Recently, the intersection of Malibu Canyon Road and Civic Center Way/Seaver Drive was redesigned to augment traffic flow and safety. However, one area of traffic flow and safety has not been improved. The new design has actually created a situation for a potentially serious accident. Prior to the redesign, the westbound Civic Center Way traffic bypassed the intersection and fed directly into the northbound Malibu Canyon Road via its own lane. This transition was generally safe, as there was both good visibility and time for speed adjustments during this single lane transition.
The original design of the Malibu Canyon Road was a single northbound lane through the Civic Center Way/Seaver Drive and Malibu Canyon Road intersection. The new design expanded Malibu Canyon Road into two north-bound lanes. With the new design/traffic pattern, the northbound transition lane of the Civic Center Way bypass is no longer a transitional lane allowing for easy and reasonable entry into the normal traffic flow. The designated “yield” point is basically a blind point of entry into the northbound traffic pattern of Malibu Canyon Road. The fast moving northbound traffic is difficult to see and to judge as to its speed and distance making this lane transition a dangerous point of entry into the normal flow of traffic.
The solution is to re-establish a true transition/yield land by re-striping the northbound shoulder area of Malibu Canyon Road to create a transition lane which would again allow for good visibility, and time to establish transition speed. The current “yield” design for the Civic Center Way transition onto Malibu Canyon Road is an accident waiting to happen.
Dennis Roginson