk people to quit smashing into the island at Morning Canyon.
July 3rd, 2012
Not so fast Sandra. There are hundreds of residents that use Carnation south from MacArthur safely with great care to slow for pedestrians crossing between El Ranchito and the Golden Spoon. The elimination of this long standing and practical maneuver is not necessary to accomplish the the goal of squeezing the traffic on east bound Coast Hwy before it reaches MacArthur, as Jamie suggests. Further, normally to improve tragic flow, an additional lane is added when approaching an intersection followed by a merge lane after the intersection. The test design flys in the face of this standard.
December 31st, 2012
Ha ha, newbies; in 1955 when I was going to OCC, I would come home down MacArthur, get up yo 70mph about three hills back from the top over CdM, turn off the ignition and coast down to PCH, if the light was green, I could go down Carnation to Bayside put the car in gear restart the motor and stop for the sign at Bayside, then up the hill and home on Fernleaf.
