Motorists Not Spinning Their Wheels With Suggestions

Look, we’re not laying blame here, but some intersections in Ventura County just don’t seem to make sense.

We all keep a soft spot in our head labeled WHAT the...? for that especially hair-raising or confusing interchange we fear most.

Street Smart’s own top locale for keeping eyes doubly peeled (despite many improvements over the years) is still Victoria Avenue at the Ventura Freeway, which always looks like someone just dropped a flaming pork chop onto an anthill.

Our readers have pointed out many that are even gnarlier: One reader’s weighty two-page screed on the Ventura Freeway / Moorpark Road intersection was so complex that Street Smart and Caltrans are still trying to puzzle it out for a future column.

But Ventura County has the intersections its growth has earned, engineers say.

As growth breeds traffic like bacteria, highway engineers are forced to inoculate former horse paths with layer upon complex layer of signs, signal lights, barriers, painted lines and other design fixes.

Intersections take shape over decades, not overnight. Thus, no one master architect can be blamed for our automotive discontent, nor can one almighty road god reach down and cure our traffic woes with a touch.

It is motorists like you who help guide the work of the human engineers who make the world more drivable.

Dear Street Smart:

There is a frustrating problem at the intersection of Telegraph Road and Wake Forest Avenue in Ventura by the post office.

Cars turning south onto Wake Forest from Telegraph block traffic that is continuing down Wake Forest, by not pulling over to the right to turn into the post office lot.

A lane line needs to be painted, with a right-turn arrow for the post office driveway, so these cars will not block the lane closest to the center line. The left lane needs to be kept free, as loads of cars need to get to Buena High School and homes nearby.

Carol Clinton

Ventura

Dear Reader:

No argument here, especially from Ventura traffic engineer Nazir Lalani: “You’ve got the post office right there, and you’ve got the high school and, at times, it’s very busy.”

Then Lalani scoped it out last week. And now, he says he’s decided “it can be made to work.”

Thanks to your letter, the city will spend $2,000 to $3,000 to grind off the existing stripes, install new sensors in the pavement and restripe the road to make two lanes in front of the post office, he said. The work will not start for several months because the city’s striping contractor is not scheduled to pass through Ventura for a while, he said. But it will get done.

“It may help a little bit, but only a little,” he warned. “Because the driveway is so close to Telegraph, there is not a lot of room for weaving and making lane changes.”

Dear Street Smart:

Regarding the Avenida de los Arboles offramp from the southbound Moorpark Freeway in Thousand Oaks:

When you turn left off the ramp to head east on Los Arboles, you almost hit the westbound cars that are stopped at the light there. The fast lane’s limit line on Los Arboles is so far forward that there is not quite room to turn past the cars.

Why can’t the two limit lines be staggered instead of parallel, with the fast lane made to stop further back from the intersection, to leave more room for cars turning left onto Los Arboles?

Kathryn Desio

Oak Park

Dear Reader:

With the state Department of Transportation and other traffic agencies strapped for funds and manpower, we rarely get to make this sort of announcement twice in one column. And we dare not get into the habit of it, because real life isn’t like this. But here goes: Ask and ye shall receive.

No sooner had Street Smart forwarded your letter to Caltrans than department spokeswoman Pat Reid sent back this response: “Caltrans maintenance crews will move back the limit line for the westbound traffic five feet at lane No. 1.”

Let us know how it works out.

Dear Street Smart:

In Oxnard, going west on 5th Street as you get to Ventura Road, there’s a right-turn lane to turn onto Ventura Road.

You have a stop sign sitting there, and also a signal.

People have been commenting to me that they’re getting ticketed over there even if the stop signal is green. It’s very confusing. It seems to me that they should either have one or the other, or a sign saying Stop at All Times.

Bob Allen

Ventura

Dear Reader:

Confusing or not, a stop sign means STOP, despite what some traffic light tells you.

That particular sign is meant to keep traffic in the right-turn lane from mowing down pedestrians, who must cross the lane to reach the traffic island and walk button at the crosswalk for Ventura Road, Oxnard traffic engineer Joe Genovese says.

“The intersection’s the way it is in order to shorten the crosswalk distance crossing Ventura Road,” Genovese said. “The right-turners are not part of the signalized intersection.”

So if you want to avoid a short, expensive chat with an Oxnard traffic officer, stop at that sign before turning right.

NEXT WEEK: More letters about the good, the bad and the gruesome, intersection-wise.

Miffed? Baffled? Peeved? Or merely perplexed? Street Smart can answer your most probing questions about the joys and horrors of driving around Ventura County. Write to: Street Smart, c/o Mack Reed, Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition, 1445 Los Angeles Ave., Room 208, Simi Valley 93065. Include a simple sketch if needed to help explain your question. Or call our Sound Off line, 653-7546. In either case, include your full name, address, and day and evening phone numbers. Street Smart cannot answer anonymous queries, and might edit your letter.