Why did they change lane markings at Barstow and North?

Partway through a road construction project last year, the northbound lanes of Northwest Barstow Street just south of East North Street were marked with new directional lane markings.

Before the construction, drivers in either lane of northbound Barstow could go straight through the intersection. After crossing North, Barstow quickly narrows into one lane, and drivers sometimes had to jockey for position when the two lanes suddenly merged into one.

The city has received complaints about the lane narrowing, said Margaret Liedtke, a project manager in the city's engineering department. During the construction process, those complaints intensified, so the city decided to temporarily re-mark the northbound lanes of Barstow on the south side of North, so that the left lane was marked with a left-turn-onlyarrow and the right lane was marked with a straight-ahead-only arrow.

When the temporary markings were removed, the city and the DOT received a lot of complaints about reverting to the old system, Liedtke said. The city decided that making the temporary lane markings permanent would mean a smoother traffic flow. By the time that decision was made, the weather was too cold to apply lane markings, so the ones that drivers see now are still temporary. Better, more permanent lane markings will be applied when the weather warms up, Liedtke said.