State Court Approves Del Mar’s Traffic Plan : Government: Overturning a lower-court order, the Court of Appeal rules that the city can construct traffic islands and other barriers to slow motorists.

A controversial traffic control plan in Del Mar got the green light Tuesday from a state appellate court.

The court reversed a lower-court order that had blocked construction of traffic islands, curbs and other obstacles designed to slow vehicles going through town.

Saying that such barriers fall under a city’s general powers to build and maintain streets for public safety, the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed a preliminary injunction issued last year on grounds that state law forbids such a project.

The traffic plan has been a recurring source of conflict for years in the seaside town, pitting neighbors who call it an overbearing intrusion against those who seek protection from short-cutting locals and tourists speeding to the race track and nearby Interstate 5.

Arlene Carsten, a former Del Mar mayor whose husband filed suit against the plan, declined on Tuesday to comment on the ruling. A further appeal is “something we’d look at and consider,” she said from British Columbia, where she and her husband have moved.

Dwight Worden, the city’s lawyer in the case, said he was jubilant.

“The single biggest complaint in a residential community like Del Mar is that there’s too much traffic traveling too fast,” Worden said. “In Del Mar, the speed limit is 25. But in these tough economic times, it simply is not feasible to put a traffic cop on every corner.

“What we’ve done, and it’s a clever and innovative approach, is to redesign street configurations so that people have to drive the speed limit,” Worden said. “People can still get where they’re going. They can still make their turns. There are no barricades. No roads are closed. But people are going to have to go the speed limit.”

Under the plan, which the Del Mar City Council adopted two years ago, 15 residential intersections that officials say have become shortcuts to busy Camino Del Mar--the village’s main commercial drag--would be narrowed by choke points.

The idea, according to the plan, is to force vehicles to weave around islands and side-street berms--often making 90-degree turns--as a way to slow traffic and make it safer for pedestrians.

Some intersections require vehicles to swerve around one berm to another traffic island into a narrow, 11-foot-wide lane. Selected sites include sections of Crest Road, Stratford Court, Via Alta and 15th Street.

San Diego officials have installed similar islands and berms at two intersections on Crest Way, which feeds into Del Mar’s Crest Road, and traffic engineers have reported traffic has been slowed on the 40-foot-wide street.

The Del Mar project would cost about $300,000, and construction actually began Aug. 19, 1991. Two days later, on Aug. 21, Alfred Carsten filed suit, seeking a stop to the project on the grounds it was a major inconvenience.

Two days after that, on Aug. 23, Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam ruled for Carsten, saying it was best to put the project on hold while an appellate court weighed its legality.

The 4th District court said Tuesday that the plan was unquestionably legal.

Under state law, a city may not put up barriers whose purpose is to partially close a street to through traffic but permit neighborhood use, Justice Daniel J. Kremer said.

Otherwise, he said, a city has “broad general powers” to maintain its streets the way it sees fit, and no law forbids a plan simply because it is bound to alter traffic patterns, Kremer said.

Justices Howard Wiener and Richard D. Huffman joined the opinion.

Gloria Curry, Del Mar’s city manager, said Tuesday she intends to put discussion of the project on the city council’s agenda at its Sept. 8 meeting. Rod Franklin, the current mayor, said he believes the city will “move forward quickly” to resume construction.