Traffic

 

Serious traffic trouble until late at night is what to expect from a redeveloped PLHS stadium, like the head-on crash on Voltaire Street near the stadium entrance before the 2015 Homecoming game. And that was in daylight. Imagine hundreds of inexperienced, teen drivers out until late at night, enabled any night of the year by the stadium lights, a party atmosphere, sound system and new loose Field-Use Policy. Or imagine the young-adult VAVi sports team renters heading to (or from) their Miller Lite beer parties. This is a prescription for danger for pedestrians, motorists and passengers.

A “majority of roadway segments” near the campus, listed in Table 2.6-5 of the Draft EIR, “currently operate below (meaning worse than) acceptable levels of service (LOS E or F),” the Draft EIR admits on Page 2-99, even when measurements were made between 5 to 6:30 p.m., long after students have left the area on most days, but prime time for the arrival of field renters. This includes Voltaire Street, between Catalina and Chatsworth (rated F); and should include Voltaire between Chatsworth and Clove (misleadingly rated C). Easily rating F on any day right before and after school and before, during and after football games, this stretch of Voltaire between Chatsworth and Clove includes the main public entrance to the football field with no extra parking or turn-outs for drop-off and pick-ups.

The School District ignored that it is adding significant traffic to grossly substandard streets, in part, by failing to identify its current unacceptable levels of service during relevant busy times.

By the way, while there’s much more info in the responses to the Draft EIR  — found in the Final EIR —  a 2010 traffic study still illustrates today’s dangers near the campus.

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