We, the residents of Del Mar Avenue, would like to comment on the two June 13 letters to the editor in the Beacon complaining about the new “no left turn” signs recently placed on Del Mar Avenue, restricting morning flow southwest bound and afternoon flow northeast bound.
As longtime residents of Del Mar Avenue, (many of us over 40 years), we have seen our once-quiet street where our children played transformed into a busy commuter thoroughfare. Years ago, back in the 1980s, we did not ask for the yellow lines down our street and, in fact, we fought it and lost. It in turn makes people think Del Mar Avenue is a speedway.
After four years of working with the city for speed bumps, or humps, or anything that would help, we finally got a stop sign at Del Mar Avenue and Liggett Street, but that only helped somewhat in slowing the speed.
After several years with the stop sign installed and seeing that it did not solve the problem, we invited the city Traffic Engineering Department, along with Matt Aubrey, from District 2 Councilman Faulconer’s office, to come out and watch the traffic during the commute times. They agreed with us that something had to be done. Our first choice was speed bumps but that was nixed by the city because of the gradient of the hill. A survey was then done showing that on an average weekday between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m., 564 autos turned left onto Del Mar Avenue from Canon Street, of which 365 had government Department Of Defense stickers, 133 were Point Loma Nazarene University, identified by campus school stickers and the remaining 66 were “others.” Similar numbers, but somewhat smaller, showed the same percentages (78 percent to 85 percent) in the early morning hours turning left from Chatsworth onto Del Mar. Del Mar Avenue, being a residential street, was not built to withstand the traffic or weight like Chatsworth or Catalina Boulevard, so taxpayers should be concerned about the cost to maintain.
The city Engineering Department then came up with the current solution, restricting the flow on Del Mar Avenue by the “no left turn” signs. We then took the city’s suggestion to the neighborhood, getting signatures from all local residents approving this idea. We then took all this data to last year’s Peninsula Community Planning Board for approval. They heard arguments on both sides and voted to put in the signs. Several months have now passed and we have the signs installed.
Sure, we will all be inconvenienced once in awhile, but the flow of traffic during those peak hours is now where it should be ” out Chatsworth, connecting to Catalina ” which leads to PLNU and the Navy base.