Contract authorized for Mission/395 signal

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors authorized the advertisement for bid and subsequent award of a construction contract for a traffic signal at the intersection of East Mission Road and Old Highway 395 west of Interstate 15.

“Traffic’s gotten to be a lot there,” said Supervisor Bill Horn.

The supervisors’ 5-0 vote July 25 also established $400,000 of appropriations to fund the signal. Work on the signal is expected to begin in September 2007 and be complete in January 2008.

“Getting that signal, we think, is a really good step forward to help with congestion,” said John Snyder, the director of the county’s Department of Public Works. “Hopefully soon things will be a lot better.”

The supervisors placed the intersection of Mission Road and Old Highway 395 on the county’s Traffic Signal Priority List in August 2002. The priority list includes a point system and available funding is used first for the intersections which rank highest on the priority list rather than for the ones which have been on the list for the longest period.

The intersection of Mission Road and Old Highway 395 is also close enough to the Mission Road on-ramps and off-ramps for Interstate 15 that considerations about that interchange also played a part in the signal. Because the intersection of Mission Road and Old Highway 395 involves two county roads, the county is responsible for traffic signalization at that intersection. Any signal involving an interstate or a state highway is the responsibility of the California Department of Transportation.

Coordinating the Old Highway 395 signal with the CalTrans signals at Mission Road and Interstate 15 was included in the process. “That was part of what we needed to do in the design,” Snyder said. “Being pretty close there, we want to make sure we’re together.”

CalTrans was the lead agency in the coordination of the signals. The signal at Old Highway 395 will be physically connected to the CalTrans signal with conduit and interconnect wire.

Because the power source for the county’s signal will be within the I-15 right of way, the county also required an encroachment permit from CalTrans.