Traffic Light Woes

We just celebrated All Saints and All Souls Day. The Masses were beautiful, but unfortunately, many of you had difficulty getting to the church. That is because during many weekday hours, the left turn signal of the traffic light at the corner of Carmel Mountain Rd. and Stoney Creek Rd. only turns green for about seven seconds, allowing only four cars to pass at a time. For big events, like Holy Day Masses, hundreds of cars arrive at that intersection within a 15-20 minute window of time.

A while back, the City resurfaced parts of Carmel Mountain Rd. After this work, the sensors at the traffic signal stopped working. We have contacted the City of San Diego Transportation Department many times about this, and they have not told us when this will be fixed.

I am asking your help. Please consider doing the following:

(1) Report this issue through the City’s website: https://getitdone.sandiego.gov/TSWNewReport?type=Traffic%20Signal. I am hoping the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” will apply here. In selecting the type of problem, select timing. For description, you can write that the left turn signal onto Stoney Creek is too short when there are church events.

(2) If you have connections with any decision makers in City Government, please reach out to our business manager Michelle Fischer (mfischer@olmc-sandiego.org) to facilitate a conversation with them about this.

(3) Until it gets fixed, you may want to alter your route to the parish to enter by making a right turn at that intersection for busy weekday events.

We are also looking into hiring off-duty police to direct traffic for certain events. This is expensive. For All Saints Mass on the evening of Nov. 1, I happened to see a couple of on-duty police officers and they graciously directed traffic.

On a related note, the impact of construction on traffic flow within our parking lot will soon decrease be done. The project is scheduled to be completed before Christmas.

Thank you for your patience with these inconveniences.

In Christ,

Fr. Anthony Saroki