Additional Botts Dots to Be Installed Along Moulton Parkway

Dear Street Smart:

A letter I had written to you appeared in the Jan. 31, 1994, issue of Street Smart. Are you interested in knowing the results?

In a few weeks, Botts dots were installed on Moulton Parkway going north from El Toro Road to the first stop sign, which is Gate 12 of Leisure World. From there to Santa Maria Avenue (the area that I was most concerned about) there are none !

Yet, from Santa Maria to Lake Forest Drive the Botts dots are visible. The problem of locating the left turn from Moulton Parkway to Santa Maria in the face of the car lights (going south) coming up the hill still exists.

Also, going south, the Botts dots were installed from Ridge Route to Santa Maria and then they stop. Shouldn’t they continue to El Toro?

I find all this puzzling.

Bethel Tante

Laguna Hills

Ignacio Ochoa, Orange County traffic engineer, says the missing Botts dots are on their way. A crew from county traffic engineering should be installing the new dots within the month, he said.

Dear Street Smart:

I am writing to you concerning the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Douglas in Irvine. Specifically, the traffic signal will activate allowing cars to turn left from Douglas onto MacArthur, even if there are no cars waiting to make such a turn.

The result is that cars traveling north on MacArthur are delayed at the traffic signal much longer than is necessary, as are cars waiting to turn left from MacArthur onto Douglas.

The traffic signal should be programmed not to have the left turn signal from Douglas to MacArthur activate unless there is a car waiting to make the turn.

Dean Ferguson

La Habra

Under normal circumstances, the traffic signals work the way you think they should, said John Thai, senior transportation engineer for Irvine. But because of major construction going on in the area, everything’s out of whack.

The sensor loops that dictate to signals were destroyed during construction, Thai said.

Sacrificing efficiency for safety, all signals in that area have been put on a kind of automatic pilot that goes through every signal option no matter what the traffic may be, he said.

The old signal coordination will return when construction is completed at the end of summer or early fall, Thai said.

Dear Street Smart:

Recently, the traffic signal at Bolsa Chica Road and Duncannan Avenue in Westminster has been set so that traffic flowing on Bolsa Chica invariably stops for a red light on Duncannan. There is almost no traffic on Duncannan, while Bolsa Chica is a major thoroughfare between the San Diego Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway. Is it possible for this traffic signal to be reset, as it was previously, to allow traffic to flow on Bolsa Chica without stopping at the intersection at Duncannan?

This condition exists during rush-hour traffic, as well as in the wee hours of the night.

Patrick T. Madden

Huntington Beach

The signals at the Bolsa Chica Road and Duncannan Avenue intersection are coordinated to allow the maximum amount of traffic to flow on Bolsa Chica, said Marwan Youssef, traffic engineer for Westminster. Drivers on Duncannan are the ones who usually complain about having to wait a long time, he said.

Like all the signals on Bolsa Chica in Westminster, from the San Diego Freeway to the city limit, the signals are traffic responsive, meaning Bolsa Chica always has the green light until cross traffic approaches an intersection, Youssef said.

In the case of Duncannan, a driver can approach the intersection, trigger a sensor loop embedded in the road, and still have to wait up to two minutes before the light turns green, he said.