The location of the Liberty Park intersection on Alameda is on the crest of a hill, what traffic engineers sometimes refer to a ‘vertical curve’. In the morning, the rising sun is directly inline with the road and can blind the driver. This also happens during certain times of the year at sunset.
The following video provides a brief introduction, from a motorist’s perspective, of various visibility issues on southbound Alameda de las Pulgas. These videos were taken on Alameda, beginning just south of the Avy Avenue intersection and preceeding through the Harkins, Liberty Park, and Prospect intersections on to Sharon Rd.
Please Play the above video
While the quality of the video above is less than pristine, the video does represents a motorists view for morning, midday, and night of the southbound Alameda approaching and crossing the intersection of Liberty Park. Observe when the driver can first clearly see the crosswalk (hint: just a few seconds before)
The conditions for northbound Alameda are almost identical. At times of the year, the late afternoon sun creates a blinding glare making it difficult at best to see the crosswalk and pedestrians and cyclists near the Liberty Park intersection. The crest of the hill just north of Sharon Rd. on Alameda totally hides the Liberty Park intersection. (If you would like the posting of the NB view from Sharon to Avy Ave, please leave a comment below).
Why is visibility along the Harkins-Liberty Park-Propspect intersections important:
One of the key reasons for this focus on the visibility of this section of Alameda is that County Plans call for this location to have a lot of out of norm configuration elements: An extra lane, lane offsets that cause all NB and SB traffic to veer towards the bike lane and sidewalk right at this location. All of that unexpected lane configuration changes happening at the least visibile point on Alameda at a location.
These road obstruction elements can’t be seen from Alameda because the hill crest obscures a drivers line of sight for both SB and NB motorists. Motorists, even in the best of conditions, will only see the unusual road configuration and in lane medians about 5 seconds or so before they have to react and veer to the right. With so many distractions, a driver’s focus on pedestrians could be diverted.
Compounding this is a strange compound multilane multidirectional set of left turn lanes. Trying to research this configuration, we have not found it used anywhere in the SF Bay Area or even the state. The lanes don’t seem to be justified by the County’s own turn counts for Liberty Park and Harkins. This causes this road section to have an extra lane, making it a 4 lane road instead of the goal of 3 lanes.
The extra 4th lane makes the crosswalk over 33% longer, causing children students and other pedestrians to remain in the roadway a third longer. With the limited visibility, no one in the community would wish for their children to remain in the roadway longer than they need to be. Most people would not view a stranded child in the middle of this roadway as being safe, even if there were some form of pedestrian refuge.
Consideration for Improved Safety
There are several straight forward changes to the design that would address the serious issues and greatly improve safety:
- Keep a consistent lane configuration and orientation (Don’t add a 4th lane)
- Keep the lanes inline with the lanes that approach the this hill (no shifting of lanes)
- Make the crosswalk as short as possible, thus reducing the their time in the roadway
- Use the extra width from the above actions to retain the bike lane buffer and width
- Use flush medians made of color and texture rather than a raised median to reduce collisions
- Provide adequate street lighting for improved visibility during weather and at night
- Consider moving the crosswalk to southern side (reduced turning conflicts, better visibility)
- Review Alameda-Liberty Park webpage for other safety issues and community feedback
Added Information – Dec 2022
A recent accident on the Alameda at Avy Ave demonstrates the glare issue that exists at and around the Liberty Park hill area on Alameda de las Pulgas. The photo below was taken after the accident, but shows how the rising sun blinds SB Alameda drivers. In the case of the accident, the sun blinded the SB Alameda driver and he could not see the traffic lights nor the car crossing his path on to Avy Ave heading west. Fortunately, the two young children in the car that was struck appeared to have only minor injuries.
The current County road design for the Liberty Park area of Alameda is confusing, causes motorists to swerve to avoid in lane obstacles, and ignores the sight line issues of being at the crest of the hill, and doesn’t account for the blinding light and other visibility issues. Please support change to a safe design that is clear and better incorporates the safety issues of the geometry of the road.