Only Cure for U-Turns Is Long-Range Plan for Medians

Dear Street Smart:

I am curious about the traffic flow from the parking lot of the shopping center at Victoria Avenue and Telegraph Road.

When drivers leave the fast-food joints at the corner, heading eastbound on Telegraph Road, too often they make quick, seemingly legal U-turns back to westbound Telegraph.

Meanwhile, there is another driveway farther east on Telegraph Road, where drivers leaving the shopping center are allowed to turn east or west.

Those motorists turning west often block the other drivers trying to make U-turns to head the same direction. This creates a dangerous and inconvenient situation.

Why are U-turns allowed for drivers leaving the fast-food parking lot?

Joanna Walberg

Oak View

Dear Reader:

Traffic officials in Ventura are not surprised by your question, or your keen sense of observation. They have heard the complaint for years.

But there is little they can do at this point.

“We allow the U-turns because if we don’t they have no way of going west,” said city traffic engineer Nazir Lalani. “Neither the Burger King or the McDonald’s connect to that parking lot.

“That shopping center has always been kind of marginal” in terms of traffic circulation, Lalani said. “Today, if I were to redo it, we would not allow that. But unfortunately those have been there a long time, and we have to allow for the problem.”

Lalani said the owners approached the city about five years ago about renovating the center. But after city planners imposed a handful of new conditions to ensure traffic circulation would be improved, the project stalled.

“We’re well aware of the problem,” Lalani said. “Eventually, we will put medians in there and rework that area, but that’s a ways off.”

Dear Street Smart:

There are two stops signs in Camarillo that disturb me. One is dangerous, and the other is just a nuisance. In 12 years living here, I have never seen a car at either one of the signs.

When exiting the southbound Ventura Freeway at Dawson Drive, cars are required to stop for traffic that is never there. People are backed up on the freeway for traffic that never comes.

Also, across from Harley’s Camarillo Bowl on Arneil Drive, there is a stop sign for phantom traffic. I was wondering why they would put a stop sign there.

Gloria Carr

Camarillo

Dear Reader:

One of the questionable stop signs has an easy answer, and the other one is a little more complex.

The stop sign in the parking lot of Harley’s Camarillo Bowl is planted on private property, and thus not subject to regulation by the city of Camarillo, traffic engineer Tom Fox said.

The other eight-sided red sign at the Dawson Drive offramp of the southbound Ventura Freeway has been the subject of numerous complaints of late, a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.

“Caltrans engineers are now in the process of investigating that situation,” spokeswoman Pat Reid said.

“They’ll have findings in about three weeks,” she said last week. “We have received other complaints about that stop sign there, and that’s why we’re investigating it.”

Dear Street Smart:

Something needs to be done to the major roads in Moorpark--namely New Los Angeles Avenue from the Moorpark Freeway to Tierra Rejada Road, all of Tierra Rejada Road, Spring Road from New Los Angeles Avenue to High Street and Moorpark Avenue from New Los Angeles Avenue to High Street.

The road surface on these streets is awful. It’s worse when it rains.

Tierra Rejada Road between Mountain Trail and Mountain Meadows Drive floods when it rains, reaching 3 or 4 inches deep across both sides of the street. It has been a problem here for years.

Flinn Avenue at Spring Street is beyond awful. The water was over the curb across the whole intersection and the potholes are deep and numerous. Help!

Susan Pusateri

Moorpark

Dear Reader:

Your public works officials already are plotting repairs to most of the areas described in your letter.

For starters, the Moorpark City Council next month will be asked to approve the advertising of bids for an asphalt overlay project estimated at $1.3 million, Public Works Director Ken Gilbert said.

“The streets not only include Tierra Rejada Road from Los Angeles Avenue to Spring, but also four other streets,” Gilbert said. “They should be under construction within about three months and finished sometime this fall.”

As for surface flooding during rainy periods, Gilbert will open bids this week on a $1-million storm drain project.

Write to Street Smart, The Times Ventura County Edition, 93 S. Chestnut St., Ventura 93001. You may enclose a simple sketch if it will help Street Smart understand your traffic questions. Or call our Sound Off Line, 653-7546. Whether writing or calling, include your full name, address, and day and evening phone numbers. No anonymous queries will be accepted, and letters are subject to editing.