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The entire article is in semanariolaguna.com dated May 4, 2021.  I thought it was interesting and possibly, maybe, hopefully, gives hope that eventually, the intersection street lights may be changed.   

“EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH THE WALMART INTERSECTION”: CHAPALA DIRECTOR OF MOBILITY

GERALDO BAUTISTA MEJÍA TELLS LAGUNA HE DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE INFAMOUS INTERSECTION CREATED BY THE STATE AGENCY SIOP. HE ALSO CONFIRMS THERE IS NO LEGAL WAY INTO WALMART FROM THE EAST

  • May 04, 20
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I guess  it's now OK to voice our feelings now that one of their own have spoken. Its a pity the project was not given to a high school student to tackle 

I am sure there must be "foreign" qualified  civil engineer's  here who must be shellshock at the end result. But wait maybe it will become  the 9th wonder, must see place to visit. 

Seriously how sad that so much time and money  has been spent for a abysmal result

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Now my 2 pesos since I reside in lower SAT just east of Walmart...before the fiasco it was simple to access up Colon and left at on the dirt road just short of the carretera (at the abandoned condo monstrosity) and into the WM parking lot. Now they have paved the little access road and made it one way going East! I then would go into the Centro Laguna parking lot, swing around onto the libreimento, go south and at the light directly into the WM parking lot. Now they have blocked that entrance!!! There are a couple of work arounds, but why block the entrance at the light going south on the libreimento??? 

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That thing is so full of basic design errors it is hard to know where to begin.  I'm glad a Chapala official has finally pointed that out.  

Certainly no decent access for west bound traffic into Walmart was one of the worse errors.  So was no longer requiring those in the left turn lane of the carretera eastbound to turn left onto the libremiento, that has created a merge conflict just past the intersection also compounded by the major shortening of the merge area.   

That whole right turn off the libremiento to the carretera scheme is unnecessary, doubled the traffic hazard for those on the bike path and made for a very dangerous mering situation. It is two lanes wide but there is no differentiation for those trying to go in the west entrance of Walmart versus the far greater number just trying to turn right (westbound) onto the carreters.

 It should be removed entirely and the right hand lane of the libremiento reserved for right hand or thru traffic into Walmart.  Among other things, this protects bike path users from having to run the vehicle gauntlet twice in a hundred feet or so.

Even though the west side traffic light of San Antonio has been turned off, making a real hazard for pedestrians in that area, the traffic is still backing up at times all the way to the hospital.

I will say it again.  You look at almost anywhere NOB where this situation exists it is handled by a single multi-phase intersection with signal phases for protected left turns.  That was all that was required here.  This set up is about as stupid and incompetent as it gets.

 

 

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2 hours ago, gringohombre said:

Now my 2 pesos since I reside in lower SAT just east of Walmart...before the fiasco it was simple to access up Colon and left at on the dirt road just short of the carretera (at the abandoned condo monstrosity) and into the WM parking lot. Now they have paved the little access road and made it one way going East! I then would go into the Centro Laguna parking lot, swing around onto the libreimento, go south and at the light directly into the WM parking lot. Now they have blocked that entrance!!! There are a couple of work arounds, but why block the entrance at the light going south on the libreimento??? 

To go straight down they would have to fiddle with the east west lights and then.......others.

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4 minutes ago, cedros said:

Would not they have to fiddle with east west lights.

No, this was no problem just a short time ago, when you could go to the light going south on the libremento and go directly straight into the WM parking lot or follow green lights to go east or west on the carretera. This was in the middle of the construction there, however now they have put barriers in front of the WM entryway for some reason since to block access there. 

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3 minutes ago, gringohombre said:

No, this was no problem just a short time ago, when you could go to the light going south on the libremento and go directly straight into the WM parking lot or follow green lights to go east or west on the carretera. This was in the middle of the construction there, however now they have put barriers in front of the WM entryway for some reason since to block access there. 

If those barriers weren't there the east-west traffic would be slowed down. and then.... ..They should start from scratch.

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1 hour ago, cedros said:

If those barriers weren't there the east-west traffic would be slowed down. and then.... ..They should start from scratch.

Why would this slow down the east-west traffic? cars going through the light could go either left or right with the green arrows or straight ahead into the WM parking lot. It just makes no sense unless you are trying to restrict traffic to Walmart!!! Check it out for yourself. 

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1 hour ago, gringohombre said:

Why would this slow down the east-west traffic? cars going through the light could go either left or right with the green arrows or straight ahead into the WM parking lot. It just makes no sense unless you are trying to restrict traffic to Walmart!!! Check it out for yourself. 

It would hold up vehicles going east or west would it not. They would have to wait  for vehicles to cross the carretera from the libramiento to Walmart and from Walmart to the libramiento. Every time I go through that intersection I see somone going against the arrows or lights.

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3 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

That thing is so full of basic design errors it is hard to know where to begin.  I'm glad a Chapala official has finally pointed that out.  Now I wonder if the guy who said this, "And that goes for all the so-called traffic engineers and traffic light systems designers on here that can´t even give their irrefutable expertise away, let alone sell it, to anyone that would listen or make a difference" understands yet that some of us with professional engineering backgrounds knew what we were writing about.

Certainly no decent access for west bound traffic into Walmart was one of the worse errors.  So was no longer requiring those in the left turn lane of the carretera eastbound to turn left onto the libremiento, that has created a merge conflict just past the intersection also compounded by the major shortening of the merge area.   

That whole right turn off the libremiento to the carretera scheme is unnecessary, doubled the traffic hazard for those on the bike path and made for a very dangerous mering situation. It is two lanes wide but there is no differentiation for those trying to go in the west entrance of Walmart versus the far greater number just trying to turn right (westbound) onto the carreters.

 It should be removed entirely and the right hand lane of the libremiento reserved for right hand or thru traffic into Walmart.  Among other things, this protects bike path users from having to run the vehicle gauntlet twice in a hundred feet or so.

Even though the west side traffic light of San Antonio has been turned off, making a real hazard for pedestrians in that area, the traffic is still backing up at times all the way to the hospital.

I will say it again.  You look at almost anywhere NOB where this situation exists it is handled by a single multi-phase intersection with signal phases for protected left turns.  That was all that was required here.  This set up is about as stupid and incompetent as it gets.

 

 

That right turn off the libramiento to the carretera or to enter Walmart seems to work well if there is no bike or pedestrian traffic.

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10 minutes ago, cedros said:

It would hold up vehicles going east or west would it not. They would have to wait  for vehicles to cross the carretera from the libramiento to Walmart and from Walmart to the libramiento. Every time I go through that intersection I see somone going against the arrows or lights.

Again no...it would be the same time for vehicles to go straight ahead into the Walmart parking lot (that they now nave barricaded) or go go left or right with the green arrows.

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7 minutes ago, cedros said:

That right turn off the libramiento to the carretera or to enter Walmart seems to work well if there is no bike or pedestrian traffic.

Are we talking about the same intersection? If you turn right off the libremiento to the carretera you cannot enter Walmart until you go down a way, make a upturn (probably illegal) and then back to the side entrance of Walmart. 

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27 minutes ago, cedros said:

It would hold up vehicles going east or west would it not. They would have to wait  for vehicles to cross the carretera from the libramiento to Walmart and from Walmart to the libramiento. Every time I go through that intersection I see somone going against the arrows or lights.

There are now three sets of traffic lights there, doing basically what the one set did before all this (with the added bonus of causing confusing and jams). You could completely pull one set and still get the second set to use arrows properly for crossing in all directions.

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1 hour ago, AndyPanda said:

There are now three sets of traffic lights there, doing basically what the one set did before all this (with the added bonus of causing confusing and jams). You could completely pull one set and still get the second set to use arrows properly for crossing in all directions.

Exactly.  It was already a three phase intersection.  Only minor modifications and a short left turn phase westbound into Walmart were required to utilize the already built central driveway.  Then that light and the two in San Antonio should have been properly coordinated.  All of it could have been done in a few weeks at minimal cost and disruption.

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(edited by Mod to remove the personal stuff and get the thread back on topic.  Feel free to use PM to continue that discussion.)

Here is the link to Geraldo Bautista Mejia's full comments about the Walmart mess.  He nails it pretty good.  I don't think he's an engineer but he's a good observer with a lot of common sense.

http://semanariolaguna.com/57680/?fbclid=IwAR3yZc1BJ2A7E4rAdZvNkTnCTD-D_C-UOtnmcrMa_K1hJZ0U6jxhW2ji0cw

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Let's be honest...the new set up is one big cluster f***. If you're new to the area, you get to try to leave the libramiento to Ajijic and guess what you're supposed to do. If you want to go to Wally's World, you have to go into the left hand lane and then wait for the traffic light...but the rest of the traffic doesn't seem to understand that it is NOT a two way lane into Ajijic and will blast their horns at you for waiting for the light to go straight across. I nearly got creamed by some driver (and I don't blame him/her) who didn't stop behind the light and was going to pull in behind the car in front...blocking the entrance to WW from the libramiento. I had the light (after pausing a sec or two for safety, thank goodness), went to cross over and heard the biggest squeal of brakes as the driver came close to adding me to his hood ornament. The problem is that a lot of drivers don't realize they have to leave that space open, light or no light, and end up making it a mass mess.

What truly scares me is that someone is going to get hurt there and no one will be surprised.

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