TAG - You're It.

Tonight at 7 pm we’re having the first meeting of the Traffic Advisory Group (TAG). Here’s a copy of my letter to the new Committee members.

Dear TAG Committee Members,

Congratulations on your appointment to the City’s newest citizen committee, and thank you for your willingness to serve.

Your performance over the next year is not merely important for the traffic challenges facing the City, but also to demonstrate that Citizen involvement can be a vital tool. Our City is one of the cities in Orange County with the least number of active committees. Some cities have a dozen such committees functioning, while we have only 4. For years the Council refused to set up a Traffic Committee, and only when Mayor Voigts decided to go along with Councilman Nick and I did TAG come into existence. And it did so even while other committees (e.g., animal welfare, community foundation, public safety) were being rejected. Your success will undoubtedly give birth to even more committees, and I truly believe that for government to work better, we need more citizen involvement.

How can you insure success? Here are some suggestions –

DON’T DEPEND ONLY ON THE STAFF

Our staff is trying as hard as they can to solve the traffic challenges facing the City, but any fair evaluation will see that they haven’t succeeded to date. To most people it looks like traffic congestion is even worse. Compared to other cities, here in Lake Forest we are more concerned with traffic as a major problem. Certainly parking problems are at an all-time high which is why there is a record number of permit parking requests. Perhaps things would have been even worse. Who knows? But it’s clear that the staff’s concentration on attacking the traffic problem with two main approaches (intersection re-striping and traffic signal synchronization) is not the solution that many people thought it would be. There needs to be something more.

THINK SMALL

There are many micro-environments in the City which need special attention, and which are not greatly impacted by the two-pronged approach adopted by the City. You probably know some of these yourselves, and other people who live here know others. Some of these can be solved by doing a little homework and by applying some creative problem solving. The result may be to alleviate a small problem, but by alleviating many small problems, you can impact the larger problem Don’t be reluctant to undertake a small project.

THINK LARGE

There are macroeconomic events that are adding to the traffic problems in our City. The wanton approval of nearly 5,000 new homes is going to create a traffic tsunami. Most of these homes are congested in the Foothill and Portola areas, but when these new residents go to work, they are going to drive through the rest of the City on their way to the 5 Freeway. Knowing this, what can we do to alleviate the upcoming problem?

· How would completing the 241 going South help alleviate the problem, and if it does, how can we assist?

· What can we do to convince the TCA to adjust the fares for people using the 241? This would keep hundreds of cars off our streets at key times of the day.

· What can be done about the huge traffic congestion around some of our schools? Keep in mind that the new homes are being targeted to families, so we can anticipate an increase in school traffic, making the current conditions even worse.

· What can be done to support home businesses and growing the local business economy so that people don’t have travel to and from Lake Forest to support their families, thus lessening traffic at the most critical times.

THINK INTERNALLY

Changes being made right now are going to have major traffic impacts. What happens if we put a Senior Center where most of the senior citizens don’t live? What happens if we put a Soccer Arena on one of the busiest streets in the City? Is a city-wide dog park better than smaller dog parks located throughout the City? Are the plans about extending the uses of the Sports Park going to create even more traffic problems?

Get involved in the planning process and add you experience and growing expertise to help us with the planning process. Let’s not add to the traffic problem even as we grow the City.

GET SOME DATA

Too much of what has been done in the area of traffic has depended on untested traffic models and no real traffic data. Without some real data, your ability to study anything is severely limited. Be skeptical. When you’re told that traffic congestion is being reduced, ask “Based on what data?”

FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

No committee will be able to do everything. You’re an eclectic mix of people, so identify your strengths and weaknesses, determine what your interests are, and from the enormous number of issues that can be included under the title “Traffic”, decide what you want to concentrate on.

All my best wishes for a successful year, and once again, thanks for your willingness to serve.

COMMENTS

It came to my attention that at times the COMMENTS section of the Patch doesn’t work. I have no control over this. I can neither enable or disable the Comments section nor can I delete or edit other people’s work. If you encounter this problem, please notify the Patch. If you want to discuss the issues raised in these articles you’re welcome to join more than 300 of us at Lake Forest Town Square, or you can e-mail me individually, come to my office hours, or attend my Town hall meetings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on December 12 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

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