Lane Delineators Push Wrong Button for This Reader

Dear Street Smart:

I believe a most dangerous traffic problem exists in Newport Beach. When driving down Superior Avenue, crossing Pacific Coast Highway on to Balboa Boulevard, there are MANY recently installed buttons, but absolutely no lane markings. It is bad enough if you know the road, but it’s confusing for this main intersection leading to the beach.

At the very least, they should put lines between the buttons indicating where traffic lanes are to go.

Kay Eadie Newport Beach

The buttons are called “Botts Dots” and they are intended to better delineate lanes and grab the attention of drivers who drift. But after receiving complaints from the community about the confusion created by the masses of dots at the Superior/PCH/Balboa intersection, Caltrans agrees that their effectiveness there needs to be reconsidered.

Caltrans’ field investigators will examine the site in the next couple of weeks, said agency spokesman Albert Miranda. Options include removing the dots that go through the intersection or leaving them and painting lines, Miranda said.

The dots were installed about a month ago. Originally, the intention was to use striping, instead of dots, for the right-hand turns, Miranda said. What actually happened, as you noted, was the installation of dots all the way through the intersection.

Part of the problem with that intersection is that nothing really lines up straight. Pacific Coast Highway is on a gentle curve, while Balboa and Superior are at angles.

“We had hoped to make a clear delineation using the Botts Dots, but after feedback from the community, we’re looking again to see what dots can be removed to make the delineation more clear,” Miranda said.

*

In Anaheim, the westbound Tustin Avenue off-ramp from the Riverside Freeway will be closed Thursday while the off-ramp is widened and repaved. It will reopen Aug. 5, according to the Orange County Transportation Authority.

On the other side of the Riverside Freeway, the eastbound off-ramp at Kraemer Boulevard/Glassell Street will also be closed from Thursday to Aug. 31 for widening and repaving and for construction of a sound wall.

Drivers in either direction will be able to detour on La Palma Avenue, which is immediately north of the Riverside Freeway and parallel to the freeway.

Bicyclists on the Santa Ana River bike trail will also encounter a detour at the Tustin Avenue underpass, which will require use of Riverdale Avenue around the underpass. The bike lane detour begins Tuesday and continues through October, 1994.

For additional information on these projects, call OCTA at (714) 636-RIDE.

*

All 31 cities and the County of Orange have received a total of more than $1.6 million from the state’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements program. The program, intended to encourage non-motorized transportation, funds both local and regional projects.

The money, allocated according to population, is to be used for bicycle lanes and trails, sidewalk installation and reconstruction, and the construction of access ramps for wheelchairs.

In addition, the Orange County Transportation Authority voted to approve more than $700,000 for four bikeway projects.

The amounts appropriated for each of these four projects include $100,000 for a pedestrian and bicycle bridge across Culver Drive in Irvine; $300,000 for improvements to the Upper Newport Bay Bikeway; $228,000 for the Bluff Top Trail along Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach; and $85,000 for improved access to the Santa Ana River bike trail at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa.