Editor: Point Loma is mourning the death of a baby and injury to her father after they were hit by a car while crossing Cañon Street at Catalina. Residents have known for years that the unprotected crosswalk there was hazardous. In reaction, some residents are circulating a petition to totally close that section of Cañon Street.
While I respect the sincerity of the petitioners, I think that idea is overkill and unworkable. Cañon is a high volume street and a former state highway. Closing that block would force all of its northbound traffic to turn right onto Talbot and then left onto Cañon. Similarly, all of its southbound traffic would have to turn right onto Talbot and then left onto Catalina. This would have adverse effects on those two intersections, which are also heavily used by pedestrians and other residents. And if those intersections became problematic, we would start to see cut-through traffic on the neighboring side streets.
Instead, there is a much simpler solution which I now propose. There is already a traffic signal at that intersection. It controls the other pedestrian crossings – to cross Catalina and to cross southbound Cañon – but it does not protect the crosswalk across northbound Cañon. That is easily fixed. Just tie that crosswalk into the traffic signal, so that a pedestrian can push a button and have red-light protection to cross Cañon Street.
This change could be made much more quickly than permanently closing streets and diverting traffic; if it was fast-tracked it could probably be done in less than a year. It would solve the problem and would be completely uncontroversial.
This suggestion is based on my long experience with traffic issues while serving on community planning groups, as well as my 30-plus years of living in the Wooded Area. My own children used to use that crosswalk every day while walking home from school, so I am very aware that it is a long-standing problem, with fast-moving traffic and a partially blind corner.
Using the existing traffic signal would be a much quicker, simpler, and less radical solution than closing that portion of a major through street. Melanie Nickel
San Diego