I take Central Expressway west everyday from the entrance on Indio next to Mathilda north in Sunnyvale, to Shoreline north in Mountain View during the morning rush hour. Entering Central Expressway during rush hour from this entrance requires advanced driving skills, that unfortunately a large segment of drivers do not have.
I drive downwards around the curve leading to the entrance on Indio off of Mathilda. I can see cars whizzing by, but my vision of approaching cars is blocked by a berm, as this is the sunken area of the expressway. As I enter the final curve, I hit the start of the short acceleration lane. There is a sign that says 'watch for stopped cars' , and sure enough about once a week there is a driver stopped at the end of the acceleration lane. Every day I curse the man who designed this approach way.
You never stop at the end of an acceleration lane entrance to an expressway, not with heavy traffic whizzing by at the 50 mph speed limit! If you stop at all, you must stop at the start of the acceleration lane, and then wait for an opening, using the full length of the acceleration lane to gather speed! Going from a standstill into 50 mph traffic requires at least 500 feet, or a gap of 25 car lengths, and makes everyone behind you come to a stop, and wait , and wait , and wait.
On more than one occasion, I've almost rear ended a driver who at the last moment comes to a complete stop at the end of the acceleration lane. Today, it was some Asian lady driver who did the dastardly deed! I'm asian but this is classic DWA, which gives us a bad name! Lady, where did you ever learn to drive? Entering this expressway without stopping, during high speed heavy traffic, should be a requirement to obtaining or renewing one's California driver license.
The other blunder of the Central Expressway design is at the traffic lights next to the cal train stations. I'm talking about where Central intersects with Castro Street -Moffett Blvd in Mountain View. I'm going west on Central expressway at 8am , and often have to wait through two or even three complete cycles of the traffic signal to get through. The problem is that cars crossing the rail road tracks on Castro-Moffett run on the same traffic signal as the intersecting Central expressway. They don't want left hand turners stuck on the railroad tracks, so they have a three way light, one for central, one for traffic on Moffett, and one for traffic on Castro driving toward 101.
This would not be too bad, except that there are also two separate pedestrian lights here, widely used as the caltrain station is right next door. So every day I have to wait 30 seconds for first the pedestrian light for the near crosswalk to finish, then another 30 seconds for the pedestrian light for the far crosswalk to finish.
To add insult to injury, once both pedestrian lights are completed, traffic on central expressway going west has to wait for an unlimited number of cars on east Central expressway making left turns onto Castro-Moffett. I've counted up to 14 cars making the left turn at any one time, taking upwards of 45 seconds. That leaves as little as 15 seconds for the mass of westbound Central Expressway traffic to cross Castro. The line of cars can go back as much as half a mile -that's 200 cars waiting on the two lanes westbound to get through a signal.
For all it's faults Central Expressway is faster than taking 101 north or 85 north to Shoreline and then Shoreline south, due to the Google mess on that exit in the morning after 8am. read more
