Supervisors approve Ammunition Road parking ban

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a parking prohibition on two segments of Ammunition Road between Alturas Road and South Mission Road.

The supervisors’ 5-0 vote Nov. 9 covers 650 feet of curb on the south side of Ammunition Road and ratifies a Sept. 16 recommendation from the county’s Traffic Advisory Committee. Signs announcing the new parking prohibitions between 730 feet east of Alturas Road and 960 feet east of Alturas Road and between 50 feet west of South Mission Road and 470 feet west of South Mission Road are expected to be in place by January.

The measure is one of many intended to address the problem on Ammunition Road. While some of the traffic is to and from residential apartments or the shopping center on the north side of the street, through traffic travels into or out of Camp Pendleton’s eastern gate. The county’s Department of Public Works is working with the base on widening the entrance to two inbound lanes and gates; the second inbound gate would reduce the traffic backup onto Ammunition Road and the county plans to restripe the road to allow for two inbound lanes once the second gate is completed.

A significant portion of the base traffic enters Fallbrook onto Mission Road from Interstate 15, and the California Department of Transportation is working with the Federal government on funding a solution for that impact. The county and the California Highway Patrol are working on enforcement of illegal passing on Ammunition Road.

The county is also pursuing a state Safe Routes to Schools grant which would fund sidewalk construction for the missing sidewalk portions of Ammunition Road - the same 650 feet covered by the parking prohibition. Although subsequent Traffic Advisory Committee and Board of Supervisors approval would be necessary, the parking ban will likely be repealed after the sidewalks are ready for use.

The official TAC traffic surveys do not include pedestrian traffic, although Department of Public Works traffic engineering manager Murali Pasumarthi personally made visual observations of pedestrian activity including more than 45 children exiting from the school bus stop on that block of Ammunition Road.

The two-way vehicular average daily traffic volume based on an April 2011 traffic survey is 11,580 vehicles west of Alturas Road and 13,590 vehicles east of Alturas Road. An April 2002 survey east of Alturas Road had a two-way average daily volume of 10,700 vehicles.

The TAC’s traffic collision statistics only addressed parking vehicles in the vicinity of the parking prohibitions, but there were three such reported collisions in the five-year period from March 31, 2006, to March 31, 2011. Ammunition Road, which has a posted 40 mph speed limit, is designated as a Collector on the county’s Circulation Element map.

Ammunition Road has a two-way left turn lane, and the width south of the turn lane is 28 feet at one area slated for the ban and 21 feet at the other area. Since there is no pedestrian area south of where cars park along those segments, pedestrians must travel in the street north of any parked cars. Pasumarthi observed parents with strollers utilizing the roadway area, and if a stroller is alongside a parked car, a traveling vehicle would have seven to eight feet of travel space.

The 350-foot segment of Ammunition Road between the two areas slated for the parking restriction has sidewalks on the south side.

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