Drivers Should Decide Turns

It’s time to question whether the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s penchant for taking choices away from drivers is actually beneficial to traffic movement.

Take the Encino intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue. It was a normal two-way interchange before the traffic engineers got out their paintbrushes. Now we have a four-way signal, two left-turn-only northbound lanes, one right-turn-only northbound lane and just one through lane.

Southbound there are two left-turn-only lanes and two through lanes. Eastbound traffic on Ventura is given a left-turn-only lane, but westbound traffic has none.

The wait to move in any direction now seems interminable.

It wasn’t too long ago that drivers themselves affected a roadway’s capacity to handle traffic by making their own choices of what lanes to use. Yes, there was occasional slowing as traffic melded into a single lane as streets narrowed or to get around someone turning left. Yes, some drivers were blocked from turning right on a red signal by a car in front.

But on balance, everything seemed to work a lot better for everybody most of the time.

The current system seems to hold that all lanes and all signals should be permanently arranged for peak traffic flows. It ignores the fact that this traffic uses the streets for only a short period. It would be nice to turn directional choice back to those of us who regularly drive these streets the rest of the time as well.

How? Try restricting left-turn-only signals and right-turn-only lanes to rush hours. The rest of the time, let the cars in these lanes turn left or go straight ahead whenever it is safe to do so on the green light that controls through traffic.

GODFREY HARRIS, Encino