City Did Sign Off on Aggravating Traffic Signal at Del Obispo Railroad Crossing

Despite City Council members’ protestations that they were unaware of plans for the new signals at the Del Obispo railroad crossing which have some residents frustrated by the ensuing back-ups, city officials did sign off on the upgrades.

Patch has obtained copies of the cooperative agreement and drawing for the railroad improvements at Del Obispo Street. Both feature signatures from city representatives.

“I sure don’t remember the queue crossings being part of this at all,” Mayor Larry Kramer said at an April city council meeting.

The signals are called because they go red when too many cars are queued up at the nearby traffic lights at Paseo Adalante and Camino Capistrano. The idea is to keep drivers from stopping on the tracks.

Representatives for the Orange County Transportation Authority assured the council members at the time that they wouldn’t have built anything to which city officials didn’t agree, especially because the city paid 12 percent of the project’s costs.

The cooperative agreement, a 21-page document, was signed by former mayor Joe Soto in fall 2008, according to the documents obtained by Patch. In its Exhibit A, the agreement lists the scope of work for each of five railroad crossings in San Juan Capistrano.

Under the Del Obispo Street crossing, it says, “[N]ew eastbound and westbound queue cutter signals.”

And while the signature for the city engineer who signed off on the schematic drawing for the railroad crossing contains only scribbled initials, it appears to be the initials of Nasser Abbaszadeh, the city’s director of public works who is currently on a leave of absence.

Abbaszadeh's absence began in March, so he was not available at the April meeting.

Readers of Patch named the railroad crossing  in a.

During the April 17 meeting, several council members indicated they found it hard to believe the city would have agreed to the queue-cutter. They asked for proof.

"We are getting beaten up by this," said Councilwoman Laura Freese. "They literally call us up from the intersection. One of them said he would start a recall of all five of us because of this. So people are not happy about this."