Not Exactly What One Could Call Road Scholars

It was intended to be a public convenience: San Diego would synchronize the traffic lights along Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla, and the traffic would breeze through like a well-choreographed ballet.

But it turned into a bureaucratic morass. The city dug up some streets, traffic backed up in an angry knot, the police closed down the job, and the general contractor filed a claim against the city.

Now, the city wants to complete the work at night to avoid more traffic tie-ups and public angst. But to work at night, it must hold a kind of public hearing--or appeal to a noise-abatement official, who is on vacation.

At the crux of the matter is “the master interconnect system”--an ambitious citywide project to minimize stop-and-go traffic. The La Jolla part started in April and was to last 100 days. Now, it has been blocked by the police for the past month.

Meanwhile, there’s a gaping hole on Girard Avenue outside Saks Fifth Avenue, right beside the curb cut for the disabled. Half the traffic island at Torrey Pines and Prospect Place has been torn up. Saks Fifth Avenue officials and others are getting antsy.

Now the contractor has settled for compensation for lost time. The city is awaiting a verdict on nighttime noise. When the head of “noise abatement” returns, he will be asked for permission to proceed at night on an emergency basis.

“Oh, we get this all the time,” Richard Dell’Orfano, the city’s electrical engineer for the project, mused glumly. “This is nothing new.”

Lines of Duty

A half-dozen times recently, private pay-phone companies have contacted the Body Beautiful carwash offering to provide it with a different pay phone. Now, the Pacific Highway business has replaced its Pacific Bell pay phone with a new one from Payphones Inc.

The Body Beautiful phone is one of a growing number of private pay phones newly installed in San Diego and charging 25 cents per local call. California opened itself to pay-phone competition in February. There are now from 2,300 to 3,000 private ones statewide.

“They offered us a higher commission,” Carolyn Siler of Body Beautiful said simply. She said Payphones offered 25% while Pac Bell offered 6%. As for the 25-cent calls, Siler said she has received no complaints.

Statewide, the pay-phone war has heated up recently with many of the 100 private pay-phone companies accusing Pacific Bell of dragging its feet on conversions. Pacific Bell has blamed the delays on faulty application forms, backlog and new technology.

Twenty-six private pay phones went in at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Pacific Bell spokesman Tom McNaghten said. Others are cropping up across San Diego. But Pac Bell for the time being is holding its own.

According to McNaghten, it has 15,000 pay phones in San Diego and Imperial counties. And 170,000 statewide.

The Chill Factor

In the late 1970s when San Diego was planning its trolley, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board opted against air conditioning. The thinking was it would be pricey to retrofit the new cars, and the ride to the border was breezy enough.

But suddenly, the San Diego Trolley has six air-conditioned cars and is contemplating spending $2.5 million to retrofit the rest, said managing director Langley C. Powell. The six cool cars ride the steamy eastern line. The warm ones still run through South Bay.

Favoring retrofitting, Powell said, are technological improvements that have made air conditioning more reliable and cheaper. Another argument is to give customers “all the comforts we can” at a reasonable cost, he said.

But equally significant, Powell conceded, is the internal confusion caused by having air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned lines. Getting the cool cars on the warm line and the warm cars on the cool line could cause insuperable scheduling problems.

“That is very difficult for the maintenance and transportation departments,” Powell said.

Trustees’ End Run

Lest there be any confusion about public priorities, the San Diego Community College board this month is switching its twice-monthly Monday night meetings to Tuesday to avoid a critical conflict.

“Frankly, (it’s) because of Monday night football,” Louise Dyer, president of the trustees, explained slightly sheepishly. “It sounds terrible.”

But she added, “It’s not just the trustees. There’s lots of observers who come, and there’s always a rumbling, ‘Gee, I wish you didn’t meet on Mondays.’ ”

How Sweet It Is

Finally, these nutritional tips from K-JOY, caterers of “easy listening” music to San Diego. K-JOY will be host to a sugar binge in Horton Plaza on Sept. 10, its second annual party titled “Just Desserts.”

- Ice cream is a good source of calcium. There are 115 milligrams in one cup of ice cream. Eight scoops a day will fulfill your Recommended Dietary Allowance.

- Cake is a repository for vitamin B1. Fifty slices a day, or five cakes, will satisfy the 1 mg RDA.

- Chocolate is a rich supplier of vitamin B2. So 10 small Hershey bars, 122 chocolate kisses or 140 strawberries dipped in chocolate offer the 1.6 mg RDA.

- Cookies for zinc, pastries for magnesium, candies for iron. Ninety truffles or 36 one-ounce pieces of peanut brittle or 562 jelly bellies will satisfy your iron RDA.