Brent P
Mira Mesa Blvd & Black Mountain Road is the RLC, MMB & Westview Pkwy is the first light a driver off I-15 usually will face, since there's a right turn to aux lane right there.
Westview is the intersection that has constant red light running. Most of it is people making a left from MMB Westbound to Westview south into the plaza. To me it seems like simple impatience, they can't wait another 3 minutes to park to walk to the movie theater to watch some previews.
Mira Mesa is timed so that at 48-52 MPH (speed limit is 45, 50 near I-805) you hit very few, if any lights from I-805 to I-15. It depends on the acceleration and deceleration speeds of drivers, and other human factors that can't be easily controlled of course.
It's a major arterial used to get between I-15 and Sorrento Valley (a major employment center) and Mira Mesa is a neighborhood of about 70,000 people. Environmental restrictions prevent most new roads or even widenings of many. CA-56 was completed after the location was selected for the RLC, which resulted in even higher east-west traffic counts on MMB.
Also of note there's one of the three regional community colleges on BMR, with somewhere around 15-20,000 students, IIRC. That may be at final buildout and not the current number though, I'm not certain.
The commercial development along MMB brings a lot of traffic, added to the factors cited above it leads to near gridlock, except that the light timing is pretty good. This includes seemingly long yellows, but I'm not buying a stopwatch for this. The drivers seem good enough to usually clear intersections, though it gets screwed up sometimes.
At MMB & BMR the most common accidents I've seen (I drive this intersection daily) are rear-enders AFTER people have cleared the intersection. Someone makes a right into a parking lot, and the driver behind them is either eating, talking on a cell phone, putting on makeup, or otherwise distracted and drives into the back of another car.
But since the RLC was installed, I haven't seen an accident occur at over about 2-5 mph. A friend works facing that intersection eight hours a day, five days a week and has mentioned that other than a burst of rear end accidents when it was first installed, it seems a lot safer.
Yes, factors could impact that such as CA-56 opening, but a lot of new businesses and houses have been built simultaniously so I'm not sure how it's effected traffic counts. In addition there aren't any north-south connectors to CA-56 between BMR and a road a few hundred feet from I-805, so a lot of traffic uses MMB to BMR or I-15 to get between areas near I-15 and areas on the coast.
They've done a ton of things to make sure judges and citizens won't have anything to get peeed about this time. The only issue taken up so far, and AFAIK was stopped, was they were implying you could be fined if you didn't say who might have been driving when it happened.
Two other intersections with them are on the way in and out of the airport because our regional airport is so undersized for the region, along with the connecting roads. Another two are in the Center City (Downtown) area near the end of CA-163, since people don't seem to understand stoplights exist after they go 65 mph. Another is near a college, where an expressway turns into a residential street.
It seems to me they've chosen sites where people are going from 65+ (on most freeways 75+) to a neighborhood with crosswalks and pedestrians. The photo cameras seem to, with the other precautions they've taken, make people realize it and make better decisions.
They even installed the countdown crosswalk signals, so pedestrians (and drivers who look) know how long until the light's going to signal. I really believe the cameras are there for my safety in this and the other cases in the city of SD.
Some cities might take liberties with the cameras, but that doesn't mean the camera itself is evil. If used properly they're just another thing that can be done to make an intersection marginally safer, even if it's just a psychological trick.
And since I've typed this much, no, I don't work for the city, I just don't want to get hit by some dumbpoo who figures, "I don't see a cop and it looks clear."
Dave
