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Readers of this blog may remember, from last November, that Anaheim’s Public Works Department, motivated by both a $5 million transportation grant and grave concern over how bad traffic might be by year 2035, have been hell-bent on widening Lincoln Avenue from West Street to Harbor Boulevard. And of course this would entail severe infringement on the properties there – for example the displacement of Visser’s Florist and our friend Jesús Aguirre’s insurance/travel agency, and cutting back on both the front porch of St Boniface Church (where folks daily take photographs for their weddings, funerals and quinceañeras) and much of the sweeping front lawn in front of Anaheim High School.
We OJ writers and commenters expressed many of our objections to the plan on this blog at the time. Commenter “BigBoxOfRedWhine” came up with what seems like a much cheaper and less destructive idea: Make a mile or so of Lincoln westbound only, and a mile or so of Broadway eastbound only. Like so many other cities do. We call that the Orange Juice Option.
When I ran into Public Works’ Rudy Emami at a townhall a couple months ago, he told me this would never work: The main supporters of the street widening, he said, were the neighbors north and south of Lincoln who constantly complained about traffic cutting through their side streets; and the Orange Juice Option would make that even worse. Well, maybe, maybe not, but we still prefer it; maybe a few “speed lumps” would discourage that.
Well, what’s new is that Public Works is now asking for the public’s opinion on this project, with an online survey you can access here: http://anaheim.net/FormCenter/Public-Works-5/Lincoln-Avenue-Improvements-126
They even allow you a space to tell them WHY you oppose (or support) their plan. Here’s what some of us wrote:
Vern Nelson (me):
I don’t want to lose any of the businesses there, or the front of the church or the front of the high school. Or spend so much transportation money buying them all out. I think we should instead make a stretch of Lincoln westbound only, and a stretch of Broadway eastbound only. And you’ve also said you’re concerned about the traffic in 2035 or so? Well, then this doesn’t have to be a big rush. We could spend our transportation money on a dozen other little but important improvements.
One Roberta Thompson-Hopkins:
Anaheim has been torn up enough!! Our History has been destroyed by past so called improvements. It’s time to salvage and preserve what’s left!! Take lessons from surrounding cities like Fullerton and Orange. They have managed to update without compromising their history!!! Look into the possibility of one way streets instead. All roads are never going to be perfect and believe it or not, all roads don’t need to cater to Disney!!! There is always going to be traffic, like it or not. And by the way, I didn’t get any notifications about meetings!!!
And our own Cynthia Ward, on this blog in November:
You are needed to send your objections to City Hall for a roadway project NOT on the Council Agenda, because the comment period ends tonight at midnight for the most ill-conceived project since ARTIC. At least.
The traffic engineers whose desire to move cars through town as quickly as possible appears in complete disconnect to the function those roads serve in accessing the community those roads run through, have now cooked up a doozie: In anticipation of increased traffic in 2035, they want to expand Lincoln Avenue, with eminent domain takes along both sides of the street, despite their own studies showing the current traffic flow is just fine. Hand to forehead. Proceed.
One segment of the project runs from West Street to Harbor Blvd, taking out frontage of about 15 feet, give or take a foot here and there, on the north side of Lincoln, UNTIL IT HITS CITRON WHEN THE PROJECT TAKES THE ENTIRETY OF VISSER’S FLORIST AND ECONOMY TRAVEL. Mind you, the business owners apparently have not been asked whether they are OK with this. “Partial takes” include the lawn on Anaheim High School, a social gathering space and drop off point for the hundreds of students who do not drive themselves to school in the new BMWs they got for their 16th birthdays, because CANYON HIGH this is NOT. Additionally the historic campus was intended by its designers to be experienced from a distance, with the broad swath of lawn between the street and the building, and losing its context and setting can impact its status as a site of historic significance. Can anyone say CEQA?
The same takings and similar impacts will affect St. Boniface church, where just today I saw congregants assembled for photos and a community celebration at the entrance plaza in front of the steps. Generations of brides and grooms, Quinceneara parties, etc. have been photographed in that plaza, which will evaporate into faster moving traffic, with the street coming up to not far from the steps themselves if we don’t stop this. Across the street, the project cuts into the corner plaza of the Millard Sheets design of Home Savings (NOW CHASE) coming close enough to potentially lose the John Edward Svenson sculpture, “Child on Dolphin,” fountain (in disrepair) now listed by the City as a “planter” because the little boy has been riding dolphins into dirt and bedraggled landscape plantings for years.
Numerous other properties will lose less sq. footage but they will be impacted all the same, and there is a bungalow court that will have the front 2 units lopped off of it. So the ONE place on Lincoln MOST in need of genuine traffic calming due to the very high concentration of pedestrians accessing St Boniface and Anaheim High is getting faster moving traffic with SEVEN freaking lanes of cars, placed even closer to the buildings. Instead of highlighting the remaining charm in the last remaining vintage stretch of the street we are once again going to tear stuff out in the name of “progress.”
You can read the report here: http://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/13635
And once more, gentle readers, let them know your thoughts here. Bonus: they will then have your contact info and presumably keep you in the loop for the next meeting.
Thank you, Vern, for staying on top of this. Being out with this stupid wrist surgery has me so far behind, I missed this survey going out!
Adding to the loss of vintage properties, the widening of Lincoln is anticipated (by all but Rudy Emami) to speed up traffic, despite the need to slow traffic at the school, with significantly higher than usual numbers of pedestrians in the area.
But the big, ugly secret behind this mess is the REASON for it. Clearly, the road doesn’t need widening. Listen to the presentations by staff and you hear the underlying motives, we need to fix the drains, landscaping, infrastructure of the street, something the City has failed to budget for in any way (joining the lack of plan for updating parks or libraries until we scramble at structural fail points) and then lacking the funds that were not set aside, we have to suck up to outside agencies for grant money…meaning we don’t design projects for the needs of the community, we design to apply for grant money! And if OCTA standards require us to widen a street the community doesn’t need to have widened, then too bad, this is how we get funding. THIS is what happens when our elected leaders grant “future revenues” to special interests. These hidden expenses get kicked down the road until no longer under our control. Yet we will hear Murray and co. natter about a “well-run city” and a balanced budget, and it is painfully clear some have no clue what those phrases mean! Worse, even if you have elected leaders who don’t understand the concept of capital improvements funds, our “professional staff” should have been including those line items in budgets and/or the lack of them brought to attention so we don’t give the impression that all is well in our civic upkeep.
Epic fail from beginning to end.
Staff has been working on these grants for YEARS, this is (i think) phase 2, they already got 1 for planning/study, and at least another phase after this will fund construction, yet there is not one copy of an application or plan made available to the public through City Council approval or OCTA process! (because we trust our staff and don’t ask questions, despite senior staffers betraying that trust consistently with false info presented as fact)
Oh, and someone not working one-handed on heavy meds should be looking into the plans for what replaces Visser’s florist! Why is City declaring as complete take even the parcels of rear parking lot not impacted? one gets the feeling this plan is aimed at getting a long term lease tenant off a high-value parcel to free it for development, using the heavy hand of gov’t to do the dirty work the property owner can’t do without consequence to legal and social health. But then i am just a paranoid conspiracy theory nut.
Cities are always using the threat of OCTA punishment to widen roads that don’t need to be widened. Engineering Departments need these projects to pay for themselves. No projects, no Engineering staff.
Say that at the link. Or something.
I would if I thought there were anybody at City Hall even remotely interested in my opinion.
It’s still good to get your opinion into the record. They use the record for PR purposes.
Admitting the shortcomings of a secondhand quote, am I hearing correctly that – the “MAIN supporters” of the “Lincoln Avenue Canyon” (My nickname) proposal now anecdotally are the side street residents, who without any mention of a supporting traffic study ( here or elsewhere now having 2-way traffic) proclaim that THE DIRECTION OF TRAFFIC ALONE on adjacent arteries will stress their neighborhood, thus REJECTING a simple sign-and-paint-stripe-only solution on the basis OPINION, in favor of property acquisition and business relocation / demolition, whose (extensive)costs and impacts will be borne by residents CITYWIDE, two thoughts occur-
1) With all the previous (expensive) studies and Staff effort that has brought us this far, using suddenly-convenient ( orfice-extracted ?) anecdotal information as the basis for decision begins to have the appearance of a steaming shovel of bovine waste. I don’t know if any Orange County cities have adopted any “one way” solutions, but I do know they exist in Long Beach. I am sure SOME effort and investigation can determine the cost effectiveness or its lack.
2) If the City prefers to continue this claim with anecdotal rather than objective support, perhaps then in fairness to City residents outside the project district, the project financing of the increased cost difference should be apportioned to reflect the degree of benefit. Remember “Landscape and Lighting Districts”, used, I believe in the Resort Area and in the Hills ? In both cases, occupants of those areas want area-unique solutions for their own benefit that incur higher costs resulting from those preferences. Thus, the area is put into a “District” and assessments assigned in proportion to those area-unique benefits. A “Transportation Improvement District” here would grant local residents the higher cost traffic solutions that provide them unique benefit, without unfairly burdening other taxpayers.
Not having it handy for reference, I believe the current proposal already restricts / eliminates artery street parking and possibly side street entry/ exit. Do side street residents somehow believe those inconveniences to outsiders will have NO IMPACT on increased side street traffic from visitors seeking parking or access? (Or perhaps is the City silently assuming that the loss of relocated businesses will provide a balancing loss of that traffic ? )
I believe the current proposal exchanges and redistributes problems without net benefit, and would hope that the “sign and paint only” one-way solution could be evaluated based on studies rather than anecdotes, or possibly even be given a trial implementation TO PROVIDE that data, as, UNLIKE the current proposal, it is both LOW COST and EASILY REVERSED !
And BTW, I finally recalled where I have SEEN this used WITH SUCCESS – in repeated visits to relatives in York, PA, the two main arteries through downtown (about 2-3 miles, pull it up on Google Maps), Market St. and Philadelphia St., are one-way opposites, and this was apparently not their original design, since the 2 lanes of Philadelphia St are separated by a landscape median for a majority of its length, implying original 2-way traffic.
I will try Monday to contact them to learn when the change was made, and if any before/after traffic data is available. Stay tuned.
This is done all over the place in downtown areas.
However, I can’t see any compelling need for it here, and I certainly see no need to come up with “solutions” that may be slightly less bad than the unnecessary make-work widening cooked up by a traffic engineer.
Leave it alone.
They are powerful worried about how traffic will look in 2035 (if population growth and car usage continue on a straight trajectory of course.)
That’s why the “Orange Juice Option” is acceptable but no rush. Could be done in 2029 or something, ya know.
Meanwhile, how about we help them think up a better way to spend the $5 million on less-glamorous but more-necessary improvements all around the town?
Yeah, how about repaving the asphalt on my street. It looks like the back of an alligator.
It’s used in Ann Arbor. DTLA would die without it. It’s just not that uncommon.