The often blind intersection at Grand Avenue and Abbot Street will soon be regulated by a stoplight.
Traffic lights, street lights and “signalized” crosswalks are being installed on the intersection in order to reduce congestion of traffic flow coming off the freeway and to make the intersection a safer place for drivers and pedestrians, traffic operation manager of San Luis Obispo Jake Hudson said.
“Accidents were not the primary reason, but there were about three to four collisions a year. It’s primarily to accommodate the amount of traffic coming from the freeway,” Hudson said. The justification was the traffic volumes. We haven’t done any studies to see if the majority of the traffic is from Cal Poly.”
In his opinion, he said it does seem to be from a lot of Cal Poly students.
From Feb. 1, 2009, to Feb. 29, 2012, five accidents at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Abbott Street have been reported to the San Luis Obispo Police Department (SLOPD), according to a department report. Officers reported there were two injuries out of the five accidents, and SLOPD classified the injuries as minor and not too serious, SLOPD records supervisor Tera Rapp said.
The accident reports don’t include an area for where the people involved in the accidents work or go to school, so there isn’t information about whether or not the accidents were Cal Poly-related, Rapp said.
Of the reported accidents, one occurred in 2009, one in 2010 and three in 2011. The report also said the primary cause of all of the accidents was a failure to yield.
In addition to efforts to make the intersection safer by inserting traffic lights, street lights and crosswalks, pedestrian areas around the intersection are being upgraded to meet the requirements set by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA-compliant upgrades include making sure all the ramp grades are at the proper slope and installing yellow areas with bumps called tactile domes, which are for the visually impaired, Hudson said.
The contract to construct the $229,000 project was approved in October 2011. All of the funding is coming from a federal grant known as the Highway Safety Improvement Program Grant, Hudson said.
Sara Kidd, who lives close to the intersection, doesn’t think the project is worth spending $229,000 on.
“I really don’t think it’s that busy of a street,” Kidd said.
Though the City of San Luis Obispo isn’t paying for the project, permits for the project were a joint effort between the city and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Hudson said.
“Anytime you do work in the public right of way, you have to obtain a permit, it’s just a way to let the city know what’s going on and to let you know what people are doing,” public works civil engineer II for San Luis Obispo, Matt Crisp said.
The City of San Luis Obispo is responsible for the permits for construction and traffic control on Grand Avenue and Abbott Street, and Caltrans is responsible for the permits for construction and traffic control for the freeway off ramp that goes into the intersection, Crisp said.
Student’s, however, shouldn’t worry about being late to class due to the construction since there should only be minor traffic control and lane delineations, Hudson said of the intersection.
“When we review traffic control for construction projects, we make every attempt to have the construction impacts avoid peak traffic times,” he said.
Crisp said Caltrans had to close the offramp at one point during construction, but he doesn’t think they’ll have to close it again.
“The ramp is all Caltrans, I can’t tell them what they can and can’t do on that ramp, that’s out of my jurisdiction,” Crisp said. “There won’t be any full closures, as far as restrictions on roadway, on Grand and on Abott. Access will always be available.”
Caltrans didn’t respond when exactly the ramp will be closed as of press time.
One of the primary workers on the project, Jaime Ribra, agreed to be interviewed about the project while removing dirt from the bottom of the off ramp. Ribra works for Lee Wilson Electric, the company contracted out to do the construction work.
He said he thinks the traffic lights will be helpful for people trying to turn left off the freeway offramp because he said it’s hard to see when big vehicles are parked along the curb to the left. He also said the lights will be helpful in the morning when it gets busy and the ramp is backed up halfway to the freeway.
One of the main duties Ribra had was installing sensors around the intersection so the lights turn green when people drive up to the intersection if no one else is waiting at other parts of the intersection.
“If there isn’t anyone coming down Grand, it will turn green for people on Abbott,” Ribra said.
Ribra said installing the sensors in boxes underground wasn’t the most challenging part of the project, even though it took quite a while. The most challenging part of the project was digging 9-foot holes for the light poles on the side of the intersection.
“When you’re at the bottom of the freeway offramp, usually it only takes around 30 minutes to dig the holes for the poles, but we had to spend two days on those poles because it was all rock underground.” Ribra said. “It’s almost done, maybe this week on Friday it will be done.”
Though installing the poles took longer than expected, the project will still be finished earlier than planned.
The project permit was for approximately 40 days, and the project is on schedule, Crisp said.