Intersection to Get Second Makeover

One of the city’s most dreaded intersections – Junipero Serra and Rancho Viejo roads – will get a $40,000 fix, the City Council decided.

Ironically, the intersection received a $1.15 million makeover last year.

Even more ironic was the fact .

It’s been aggravating drivers ever since, especially those who travel southbound on Rancho Viejo Road and want to turn right on Junipero Serra.

“This intersection has literally driven me nuts,” said Councilman Derek Reeve.

The problem is the raised, landscaped median that requires one of the three southbound Rancho Viejo Road lanes do double duty as both a right-turn lane and a through-traffic lane, said Jim Ross, the city’s acting public works director.

This means when the green arrow comes on for the right-turn lanes, traffic gets clogged when drivers in that shared lane have no intention of making a turn, he said.

“The fatal flaw is the green arrow. People want to turn right, but they can’t use the green arrow,” Ross said.

The council entertained three proposals. The first would get rid of the raised, landscaped median and replace it with an additional lane. That would make the first two lanes closest to the curb right-turn only lanes – the farthest right to enter northbound I-5 – and feature a through-traffic lane and a left-turn lane.

That option would cost the city $40,000.

A second proposal would reconfigure the median so that the No. 1 lane would accommodate both left turns and through traffic, leaving the other turn lanes to be right-turn only. That option costs $105,000 because it would also require modifying the traffic signal.

A third option proposed restriping the current set-up so that only one lane, the one closest to the curb, would turn right. That would prompt turning traffic then to weave onto Junipero Serra as drivers figure out whether they want to hop on the I-5 North, go west on Junipero Serra or take the I-5 south.

The third proposal would only cost $10,000, but officials worried it would cause an untenable back-up by eliminating a second right-turn lane.

City Council members and members of the public liked the first option best.

“I’ve lived there over 30 years, and each year it gets worse and worse and worse,” said Jill Hanna, a resident of Mission Hills Ranch who was representing the Mission Hills Homeowners Association.

The so-called improvements only made it worse, she said.

“It became a living nightmare,” Hanna said. “I don’t think there’s ever going to be for that intersection a really adequate addressing of this. Option A for me personally … that looks to me like a really good option. Not perfect, but anything you can do.”

The council voted 5-0 for the $40,000, first option.