I spend about 90 minutes a day dropping off and picking up my daughter at school. This isn't because it is far, it is only 4 miles, it is because there are apparently no qualified civil engineers left that know how to manage traffic flow. Every school around here is really poorly designed, but let's use Tesoro High School as an example because I think it has the easiest solution.
The fundamental problem at Tesoro is you can't get out fast enough to let people in. This becomes the very definition of gridlock as each direction tightens the chain. The exit road only goes to two left turn lanes in the last 50 feet or so, instead of all the way down the hill, but more importantly, the light to get out is only green for 19 seconds last time I clocked it. People not being able to get out, is what stops people from getting in, which causes the east bound traffic to back up to Meandering Trail and then the west bound trying to turn left in to the school will block the intersection and prevent the east bound through traffic passage, thus further blocking it up.
I spent 2 years calling everyone I could think of, including the State Senator, to get to the right public works person, who then got in a car crash and was replaced. Basically you can solve this whole problem with no construction, by just timing the light to give you a full minute (at least) of green, to get out of the school, for two 30 minute windows a day, the morning and afternoon. You can experiment to prove the point by pushing the cross walk button which forces the light to stay green much longer. You can contact Senator Mark Wyland at (949) 489-9838 to voice your concern, his San Juan Capistrano office works with the local public works that can change this.
In addition, we can do more car pooling, I know more people would like to, and it is such an obvious thing, so why isn't there a web site for the school to sign up for and locate car pooling opportunities? The software exists, this could be done in a few weeks for minimal costs. If you could cut the traffic in half, it would be huge. I'm on my 5th year of this and I have 3 more to go after this year is done, I'd like to carpool as much as possible.
