Sensors for Lights on Beach Blvd. Not Yet All Installed

Dear Street Smart:

On my commute from Huntington Beach to East Fullerton, I travel Beach Boulevard to the Garden Grove Freeway. I have two questions.

Beach was identified as a “super-street” and a lot of road work has been done. When will this project be completed?

The new traffic lights on Beach Boulevard were supposed to be timed for improved traffic flow. Yet, at several intersections, the left-turn lights cycle even when no one is in that lane. This is particularly true at Beach and 13th in Westminster. Do they still have work to do on timing the lights?

Ed Darubrough

Huntington Beach

The Orange County Transportation Authority and Caltrans are using Measure M funds for this super-street project on Beach Boulevard. The portion of the project between Ellis Avenue and Stark Street is scheduled to begin in April, 1994, with a completion date of October, 1994, said Gary Slater, chief of traffic operations south for Caltrans.

The portion between Stark Street and the Santa Ana Freeway was completed in April, 1992. The section between Lincoln Avenue and the Santa Ana Freeway is currently under construction and scheduled for completion this May, Slater said.

Some of the traffic signals on Beach Boulevard between the Santa Ana Freeway and Lincoln Avenue, including the one at 13th Street, do not yet have the traffic sensing devices installed and are operating on a fixed-time basis, Slater said. This allows minimum green-light times for each traffic movement at the intersection, whether or not vehicles are present at that approach.

When the roadway paving is completed, traffic sensors will be installed so that the signals will be controlled by traffic demands, thereby minimizing traffic delays, Slater said.

Dear Street Smart:

What is the new construction on Parker Street between Town and Country and La Veta Avenue in Orange? When is it going to be finished and will there still be parking on both sides of Parker when it’s finished?

P.A. Davis

Orange

The Orange County Sanitation District is responsible for the construction project on Parker Street. In August, 1992, workers began laying a new interceptor sewer line to alleviate capacity problems in existing sewer lines in Santa Ana and the city of Orange.

Construction has involved temporarily eliminating the parking on both sides of Parker Street and cramming both northbound and southbound lanes of traffic into half the space, said Tom Dawes, engineering director for the Orange County Sanitation District. When construction is completed, parking on both sides of the street will resume.

“A major job like this always makes a mess of the roadway and requires temporary striping and detours, but when it’s completed, there will be no change from what it was before,” Dawes said.

Repaving and restoring Parker Street to its original configurations is expected sometime this week, Dawes said. The cities of Santa Ana and Orange are paying part of the $3.5-million bill, he said.

Lest you think the area has seen the last of construction, the final leg of the sewer line project begins soon on La Veta Avenue between Parker and Batavia Street. Dawes said this project will involve a lot of night work and working when traffic flow is low to minimize congestion, but traffic delays in the area are to be expected until construction is completed in about five weeks. A flow of traffic will always be maintained and access to businesses in the area will not be blocked, Dawes said.

Dear Street Smart:

When traveling westbound on El Toro Road from Portola Hills, I notice a sign near the new Glen Ranch Road Bridge that states: “Entering Mission Viejo.” According to my map book and my own knowledge, El Toro Road goes through Mission Viejo for only one mile.

This seems confusing if one is not familiar with the area. Lake Forest is the city you enter when coming from this unincorporated area. A more appropriate location for this sign should be at the beginning of Marguerite Parkway heading south from El Toro Road toward Mission Viejo. True?

Mario Andrade

Trabuco Canyon

Mission Viejo assistant city planner Loren Anderson agrees with you that westbound El Toro Road extends only one mile through Mission Viejo, but Anderson said that a motorist would still be entering Mission Viejo’s city limits before traveling through the next city, Lake Forest. Planners always strive to put city limits signs as near as possible to, well, the city limits.

Placing a sign at the beginning of Marguerite Parkway would mislead people that they were entering Mission Viejo at that point when, in fact, they were already within the city limits, Anderson said.

Anderson said any suggestions regarding road signage in Mission Viejo could be submitted to traffic engineer Shirley Land by calling 348-2056.