Traffic Priorities for the Commission

Tuesday night the City Council will discuss priorities for the Traffic and Planning Commission. The idea for a Traffic Commission was advanced by me and Councilman Adam Nick a few years ago, but it failed to get majority support. This year a compromise was reached and “traffic” was officially added to the mission of the Planning Commission and the number of meetings was doubled to accommodate the new focus.

The Council submitted 13 areas of concern and 3 major areas emerged after staff review. The 3 areas are:

• Permissive left turns
• Traffic signal master plan
• Annual Traffic Collision Review

Left in the dust were some items high on my own list of submitted issues

• Getting our street sweeping program up to par
• Re-visiting the Portola Pkwy extension
• Re-visiting converting the end of Ridge Route into parking
• Converting lower Regency Park into parking

REGENCY PARK

According to the staff report converting lower Regency Park into parking is under consideration by the Neighborhood Park Improvement Plan. This idea originally came from residents who spoke with me at the neighborhood park meeting at Regency.

PORTOLA PKWY EXTENSION

Previous estimates were that the extension would cost $100,000,000 if positioned over the many hills and dales. But no one gave an estimate of having the extension trail next to the 241 which is mostly flat. City staff could investigate this possibility at minimal cost.

The gain by building the extension will be diverting some traffic from going through central Lake Forest and also opening up a corridor for Irvine shoppers to come to Town Centre.

RIDGE RTE.

The terminus of Ridge Route next to the 5 Freeway is an eyesore. It could be turned into a parking lot for the area which is over-burdened with cars and where we already had to issue permit parking. The area was slated for a bridge over the 5 Freeway, but this idea was discarded years ago. We should be working on a way to use this area, even if it is only on a temporary basis pending the eventual settlement of the purpose.

STREET SWEEPING

Many streets in Lake Forest only get partially swept. One reason is that there is little awareness of the day/time that sweeping takes place because the city has done a poor job informing people and regulating street sweeping. Hence cars remain on the streets and the sweeper must go around them. The result is streets don’t get swept, neighborhoods don’t look as good as they should, and on the rare occasions when it does rain, the gutters jam up because there is much too much stuff going into the drains. In addition, we are paying full price for a service we probably get 50% benefit from.

Improving our street sweeping will not only address these issues, it may identify abandoned cars that are left on our streets. Identifying, ticketing, and towing these cars will go a long way to provide additional parking spaces that are needed in many neighborhoods.

We don’t need a street sweeping study. We simply need to respond to the public’s complaints, identify areas, engage in public education and temporary signage, and then aggressively enforce the regulations. We can use the additional Community Services Officer to assist in this endeavor.

Using Lake Forest Town Square I surveyed 600+ residents who in turn identified the following streets as problematic –

• Evase
• Blueridge Rd
• Ridge Rte near Rockfield
• Boeing/Rockfield
• Mercury/Rockfield
• Osterman
• Normandale
• Pittsford
• Cavanaugh between Muirlands and Rockfield
• Dune Mear around Olivewood school
• 2nd and Cherry
• Peachwood near Trabuco
• Medians on Saddleback Ranch Rd.
• Misty Ridge Lane
• Debra
• Blazewood

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 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on Sept 9 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.