Mandana Boulevard at Lakeshore Avenue by the Chevron station is two lanes wide; it narrows to one lane by the park on the opposite side.
Every day that we drive there, we observe cars ready to turn left onto Lakeshore and other cars ,whose drivers wish to go straight, pulling out to the right to pass and continue up the hill and over to Grand.
Sometimes signals get crossed, and some drivers in the undesignated, informal “left lane” actually intend to continue straight on Mandana Boulevard. At the same time others in the informal “straight ahead/turn right” lane are trying to pass these cars on the right.
The result: we have two lanes of traffic trying to get into one.
Although no one has been injured yet, it’s an accident waiting to happen. It would make sense and improve safety were the city to paint a line, creating one left-turn-only lane and one straight-ahead/right-turn lane at the intersection so there would be no confusion about who was about to do what.
City traffic responded with a “we have reviewed and it is not necessary” when we wrote to them a few years ago. Can Lakeshore merchants do something to put pressure for such a lane?
It took years to get a traffic signal at this intersection, but the Association and common sense finally prevailed there. Do we, as Mandana Boulevard–area residents, have any chance of pressuring the city to spend a few bucks on paint and striping to improve traffic flow?
Comments