The Bakersfield Voice

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Ever since the upgrade of the intersection of Rosedale and Calloway, the northbound side of Calloway has been a real traffic jam in the evenings, as most people who go through it already know.

Well, I had been watching the police, Highway Patrol and Sheriffs stopping people who turn into the yellow turn zone well ahead of the left turn lane and run on it to the turn lane. This, of course, is illegal. When entering a yellow, solid-lines-turn zone, you must turn within 200 feet. Well, most of us — notice I said us, because I did it too — got in the yellow long before the legal turn lane, and we finally got caught. I did a week ago, but I knew it was coming and had plans to do something about it.

I have a good friend who works for our county supervisor, Mike Maggard, so I called him and told him about it and that the legal turn lane was just too short for the amount of traffic there in the evening, and that if we were to drive it legally, we might have to wait for 3 lights just to get to the turn lane, and that if we who were turning were out of the regular lane, the others going straight through would be closer to the light by that many cars.

I told him it was wasting gasoline and that was also causing more pollution, etc.

I got a call from the city streets deptartment yesterday afternoon and the lady said that she had been on this and that the engineers and head of the streets had been out there. They had looked over the situation and were going to be lengthening the turn lane for the full length they can get out of the yellow lane. 

She thanked me and told me that she would call me when it was done. Of course, I will know when it gets done, as I go there several times a day now anyway, but I said thank you to her.

I hope it is soon and I hope everyone will benefit from this action because I know there has been a lot of tickets there lately, and for the policemen, they sure have enough to do without having to waste time on this deal.

Sometimes it does pay to fight city hall, right?