Collinsworth: Turko's Solution Fails to Consider Safety Impacts Elsewhere on Mast Blvd.

By Van Collinsworth

I agree with the Santee City Council's present position that opening Mast Blvd. would have significant negative impacts (despite that I have family that is subjected to traffic along the Los Ranchitos detour of Mast). What would seem to be the obvious well-intended solution suggested by Turko (finishing Mast Blvd.), would actually create worse safety problems without taking other traffic calming and enforcement measures that most people would object to. And it would do so without solving the safety problems along the detour.

There are two high schools on Mast Boulevard and two more elementary school crossings that require its use by children on foot and bicycle. There are numerous convenience shops on Mast Boulevard that attract pedestrians. Pedestrians use medians and center turn "suicide" lanes to cross Mast on long stretches where there are no signals or crosswalks.

There are many residential homes that front Mast Boulevard and numerous other neighborhood streets that depend upon access to it as the only east-west artery in northern Santee. Opening Mast Boulevard to Lakeside would immediately convert Mast into an SR-52 bypass with an estimated 1/3 increase in traffic volume. The addition of vehicles that have little interest in Mast (other than to speed through to get to another destination) would exacerbate Mast Blvd. traffic problems that have already resulted in numerous accidents and fatalities.

Land use planning is important. Santee became a city in 1980 because the county was doing a poor job of it here. If Mast Boulevard was meant to be a regional artery, there should never have been any homes built on it with residential frontage. The mistake that put numerous driveways and front yards on Mast was made long before there was a first meeting of the Santee City Council. Opening Mast would just add another mistake to the previous mistakes.

So what are the options?

Some of the options are just not feasible and would have other impacts. For instance, the region will not buy out all of the homes on Mast or remove the bridge over Santee Lakes that induces through traffic past West Hills High School and onto the SR-52 ramps. There will not be another east-west by-pass highway built. Remember, the conventional wisdom was that all of the new freeways were going to solve Santee's traffic problems. The reality is that because of all the development going on around the region, these highways just induced more traffic (exactly what I had predicted). Neither is it feasible to convert all of Mast Boulevard into a two lane road to reduce speeds and prevent inducing through traffic.

Considering the past mistakes, the best solution is for the County to add traffic calming and enforcement measures to El Nopal that keeps high-speed through traffic volumes to a minimum. Santee should consider similar measures on Mast between Magnolia and Los Ranchitos. The only eastern connection of Mast Boulevard in the future should be for bicycles and pedestrians.

Regional traffic belongs on SR-52, not on the residential streets of Santee where it is the greater hazard.