A proposed intervention for a tricky left turn from Coast Walk onto Torrey Pines Road was met with rejection from the La Jolla Traffic & Transportation Board at its meeting Nov. 18.<\/p>\n
Local resident Glen Rasmussen proposed through T&T Chairman Erik Gantzel that the board support making a request to the city of San Diego for a \u201cNo left turn\u201d sign at the exit of Coast Walk to help ensure that drivers turn right onto Torrey Pines Road rather than try to merge across traffic lanes.<\/p>\n
Rasmussen did not attend the meeting, as he was serving as a trustee at the La Jolla Development Permit Review Committee meeting at the same time.<\/p>\n
The sign wouldn\u2019t be the only \u201cNo left turn\u201d marker in the immediate area, as one is placed at the exit of Princess Street onto Torrey Pines.<\/p>\n
Gantzel described the left turn as \u201ca dangerous enterprise at certain times of day,\u201d despite the presence of a middle lane helping drivers to move onto the main road.<\/p>\n
Area resident Brenda Fake acknowledged it would be ignorant to rule out the possibility of any accidents during a left turn but said Coast Walk residents make that left turn a lot and that with little enforcement, \u201canything that happens today will happen tomorrow, with a sign or without a sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fake said she has made the turn many times and that the middle lane enables drivers to easily merge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a way to do this, and drivers know how to do this,\u201d Fake said. \u201cAnd the more driving experience [you have], the better off you are. As long as you\u2019re not inebriated, you\u2019re going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Tom Rushfeldt said \u201cThe only time it\u2019s a problem is during certain peak times of traffic. The rest of the day, it\u2019s easy. To put in a generic \u2018No left turn\u2019 sign, we are opposed to it. And I think virtually every resident \u2026 that lives on Coast Walk is going to be opposed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gantzel said\u00a0\u201cI think we are operating without data that we would really need to support this. \u2026 We don\u2019t have information about accidents \u2014 the result of people turning left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fake agreed, saying\u00a0\u201cEvery turn on and off of Torrey Pines is dangerous, and it doesn\u2019t matter if it has a light or a sign or a stop sign. I would just offer that the residents are opposed to it as a general rule. It would require a study and more data.\u201d<\/p>\n
T&T member Mike McCormack said it\u2019s best to keep things how they are, with the middle lane offering key protection for drivers. He also agreed with Rushfeldt that drivers don\u2019t have to turn left if they don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n
A motion to deny Rasmussen\u2019s request passed 9-0, with board member Mary Soriano abstaining after she appeared at the meeting late. \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A proposed intervention for a tricky left turn from Coast Walk onto Torrey Pines Road was met with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,930,5184,6804,6953,74,84,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-61229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-la-jolla","10":"tag-la-jolla-light","11":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","12":"tag-la-jolla-shores","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}