CommuteCommando

. . . when you can be polite, and make a clear, concise and valid point, and get something done?

I have been riding through a certain intersection (located at 33.688448N, 117.832030W) for about two years now. I am traveling Southeastward through this intersection, and about 90% of the time catch it red, and have to stop.

The thing is, the overwhelming majority of cars approaching in the same direction of travel I am taking, turn right from the right lane. The lane is marked for through, or right turn. This has caused a problem for me, since I like to be to the left of right turning traffic. I usually stop between the far right lane, and the second lane. This is rarely a problem. In the two years I have been riding this route an average of at least four days a week, I have encountered cars going straight from this lane fewer than five times. On those occasions, I could tell they were not turning, so I would move out into the cross walk in front of them, and get over to the right as quickly as possible after the light changed. I have not had one go off on me yet.

I explained this situation a couple of weeks ago in an e-mail to the City of Irvine Traffic Engineering Dept. Yesterday I got a call from the engineer thanking me for the info. They did a traffic count at the intersection, and he was blown away by the numbers. They will be restriping the intersection, making the lane in question Right Turn Only.

Hooyeah!

alicestrong

Yay for you! Good work...

idoru2005

I can see that's Jamboree Road, but what's the cross street? Sorry, I don't work by GPS coordinates.

calamarichris

Rare thing when kindness and reason win, so it always makes my day. Thanks.
I'm inspired to write to my town about this intersection. The Northbound bike lane just evaporates into what should be a right-turn lane, but on the other end of the intersection, it's expanded to a third lane! I've had one harrowing closecall and half a dozen uncomfortable moments there.

CommuteCommando

Alton

CommuteCommando

Know it, back in the eighties I worked for a company called Eaton Leonard half a block north on the left.

Situation at Alton and Jamboree is potentially similar, according to the guy in traffic I spoke to. He was rather concerned about the third lane starting on the other side of the intersection. In the Carlsbad case, It looks like they did a standard “dash the bike lane divider” which allows cars and bikes to change lanes to get out of each others way when the cars turn right. The problem is that the road widens as if it were intended to be part of the transition to three lanes. This is common practice in intersection design to not transition the number of lanes in the middle of an intersection.

I’ve had experience in the past working with traffic engineers (designing stores for a major un-named chain of convenience stores<Gulp>) I have seen the codes that they must follow, and there is often a lot of voodoo they must do to get things to work. One thing they used to do, and it made a lot of sense was to actually mark a bike lane to the left of a right turn pocket. This sounds like it would be the best solution to this problem. This has changed and I recently rode through an intersection where such markings had actually been removed (Lake Forrest, I think, but not sure)

The bad thing is that the road design manuals are developed using a combination of reason, and practice. I suspect that traffic studies showed a large number of Wallies not using the through bike lanes, so they are being eliminated

marquhar

I cut through this part of Irvine after riding Santiago Canyon Road. I used to ride exactly where your photo shows.
Now Harvard is the better choice as long as there is an option.

Glad to know that you got this done and maybe I will go back to Jamboree more often.

I have sent emails to Irvine Public Works about Landscapers dropping razor blades and box cutters on Culver. They responded
but never acknowledged my claim or offered to make an effort to correct the problem.

CommuteCommando

About a block and a half beyond this intersection I turn onto a MUP that goes behind Irvine Civic Center, then turn left onto Harvard; Bike lane and fairly good (mostly green) traffic signals all the way to the Tustin Metrolink. Sometimes I continue on the trail past Harvard all the way to Irvine Spectrum, near the 5/405 junction, then Barranca to Irvine Station, or now that the days are getting longer, points south.

I have looked as some rankings of cities for "bike friendliness", and am always amazed how low Irvine ranks. Most of these rankings are based on data from public records. If these guys actually rode, the towns they were rating Irvine would score much higher.

Funny thing about blades on Culver (and Walnut), I have ridden that area a few times on side trips to Jax or Trader Joes, and have seen box cutter blades too. I once flatted three times on one ride in that area. From experience working with city governments, communication between departments is not always great.

CbadRider

Carlsbad is in the process of adding or expanding bike lanes when they resurface the roads. You should let them know about the problem.

lesiz

"Sorry, I don't work by GPS coordinates. "
Just copy and paste the coordinates into Google maps. Works great.

Wulf

I just coppied the coordinates into the brwser search line and the map popped up.

Vinnems

Congrats! I wish I had your luck. I've been trying to get the bike path here in Simi Valley changed in a multitude of ways. From simply opening the gates to asking them to actually finish the path. I'm just hanging out on unemployment so every once in a while I'll just write them a letter. Get generic replies back. I don't know, I guess it's more important to the city to build malls no one shops in. I can't really blame the city for ignoring me, though. It's not like I actually spend any money here outside of my house costs.

CommuteCommando

Real World Civics 101. Sometimes you win, most times you get the "go away, leeetle man" treatment. I had such experiences in the past dealing with the transit agencies in both LA and SD.

volosong

Consider attending the next City Planning Council meeting and give your 5-miinutes worth at the public speaking session. You might want to make up a few packets of pictures, etc. to hand out to the Planning Council members. Worth a try, since letters are being ignored.