Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Will the City Ever Reopen Great Highway Southbound from Sloat to Skyline?

It's been nearly six months since the southbound stretch of Great Highway between Sloat Boulevard and Skyline Boulevard has been shut-down due to massive erosion of the shoreline from the winter storms (SF Gate & KPIX).

The articles stated the roads may re-open during the "Summer" and now it is the Summer months and the stretch of road has not been reopened to traffic. Even more odd is for the past couple of months, I have not seen a construction crew working on the closed stretch. It makes me wonder, when will the city ever reopen the road?

Since the city shut-down the southbound stretch, drivers who need to reach Skyline must turn left from Upper Great Highway to eastbound Sloat, and turn right onto southbound Skyline. Since the closure, drivers have been driving like aggressive maniacs (Vietnam flashbacks?) on eastbound Sloat:
  1. Just today, I saw a driver pass me on the left lane at 45 MPH when the speed limit is 35 MPH (as stated in the city's transportation code, section 702, subsection "B," bulletpoint #32).
  2. The same driver (above) and many other drivers aggressively cut their way into the right lane. Eastbound Sloat from Great Highway to Skyline has three lanes; the right lane is dedicated to the turn-off to Skyline while the middle and left lanes continue eastbound on Sloat after Skyline. The driver I witnessed today was in the far left lane, and sharply cut into two lanes of traffic while failing to signal.
  3. I fear the safety of pedestrians who cross the street on Sloat. I stop for them as per "right of way" laws, but the additional traffic and speeding has contributed to those refusing to stop.
  4. Due to the long-term closure of Great Highway, the city painted a white stripe so both lanes of Great Highway can safely turn left onto Sloat, thus preventing sideswipes and collisions by the far left lane illegally veering into the right lane of Sloat. It turns out I continue to witness near collisions and blatant disregard of the white stripe by left lane idiots who feel its OK to simply go past the white line so they get into the right lane first.
Get the Great Highway reopened. It's a matter of time until someone gets hit and killed on Sloat.

2 comments:

  1. timeontargetOctober 17, 2010 at 9:50 AM

    As of yesterday the 16th, one lane of the Great Highway is open, even though they could have laid down a second lane. Perhaps this is an attempt at lame traffic calming?

    If we didn't have traffic calming as a policy, drivers would not have to be as aggressive to get from one part of SF to the other. Drivers are taxpayers whose rights are being eroded with their own money every day. How about spending the money being used for anti-motorist propaganda for pedestrian education & enforcement? After all, it's for THEIR safety!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AkitOctober 17, 2010 at 11:26 AM

    It's not traffic calming, they had to merge two lanes to one when they start working on a permanent solution to fix the erosion problem. The construction crews needs space to do their work, plus, if they did open up that lane again, it would be really risky if the lane kept eroding.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave your comments! Akit checks on his inbox often.

Questions welcomed too!

Comments are moderated. I expect commentators to be respectful. If you have a differing point of view, that's perfectly fine, but don't be insulting or disrespectful. If I see a pattern of abuse, I will discontinue anonymous postings.