Relief for Backed-Up Off-Ramp Is Still a Long Way Off

Dear Street Smart:

Caltrans needs to improve the right-turn option as you exit to Nohl Ranch Road from the Costa Mesa Freeway north to Santiago Boulevard.

There are two lanes on this off-ramp. The left lane is left-turn only. The right lane is left turn, straight ahead and right turn. If the first car to the signaled intersection is going straight ahead or left, it most often prevents the second car from making a right turn. This always happens if there are two cars.

I have been backed up onto the Costa Mesa Freeway just because of this problem. It never existed before the signal was put in. There is plenty of vacant property that could be taken to make the right turn a real possibility, without backing up the off-ramp and the freeway.

Thank you for listening . . . and perhaps notifying Caltrans.

Michael P. Driscoll Orange

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Dear Street Smart:

A couple of months ago a signal was installed at Santiago Boulevard and the Nohl Ranch Road off-ramp from the northbound Costa Mesa Freeway in Orange. Evening commuters exiting the freeway on this off-ramp are regularly subjected to long delays because the signal gives entirely too much time to the southbound Santiago traffic--often a trickle during the evening hour. The northbound side of Santiago and the off-ramp both back up some 20 to 30 cars waiting for the signal to change.

The solution to this problem would undoubtedly affect the adjacent Nohl Ranch Road/Lincoln Avenue and Santa Ana Canyon Road/Santiago Boulevard intersection--which is also very busy--so signal synchronizing could be tricky between the two. I would urge the appropriate agencies to remedy this problem soon, before a rear-end collision occurs among cars backed up on the northbound Costa Mesa Freeway waiting to exit at Nohl Ranch.

Tracy Maguir Anaheim Hills

Bernie Dennis, traffic engineer for Orange, said both of you may think the traffic congestion at Nohl Ranch Road and the Costa Mesa Freeway is bad now, but it was much worse six months ago, before the signal was installed.

“It was a mess to begin with,” he said, because of the staccato-short distance between three intersections on Santiago Boulevard, the road turning left from the Nohl Ranch Road off-ramp.

Within 500 feet on Santiago Boulevard, he said, are the northbound Costa Mesa off-ramp where you have been stalled, the intersection of Santiago Boulevard and Lincoln/Nohl Ranch Road and the northbound on-ramp of the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Not only was it more difficult before the signal for a driver on the Costa Mesa Freeway off-ramp to turn left onto Santiago Boulevard, Dennis said, but that person often would hit a red light at the next intersection, causing traffic to stack behind him sometimes to the freeway.

The new signal, Dennis said, was synchronized to enable traffic making a left turn from the off-ramp to proceed through green lights at the next two signals.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation said that “modifications to the signal are now under review.” But Dennis, representing the city which controls the signal, disagreed. He said no changes will be made until various road construction projects are completed.

Traffic engineers for Orange and Caltrans nonetheless agree that the two-lane off-ramp at Nohl Ranch Road needs improvement.

“We know a right-turn lane is desirable,” Dennis said. “We would certainly be willing to request early construction of the lane by Caltrans.”

Caltrans spokeswoman Rose Orem said a plan for widening the off-ramp, adding a right-turn lane, will be completed early next year. But Dennis estimated it will be three to five years before funding will be available for the project.

Other planned changes to help move traffic more smoothly in the area, Dennis said, include reconfiguration of the Costa Mesa Freeway on-ramp and off-ramp, widening of Santiago Boulevard between the two ramps and widening of Lincoln Avenue between Santiago Boulevard and Tustin Street.

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Dear Street Smart:

I have noticed something new at several locations in Irvine. Please tell me what I am seeing.

On a street-light post at Irvine Boulevard and Jeffrey Road, there is a new thing. It looks like a camera to snap photographs of speeders. Has Big Brother arrived 11 years late?

Bob Fournier Irvine

Irvine’s traffic engineering department is not going Orwellian on you. The cameras you see are one of Irvine’s newest tools to minimize traffic delays and improve traffic flow throughout the city, said Conrad Lapinski, Irvine’s traffic engineer.

Traffic engineers use these closed-circuit televisions to monitor traffic flow from offices at City Hall and adjust traffic signal timing accordingly, Lapinski said. The city currently has 13 cameras, which are moved around as needed.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition.