Collisions on Lindero Canyon Road force modifications in Westlake

Acorn Staff Writer


Southbound Lindero Canyon Road just north of Via Colinas was re-striped to allow a third lane about three years ago and accidents have more than doubled since then. Westlake Village city council-members last week approved modifications.


The problem, according to Westlake Village city engineer Mark Wessel, is when traffic fills up on the southbound side of Lindero Canyon Road. Motorists traveling northbound wish to make a left turn through the median into the Village Green Office Park entrance (opposite of Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Memorial Park) and are accommodated by drivers in the first two southbound lanes. But motorists in the curb lane can’t see the left turners, so vehicles in the southbound curb lane often strike those making left turns as they approach the Village Green entrance.


Motorists leaving the same entrance also experience similar accidents with the median-side lane traffic striking them.


"What city traffic engineers sometimes do historically," Wessel said, "is they would keep what was called an accident pin map. And it was literally a map of the city on the wall, and where there were accidents, you’d push a pin into the wall. And over time you can start seeing where there’s a cluster of pins. That’s a relatively high accident concentration spot."


This information is now kept on a computer program. Each pin or accident is researched to determine the cause, whether it was a drunk or distracted driver or a possible design problem. The northbound left turn into the entrance across from the cemetery, Wessel said, was the most common type of accident on Lindero Canyon Road.


Wessel went back several years to analyze a trend. From 1989 to 1999, two collisions occurred while making left turns into the entrance across from Valley Oaks.


After a third lane was added in 1999, five similar collisions from 2000 to 2001 (with still a week to go) have occurred.


"You can do the math," Wessel said. "That’s an accident rate that is several times as high."


The city council last week approved modification to the raised median, which will permit southbound drivers to make left turns into the cemetery but prohibit other movements through the median. Affected property owners were in agreement with the action.


"What we will be doing," Wessel said, "is closing off that northbound left-turn pocket, so it’ll be a full-width median. For the southbound, we’ll leave the left-turn pocket for traffic going southbound (so they can) turn left into the cemetery. And then we’ll be constructing what we call a worm in the opening so that if you’re southbound and want to make a left, you can go through the median, but nobody else can. It will not permit any other movements through the median."


Wessel compared the design with that of the marketplace worm on Lindero Canyon Road.


As part of the modification, the public safety committee also suggested that a plan be devised to increase storage for northbound left turns at the Lindero Canyon Road-Thousand Oaks Boulevard intersection. Wessel agreed.


The project, Wessel said, will be part of the arterial system financing program (already in design) to begin late next year. It’ll take several months to complete, Wessel said.


The public safety committee suggested a temporary fix with the left turn problem until then, but a permanent solution is still a year away.


"I haven’t really thought about that yet," Wessel said. "It may not be easy to do that because the cemetery has no other way in or out right now. Not only must we maintain the left turn in—just like we’ll always maintain it—for the interim we also have to maintain a left turn out," he said.


Public safety officials will meet to discuss this issue within the next two months, Wessel said.





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