Beautifying Offramps at the Pond Was Anaheim’s Move

Dear Street Smart:

Lately I’ve noticed that areas surrounding certain freeway onramps and offramps have gotten major improvements. Is it just a matter of coincidence that these areas are adjacent to new centers of business such as the Pond of Anaheim? Which begs the question--who determines which areas get spruced up with rock mosaics while others grow more weeds, such as the El Toro exit on the northbound Santa Ana Freeway?

If the areas getting improvement were in some way expedited by developers, are our tax dollars in any way going toward the costs? If not, what is Caltrans’ responsibility in keeping areas adjacent to freeways clear of weeds and debris?

Marc Thompson

Mission Viejo

No, the locations of the major landscaping improvements to which you refer are not matters of coincidence and, yes, our tax dollars sometimes help pay for them. Here’s the deal: Although Caltrans is responsible for freeway landscaping and will provide basic covering at its own expense, it can also approve special requests by local jurisdictions. In the example you mention, Anaheim requested the elaborate landscaping scheme, complete with palm trees matching those at the Pond, and paid for it with a $593,700 grant from the federal government.

“That interchange is viewed by the city as a regional gateway to major event centers such as the Pond, the Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim Convention Center and Disneyland,” said John Lower, the city’s traffic and transportation manager. “We call it a beautification effort.”

The decision to do the landscaping was the city’s, he said, with no input from the developers and no financial involvement on their part.

Caltrans is responsible for keeping all areas of the freeway clear of weeds and debris, which it does regularly through maintenance inspections combined with various methods of weed abatement.

Dear Street Smart:

Does the third brake light truly help reduce the severity and frequency of rear-end crashes, or does it just sell more bulbs?

Paul Weinberg

Fountain Valley

High-mounted third brake lights have been mandated on cars manufactured in the United States since 1986. The requirement was instituted after four years of testing on thousands of taxis in San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., indicated that the third brake lights decreased rear-end accidents by nearly 50%.

That percentage has decreased somewhat since then, according to Paul Snodgrass, a highway safety specialist with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More recent monitoring, he said, indicates that the lights reduce the number of rear-end collisions by 20% to 30%, a trend he attributes to the increasing familiarity with the lights, which cost a car manufacturer about $2 apiece to install.

“When it was new and unique, it stood out more,” Snodgrass said. “Now people have gotten more used to it and are somewhat blase.”

The main advantage of the lights, according to Snodgrass, is that they allow drivers to see a car stopping from farther away. “It’s just more visible than a regular brake light that is low down in traffic,” he said.

Dear Street Smart:

I have a question on left-hand turns on red lights. I have seen intersections at which it is clearly stated that a left-hand turn can occur only on a green arrow. At the other intersections, can you make a left-hand turn on a red arrow if it is safe? I am thinking not, but there has been many a day when I sit at a light with no oncoming traffic and wish that I could turn.

Sue Murphy

Laguna Niguel

Remember this: Red means stop. A red arrow at a left-hand turn means no turning, period. “They put the arrow there,” said Jose Vasquez, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, “because it’s a high-accident intersection. You can’t enter the intersection for a left turn until the arrow is green, and it will not turn green until the cross traffic has red.”

Vasquez couldn’t say why some intersections have signs warning motorists against turning left on a red arrow while others do not. “I don’t really have a satisfactory answer on that,” he said.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.