City’s Traffic Plan Has ‘Em Going ‘Round and ‘Round

When Hazel Woodsworth set out on a trip down Memory Lane a couple of months ago, she never suspected it would land her smack in the middle of a bitter neighborhood traffic dispute.

Woodsworth, 87, of Garden Grove, who lives on Social Security, was just going to the Civic Center in Santa Ana to give her overdue electric bill to the Orange County Community Development Council for payment.

A $52 Traffic Ticket

She had made the trip countless times before, and she liked to travel down Flower Street “because of all the lovely homes there,” she said. But this time, when she made a right turn onto Flower Street from Memory Lane, one of four motorcycle officers waiting there nabbed her and handed her a $52 ticket.

The Santa Ana City Council, in an attempt to reduce morning traffic on Flower, recently had passed a series of traffic measures, including one that prohibits right turns onto Flower from Memory Lane between 6 and 9 a.m.

The measures, passed unanimously, had been supported by a group of residents who live on and around Flower Street north of 17th Street, a stretch of divided road graced by old but stately homes.

Called the North Central Santa Ana Neighborhood Traffic Protection Plan, the measures have not yet been fully implemented. Permanent barriers to northbound traffic at the intersections of Ross and 17th streets and Flower and 17th should be in place within two weeks, and the city must get the California Department of Transportation’s approval to close the Flower Street off-ramp on Interstate 5.

Some traffic already has been diverted from Flower onto neighboring thoroughfares such as Bristol and Main. In the process, the measures are fueling a vitriolic traffic dispute, the likes of which City Manager Robert Bobb says he has never seen.

“I just don’t understand it. We had hearings, we brought in a consultant, we took great pains to create a neighborhood consensus,” Bobb said. “From a public policy standpoint, the process was textbook.”

Police Chief Sent $10 Check

From a public relations standpoint, however, giving Hazel Woodsworth a ticket was disastrous. Jim Hamlett, public information officer for the Community Development Council, wrote an article in the anti-poverty agency’s newsletter lambasting the city for its treatment of Woodsworth and asking for contributions to help her pay the ticket. The collection netted $210, including a $10 check and a letter from Santa Ana Police Chief Ray Davis, who explained that his department does not make city policy.

While Woodsworth wants to hear no more of the matter--it has left her so distraught that she has stopped driving--she has become something of a symbol for a group of neighborhood residents who oppose the traffic measures. They say that the restrictions are unfair because they serve only a small group of people, and they point to the city’s handling of Woodsworth’s case as evidence of insensitivity to the needs of other county residents. The group, which calls itself Concerned Residents of Santa Ana, recently submitted a petition to the City Council with 3,000 signatures demanding that the measures be rescinded.

Group Preparing to File Suit

The group also is preparing legal action on behalf of the hundreds of motorists fined for making the forbidden right turn and is preparing to file suit to block the city from enforcing the traffic measures on the grounds that they are unconstititutional. These efforts are not exactly appreciated by the 500 neighborhood residents who first got the traffic plan off the ground. At least one of the opposition group’s members has received an anonymous, threatening letter.

“We’re proud of our neighborhood, but we don’t want any preferential treatment,” said George Hanna, who lives in a mansion four blocks east of Flower on Victoria Street, and who, with neighbor Jim Bowman, is spearheading the fight to keep Flower open. “Flower leads right into the Civic Center, and people should be able to take it to work. They say they want to preserve the character of the neighborhood. Well, just look at what they’ve done to Memory Lane over there with all the signs and stripes--it looks like a war zone.”

Three Options Confuse Motorists

Four signs that have been shuffled in among the normal traffic signs on eastbound Memory Lane between Bristol and Flower warn motorists of the morning ban on right turns as they approach the intersection. What was previously a right-turn-only lane (which placed drivers in the position of having to violate one regulation or another) now has been painted with diagonal stripes, and two more signs and a motorcycle officer are placed at the intersection just in case drivers need any more convincing that a right turn is, in fact, illegal. When they reach the intersection, they have three options: cross Flower and make a legal U-turn at the dead end of Memory Lane, and then turn south onto Flower; turn north onto Flower, make a U-turn and then proceed south; or make a U-turn at the intersection and go back from where they came. Tuesday morning, a number of motorists were observed throwing up their hands and choosing the latter option.

“This street is beautiful, and we take care of our houses, but they won’t be beautiful if they don’t stop this traffic,” said Maria Baryn, 62, tending the garden in front of her Spanish-style house on Flower Street. “The situation has improved somewhat, but they’ve got to stay out there and enforce the rules.”

Police Officer Mike Holderman, assigned to the intersection on Tuesday, agreed. “For years they’ve been making the turn here,” Holderman said. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. If I wasn’t out here, they’d go right back to making the right turn.” At least two judges in Central Municipal Court say that is exactly what drivers should be allowed to do. Presiding Judge Jacquelyn Thomason and Commissioner Joan Reilly oppose the no-right turn law and have been tossing the citations out of court routinely.

“It’s a trap,” Thomason said. “Once you turn onto Memory Lane from Bristol, there’s nowhere else to go but down Flower. Besides, that’s a public street built with public funds--you can’t just block it off like that from commuter traffic.”

The judicial opposition has Bobb fuming. “They have stepped outside their authority and are telling people, in effect, to disobey the law,” he said.