Intersection of Bacon and Voltaire. Google map
A major item on the agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board Wednesday night is the city’s proposal to install 2 roundabouts on Bacon Street, one at Voltaire and the other at Brighton. The board will review the proposal and make recommendations.
Another item is a review of the “Housing Action Packages Proposals” and recommendations from the Community Planners Committee (CPC) — the city-recognized body of community planning chairs. (OBPB chair Andrea Schlageter is also the CPC chair.)
The board meets at the OB Recreation Center at 4726 Santa Monica Ave., and meetings begin at 6 pm.
Intersection of Bacon and Brighton. Google maps.
Here’s the official agenda:
Bacon and Voltaire.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Not sure what the effect of round-a-bouts will be in terms of the bike/ped experience but hopefully it will be a plus! Curious how it will play out.
There is no reason to have 10 north-south arterials from Abbot to Catalina that are personal-auto first infrastructure. Bacon is an excellent target as it does not have a bus route, is relatively flat, and doesn’t terminate at the south end as quickly as Abbot.
This strikes me as a good location for a roundabout, as the intersection is wider than W. Point Loma and doesn’t have the same strange geometry as the W. Point Loma/Bacon intersection. My hope is that they can do it without all the fencing and other construction as at W. Point Loma, and that they can make the circle itself with a larger radius.
Has anybody kept count on how many time the fencing has been repaired or replaced? It strikes me that the near constant maintenance at Bacon/W. Point Loma stems from a faulty design.
Ask the folks who work at the small outdoors eatery at the corner to the entrance of Robb.
Bacon st is substandard at 32ft wide, curb to curb. A roundabout there would be substantially smaller than the one at WPL, it would likely just have a small painted circle in the middle, not an island.
Not according to Google Earth. It’s 40 ft wide from the 3rd Corner Wine Shop (almost W. Pt Loma Blvd) to Brighton. On the south side of Brighton, Bacon measures out at 36 feet – both these are pretty standard street widths in SD.
Long Brach and Muir are only 30 feet as anyone would notice how narrow that is by driving down those streets.
Oh great, another poorly engineered roundabout in an intersection that is way too small. Where did the city of SD find their “engineers.” Was it the University of Phoenix or maybe Devry University?
These 2 locations have width differences between Brighton and Voltaire. Additionally, the Brighton intersection does not have the yellow ADA ramps, but rather high curbs with storm drains directly below. I would guess it would be very expensive to change those curbs. If they stay, they would be close to the traffic going around the intersection.
If roundabouts are added, it will displace ped ramps away from the intersection, meaning pedestrians will have to jog a bit to walk straight and some parking will be lost. This could affect the driveways into the 7-11 and car wash at Voltaire. If the 7-11 driveway was lost, it would cause unnecessary access problems.
Undoubtedly, this will cost a lot with ped ramps having to be moved or installed. I don’t see the value of these, which would seem to me to not improve safety for ped, cars or bikes.
Note, there are several roundabouts in the North Park area that have wider streets.
Thank you for your detailed comments. I am also having trouble seeing the value. I’ve always wanted major changes to the status quo on Abbott and Bacon to be bike/ped first as Cable/SC/Ebers are more than adequate for “high(er)” speed autos to use. Maybe this is the start?
Good observations. Hopefully we get some answers.
The voltaire intersection is missing some ramps already, and yes the storm drains are a problem. Roundabouts usually require moving the crosswalks a car length back from the intersection, and removing parking spots. I can see this requiring 2 additional ramps in addition to what is already lacking. And it seems to have a conflict with the carwash and 7-11 driveways.
The Brighton intersection has 4 ramps at the corners. This might require conversion to 8 new ramps for a mini-roundabout. And removal of about 14 parking spots.
kh, you are correct in that there are only 2 yellow ADA ramps at Voltaire, plus 1 ramp missing the yellow pad and one corner without a ramp.
Standard roundabouts would require 8 ADA ped ramps and pulled back from the intersection, some parking would be lost and I’d find it really hard for the city to keep the 7-11 entrance as is, which would really mess up that business. In addition to the ped ramps, they’d have to pull out the old ones and put in curbs as they don’t want people entering at the corner.
They could luck out at Brighton by adding the 8 ped ramps and leaving the drains.
In any case, this will be a huge, unnecessary expense to a city with few funds available and just negotiated to give thousands of employees a 23% raise for 6,500 workers over 2 years and they have open positions to fill at the higher rates.
Meanwhile we’ve been begging them to install a fence around the children’s park for safety. And the city rep said we should raise the money ourselves.
Speechless…
They also said the roundabouts would trigger Coastal Commission review. Which would absolutely push the timeline for repaving back even further. Coastal is very backlogged.
Stop screwing around and just pave the damn street.
I don’t see any comments here regarding a benefit of these particular traffic circles, nor can I imagine any benefit or need. Why do all the work and spend the money if there is no benefit or problem to be solved?