Making safe intersections requires compromise with developments

The intersection at El Camino Real and Red Hill in Tustin has a higher rate of accidents. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Designing a road drivers love isn't easy.

They want to get to their destination without spending half of their drive sitting in gridlock. And traffic engineers have to balance their wants against the needs of developers who have properties alongside busy roads.

"It's a tradeoff for local land use like commercial land use and so forth, and moving traffic volumes and making sure you can maximize your capacity," said Eric Loke, a project manager with the city of Tustin government.

The good news is that most of Tustin is fully developed, which means that traffic levels have leveled-off. However, there's a 1,600-acre exception that could soon have an impact: the Tustin Legacy. Exactly how it will change the road will require further study and depend on how the land is built up, but roads and intersection will meet state and federal standards, Loke said

As the city prepares for a wave of new growth that will put more cars on the road, Tustin police provided a list of the six intersections with the most injury-causing accidents from 2008 to 2012, and the city's busiest roads are, not surprisingly, home to some of the most dangerous crossroads. Of the nine roads mentioned on the list, three of them, Red Hill Avenue, Jamboree Road and Edinger Avenue border the former Marine Corps airfield.

Of the six intersections, the intersection of Jamboree and Edinger topped the chart, with 28-injury causing accidents that hurt 39 people. Red Hill Avenue and Edinger was close behind, with 37 people injured in 26 crashes. There was one fatality at Newport and Walnut avenues.

Accident data show that driver error caused most of the accidents, with speeding a factor in 30 wrecks another 29 by running a red light. Loke said they could have been avoided if drivers used sound judgment.

It's not possible to say why these intersections have more accidents than others without completing a detailed study about how they're designed and used. But these crossroads are statistically safer than comparable intersections in the state, and the number of accidents does not raise any flags, Loke said.

The city regularly monitors these intersections, considers timing issues, traffic light synchronization and other factors that affect how quickly and safely vehicles can pass through. More dangerous intersections are studied at a more detailed level and factors such as the traffic volume and where drivers turn are analyzed. This information allows the city to develop a "level of service" report that grades how effectively an intersection allows vehicles to pass through.

Also, every five years the city does an engineering and traffic survey. The most recent survey used data collected in 2009 and was released in 2010.

A speedy commute is important, Loke said, but safety is the priority.

It's got two things people need: places to work and access to a highway home. And that combination makes Red Hill Avenue one of the most dangerous in Tustin.

Of the six most dangerous intersections in the city, a 1.1-mile stretch of Red Hill Avenue is home to three of them. The intersections at Edinger Avenue, Mitchell Avenue and El Camino Real accounted for 64 injury-causing accidents, with 90 people hurt, police data from 2008 through 2012 show. Those intersections provide access to business parks, a shopping center with a grocery store, several gas stations, quick-stop shops like Starbucks and convenience stores, and a connection with I-5.

And it's a frustrating road to drive on.

"The 'intersection' of Red Hill/ El Camino Real/5 is a joke (and not a funny one)," North Tustin resident L. Red Merrow wrote in an email. "One light turns green and the next light is red directly across the intersection. The arrow for the freeway is green, but you cannot get there because the intermediate light is red...however, the El Camino Real light is green."

Running a red light lead to a crash 17 times at those three Red Hill intersections – more than any other reason. Speeding was close behind and attributed to 15 crashes at those crossroads, and unsafe turns for another eight.

Red Hill is the western boundary for the former Marine Corps airfield, but the tough intersections are all north of the 1,600-acre property, and development could increase traffic elsewhere on the road.

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