Tag: traffic

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 22, 20269:33 pm

Circles of Confusion

I am the long-time critic of the roundabouts (e.g. traffic circles) that San Diego is placing at intersections across the city. The euphemism for them is “traffic calming”, by official parlance. I call them danger zones—directly when you go through them and indirectly how they negatively change driving behavior.

The Featured Image and companion are evidence of the first. Two SUVs collided in what looks like one driver failing to yield to another already in the circle. This kind of confusion happens frequently.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 27, 202610:04 pm

Border Bound But Barely Moving

The 805 during Thursday afternoon rush hour is bumper to bumper, and this is light by normally heavy-traffic standards. Drivers are headed South, many of them to Mexico. Most of the folks are Mexican but they are joined by U.S. expatriates who live across the border because cost of living is so much lower.

For example, one of our friends tutors kids from wealthier San Diego families. Locally, a studio apartment could be rented for as low as $1,800 per month but likely considerably more. In Mexico, she pays $500 for a studio about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) from the beach with an ocean view.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 12, 20268:52 pm

What the Hell Happened Here?

I regard Meade and Mississippi as the most dangerous intersection in the village of University Heights. Countless car crashes occur with too much frequency there. My speculation: Cause has something to do with human nature related to impatience. Drivers go from Monroe to Mission, which is a short block to Meade. If driving from Adams to Madison, there is yet another stop sign. They’re ready to go and tired of stopping at every intersection..

Meanwhile, on either side of Mississippi are traffic circles along Meade at Alabama and Louisiana. Traffic slows, and drivers are sometimes—if not often—confused about right of way. Many of them speed up as they approach Mississippi, where antsy drivers wait to enter an intersection where oncoming traffic may move more brisky than anticipated—and from two directions, simultaneously.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 1, 20249:43 pm

You’re Going the Wrong Way

Strange: I have walked through this intersection countless times over the years and only today recognized the anomalous road sign(s). In the Featured Image, bikers are given distances to destinations that are behind them—meaning where they came from. In the companion capture, of the sign on the other side of the roundabout, information is accurate for everyone riding East towards Normal Heights.

Ah, yeah. Maybe you are unfamiliar with the area and turned onto Meade from a perpendicular street a few blocks away. Based on the first sign, you would be mislead to think that you’re eight-tenths of a mile (1.29 kilometers) from University Heights. The Meade-Utah traffic circle is often nasty with cars, so a biker paying attention to incoming vehicles could easily miss the second sign.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 13, 20239:54 pm

Finally, Somebody Uses the Bike Lanes

Dec. 9, 2023, as I stopped to photograph someone’s life belongings heaped onto four shopping carts, suddenly, and rapidly, riders roared by along University Ave. in Hillcrest. San Diego’s panache for tearing up parking spaces and replacing them with kilometers-upon-kilometers of bike lanes is controversial among businesses and many residents but unapologetic policy public.

On any normal day, bikers are few, and their numbers are next to meaningless compared to the volume of buses, cars, SUVs, and trucks, among other vehicles. So I was rather surprised seeing such mass of riders, who vastly spilled out of the bike lane into traffic.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 4, 202310:33 pm

The Jaywalker

If I walk where there are stoplights, someone surely will cross the street against traffic. Nowhere else have I seen such consistently stupid, arrogant behavior. Is it only San Diego? All California? I do wonder. This type of jaywalking isn’t occasional. Every time I venture out, someone strolls into oncoming traffic.

The gentleman in the Featured Image is an offender seen today. He and I walked along 30th Street in North Park—he ahead of me and later behind. Oddly, we would both arrive at Target, but by different routes. At either Lincoln or Polk (not sure which), I crossed to the other side of 30th with a walk sign. That meant green light for the cars going in the same direction as me. Continuing along 30th, he ignored the don’t walk sign and brazenly crossed into oncoming traffic, meaning cars proceeding on a green light.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJul 4, 20227:43 pm

The Fourth on Fifth Avenue

For an errand, this afternoon, I walked from my neighborhood of University Heights to Hillcrest and back. To celebrate Independence Day, the city put out American flags. The Featured Image captures two on Fifth Avenue beside one of the many controversial, and new, bike lanes.

San Diego is in the process of transforming select streets to connect a regional bikeway. The idea is to gain, ah, independence from carbon-emitting vehicles by encouraging more pedal power. Oddly though, hybrid electric or motor bikes are suddenly everywhere, which makes me wonder about the strategy. One reason: Those riders tend to avoid the bike lanes and flow with traffic; the partially powered two-wheelers are too fast-moving.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 10, 20229:07 pm

Perspective Highway

During the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns, I got into the bad habit of photographing alleys, buildings, and streets—yeah cats, too—but have yet to get back to people. They have come out of their dwellings, so I have no excuse.

That as preface, I present a pair of photos where humans are present but unseen. Hey, these aren’t self-driving cars. The view looks out from the University Avenue bridge in Hillcrest onto slow-moving traffic along California State Highway 163.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 16, 20229:10 pm

Doggone Fun

At the corner where University Heights ends and North Park begins, my wife and I waited to walk across El Cajon Blvd. I turned to see a car come up Texas Street to the intersection; a big `ol dog hung out the window. I pulled around Leica Q2 for a quick shot, not wanting to draw the attention of the driver and possibly to offend him.

The Featured Image is about a 95 percent crop, which deliberately includes price of gasoline—down from a high of $5.96 per gallon as recently as last week at this station and others around my San Diego neighborhood. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/8, ISO 100, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 11:38 a.m. PDT, today.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 6, 20227:57 pm

Traffic Rules Apply to Bikes, Too

San Diego is embarked on the Herculean task of creating new bike lanes—and they’re seemingly everywhere in Hillcrest, North Park, and University Heights. Today, while standing at Fifth and University avenues, I saw something surprising that probably shouldn’t be: Traffic lights for riders. In a community culture where bikers barrel through intersections like they own the right of way, the city seeks to tame them to the same rules that everyone else abides by.

Hell, yeah. Hey, Two-Wheeler, someone saved your life. Thank them.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 18, 20218:14 pm

The Runaround

Finally, somebody puts these godawful traffic circles to good use. This afternoon, while walking along Louisiana Street, I came upon someone running around the edifice to poor transportation planning at Meade. The Featured Image is the first of four shots—all taken from the hip, using Leica Q2.

The person could be identified from any of the other three captures; not having permission to publish, I chose the back view; besides, sun is more pronounced in this one compared to the others. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/1250 sec, 28mm; 2:23 p.m. PST; composed as shot.

Photo by Joe WilcoxNov 5, 20218:18 pm

I Blame the Traffic Circles

This car crash won’t win awards for photographic excellence. I got one shot for the Featured Image before a flatbed truck moved in to take away the vehicles. It’s what the moment represents that matters. But first, quickly, the vitals—aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 2:08 p.m. PDT; Leica Q2.

I passed by the scene on Oct. 30, 2021, at the intersection of Meade and Mississippi in University Heights. On either side of Mississippi are parallel streets Alabama and Louisiana, where San Diego workers completed so-called “calming measures” last year. I call them “traffic circles of unintended consequences“—contending they adversely affect driving habits that will lead to more accidents like this one.