Letter: Kudos to Burbank on barriers decision

I would like to thank the City Council for voting to leave the temporary barriers in place until all of the traffic studies are completed for the Alameda North Neighborhood Protection Program. The barriers have been a life changer for my neighborhood. This process did not happen overnight. It began in 2003 and a plan was approved by the city in 2005 but never implemented.

I personally do not believe that these barriers have divided our neighborhoods as more and more residents are realizing the impact the current and future growth, 4.7 million square feet that has been approved for the Media District, will have on all of us. We all need to work together to make the intrusion as minimal as possible for all of our residential streets. Every street has its own needs and concerns that need to be addressed.

There is a proposal to move the drop-off/pickup area at Stevenson School, however, I have not heard that this is because of the barriers. The drop-off/pickup has been a problem for many years, as it is at most schools. Stevenson was built when there were less than 300 students attending and now there are more than 600 students with the same footprint. If fact, without the barriers there would be even more problems because of the cut through traffic off of Alameda.

I believe that working with the city on traffic mitigations on all of our streets is the way to go because the traffic in the Media District is certainly not going away. We really can’t afford to wait until all of the approved and proposed projects are built.

Our neighborhoods have worked tirelessly on improving our quality of life for almost 15 years and we can finally see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Nancy Lacher

Burbank