The new metering light on the Ashby on-ramp makes no sense. CalTrans must remove it.

Safety

The light forces cars to stop suddenly at a blind curve, in the path of fast traffic moving west from 7th. This risks a serious collision when stopping. Making every car enter the highway from a full stop, instead of at speed, risks more collisions.

Climate

Accelerating from a full stop to 60 in a short distance to get on the highway burns a lot of gas, causing harmful, wasteful emissions. It’s crazy to make every car do this.

Economy

Our time is wasted when we sit in a long line of cars just waiting for this light, which is much slower than allowing cars to merge naturally.

Racial Justice

The Ashby neighborhood, largely Black, is heavily impacted by traffic on Ashby because of the highway connection in terms of noise, air pollution, and unsafe bicycle and pedestrian routes. Given this, the least we can do is allow the on-ramp to work smoothly. But the new light grants equal priority to Emeryville traffic via the sneaky back route from Shellmound / Bay St. This is unfair to the Ashby community that pays such a steep price for the on-ramp.

The old way, just letting cars merge naturally, was better. Please remove this metering light.