The study, which details traffic circulation issues and potential improvement projects for the Mission Drive corridor, was initiated by the council at its Feb. 27 meeting. After reviewing the scope of work report provided by Public Works director Matt van der Linden, the council members raised a number of concerns and, with the report not being time-sensitive, decided to hold off on moving forward until they had more information and a possible chance for input from the public.
The first part of the scope of work report would be a data collection phase, in which the city would gather information regarding traffic volume. The second phase would involve analysis of that data and potential solutions to alleviate problems. After that, an outside consultant would be brought in to review the planned projects and determine their feasibility. In addition to vehicle traffic, the study also recommends projects related to public transportation, bicycle and equestrian trails, pedestrian access and parking.
Councilman Ken Palmer raised issue with the hiring of an outside consultant, noting that the traffic issues are complex and the council members themselves are better suited to analyze the issues they deal with each day.
“I think that you have a lot of projects in here and each one of these actions is going to have a consequence, and that consequence is going to have an effect on another action,” Palmer said. “If we’re going to go and really do this thing, we better borrow the super-computer from Cal Tech in order to run a chaos study. I would say, let’s look at these one at a time ourselves, and not go hire somebody else to do it, and see if we want to spend money on it.”
Among the proposed improvement projects are an extension of Maple Avenue east to Pine Street, installing a traffic signal at the intersection of Pine Street and Mission Drive, and also extending Fjord Drive from Alisal Road west along the Santa Ynez River. The consultant would basically look at the proposed projects and decide if any should be dropped, if any should be added and how the city should prioritize them. Some projects, if they are in Caltrans’ right of way, would take longer to implement, noted van der Linden, and the city staff would take the consultant’s suggestions and confer with the council for further direction.
In addition to commenting on the report itself, the council members also had suggestions for improvement projects.
Councilwoman Joan Jamieson said she would like to see a designated right turn lane from Village Lane up to Viborg. She pointed out that the street appears wide enough and it would cut down on the constant stop-and-go traffic caused by people making right turns into their driveways.
Councilman Hans Duus also gave some examples of easier fixes, such as finding middle ground for one crosswalk, rather than having two that are equally inconvenient. He also said that some of the congestion issues are probably unavoidable.
“One of the things that we really need to look at is, yeah, for a couple hours in the morning and an hour or so in the afternoon, traffic is horrendous,” he said. “But to what length do we have to go to mitigate that, when the other 22 hours of the day everything is fine?”
City manager Brad Vidro said the city staff will get as much information is it can from Caltrans and report back to the council at a future date.
“We’re going to re-work it in how we present it to you to make sure everyone is on the same page,” he said. willis@syvjournal.com