An illustrated diagram by Paul Muns depicting his suggestion for addressing traffic congestion at 7th and PCH in Long Beach. Click here to download the above map.
3:45pm | Editor’s note: The following commentary is by Long Beach resident Paul Muns, who owns and operates a local design firm.
As a resident of Long Beach for more than 35 years, I have been reluctantly traversing the bottleneck intersection of Pacific Coast Highway / Seventh Street / Bellflower Boulevard to and from the freeway.
Last week I was on Seventh and got to PCH as the light was turning yellow. There was room to fit on the other side of the road, so I proceeded, but then a car turned right from PCH and took the available place, suddenly leaving me in the intersection. I wondered how many times this has occurred and if there isn’t a way to make this situation go away.
I went to France recently, and many large intersections have been made into circles. I drove through a great number without any problem. It was a relief to not have to wait for the endless three-way lights as we do here.
I spent a few days using Illustrator and Google Earth to see if it was even possible to fit lanes through and situate a circle. I’m sure that highway engineers could come up with a more elegant solution, but I think this is at least feasible.
I have emailed the attached (above) plan to the city but have … yet [to receive a] response. I wonder if this is even a good idea — if people are too afraid of traffic circles in this country … or what? See the attached (above) rough plan.
The current problem is not only the traffic flow, but the city’s need and cost to maintain all of the traffic lights at all of these intersections.
A few years ago, I was stopped south of PCH on Bellflower when the traffic lights suddenly went out and there wasn’t any way to legally get out of this mess. I sat there for five minutes and prayed the lights would come on with trucks and other cars honking angrily from behind. Finally “we” first cars of all three lanes started into the PCH intersection horn-blaring and hoped for the best.
I am also concerned that hackers or others might try to disrupt the city’s traffic lights in the future and this would be a prime area to attack as it is already so heavily impacted.
The plan assumes that some accommodation can be made for the existing businesses at the center of the circle. Also, the intersection at Seventh and PCH is only about 85 feet wide corner to corner, according to Google Earth. This would only allow four two-lane roads through, requiring PCH and Seventh to narrow from three lanes and adding congestion.
I looked for a way to widen the intersection, and this would require only the removal of the tall Jack in the Box sign near the corner and a few parking places. Then the width of the 12-foot-to-9.5-foot lanes would fit through (I have measured lanes from 9 feet to 11 feet wide in the immediate area).
The circle is shown with the width of nine lane, but if this is too many (I figure the outside lanes could be dedicated for “edge” lanes like the dedicated single green turn lanes) the white center circle can easily be enlarged to remove lanes.
It might also be a good idea to initially make the speed limit 25 miles per hour inside the circle while everyone gets used to it. There is a lot of traffic, and the slower speed would be less intimidating to older drivers like myself while still greatly reducing the time [it takes to get] through these multiple intersections.
I left lights at the intersection of Bellflower and PCH since there is much lighter traffic there, but a similar arrangement could be made as that shown at Seventh and PCH. Since the extra lanes weren’t added, I included an adjacent (colored brown) area that could be used to remove accident or stalled vehicles from the circle and could be accessed easily by emergency or tow trucks from the circle or outside from PCH or Bellflower without blocking traffic.
I am submitting this in hope of getting some feedback from others who frequent this intersection.