Full Network of Car-Pool Lanes in Southland’s Future

Dear Street Smart:

Why does Caltrans not install a car-pool lane westbound on the Artesia Freeway between the San Gabriel River Freeway and Central Avenue in Los Angeles County, as the eastbound side has? Also, why do the car-pool lanes on the San Diego Freeway stop at the San Gabriel River Freeway?

Bac V. Nguyen, Garden Grove

Not to fear, soon the westbound side of the Artesia (91) Freeway will get its own lane. In fact, more car-pool lanes will be busting out all over the Southland over the next few years, creating a full-fledged car-pool-lane network.

The eastbound car-pool lane on the Artesia Freeway was a demonstration project done in 1985 to work the bugs out of commuter lanes in Southern California.

“It was very successful, so we are going to put it in in the other direction,” said Gary Bork, chief of traffic operations for Caltrans’ Los Angeles-area office.

Look for it to open by mid-1992 and for both lanes to be extended to the Orange County border by mid-1993. Unfortunately, car-pool lanes along California 91, called the Riverside Freeway in Orange County, won’t be in place until the latter part of this decade. Environmental studies are just beginning, according to Steve Saville of the Orange County Caltrans office.

As for the San Diego Freeway, in about three years, the lanes should stretch from South County up to Santa Monica. Currently, the lanes end in Seal Beach. But it is a long freeway, so Bork said the near future will see only two immediate projects:

* A 2-mile extension of the southbound car-pool lane into Los Angeles County, which is expected to open by the end of this year.

* Construction of lanes from the Harbor Freeway to the Century Freeway, which hasn’t opened yet. These lanes should open in 1992.

Also look for the opening in mid-1993 of car-pool lanes along the San Gabriel River Freeway up to the Artesia Freeway.

Dear Street Smart:

I work until midnight, and coming home down Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa seems to take forever. I stop for just about every light between Warner Avenue and Newport Boulevard because of one car at each intersection wanting to turn left.

Computers are fine for controlling signals in peak hours, but for off-peak, let’s rethink.

* If traffic on Harbor has a green light, it should be able to turn left onto side streets without waiting for a left-arrow, as long as there is no opposing traffic.

* Traffic on side streets should be allowed to turn left onto Harbor against the red light, if there is no cross-traffic. A flashing red light would indicate that side street traffic should stop, then proceed when safe. Flashing yellow lights on Harbor could warn the main traffic flow to use caution.

These ideas work elsewhere, why not here? This will save gas, time and auto parts--namely brakes.

James David Yurman, Balboa

The ideas you suggest are interesting, but it is too difficult for Harbor to change its ways at night without presenting difficulties in the day, according to Costa Mesa assistant engineer Armando Rutledge.

At night, Harbor traffic always gets a green light unless cars in left-turn pockets, or at cross streets, trigger a change, Rutledge said. Protective-permissive left-turn signals, which allow turns on a green arrow or a green light, would eliminate one of these delay factors.

However, such signals would be dangerous in the daytime because they would allow unsafe turns in the face of heavy traffic. Nor can the current generation of protective-permissive signals alternate between allowing green arrow-only turns in the day and both ways at night, Rutledge said.

As for a cross-traffic fix, the flashing red and yellow light setup probably would be confusing for motorists, Rutledge said. When Costa Mesa has tried this sort of thing elsewhere, people were calling in asking what a flashing yellow light means.

“There’s no question on the red-yellow-green signals,” Rutledge said. But for flashing yellow, “it’s not very well known what the action should be on the driver’s part.”

For the record, drivers should proceed with caution on a yellow light.

In the end, it looks like you’ll probably have to tolerate the occasional delay at night, since things will continue to be geared toward daytime traffic.

“You really have to weigh out which is most important, and right now, our daytime peak hours are priority, of course,” Rutledge said.

Don’t be discouraged. Rutledge liked your ideas and said he would look forward to your calling to discuss your concerns about Harbor. Other suggestions may ease the pain on your brake pads.

“The best ideas are actually new ideas, and if people don’t let us know, we don’t hear about them,” Rutledge said.

Dear Street Smart:

The left turn lanes on southbound Coast Highway at Crown Valley Parkway in Dana Point are nowhere near long enough, causing left-turners to partially block the through lanes, sometimes dangerously.

John Hartley, South Laguna

A daylong survey in May of that intersection showed that the lanes are indeed busy but still able to handle the demand.

The two left-turn lanes are rated to move 840 cars an hour, and the survey found them moving 802. That’s a lot of cars, but it’s still under the number it would take to extend the pockets. The Caltrans engineer for that area said that backups should be rare, not normal, and that none was noted during the peak-hours survey.

The lanes might be extended if Dana Point moves forward on its desire to improve the intersection. Other improvements in that area include replacing older equipment and giving both Crown Valley and the exit from Monarch Bay dedicated left-turn signals at Coast Highway.

There’s no date for when this work might begin. Caltrans and Dana Point will be working out the cost of construction over the next few months, said Ann French, deputy traffic adviser with Dana Point. After that, the city will decide to what extent it can afford to rework the intersection, French said.