Neighbors Tire of Life on Shortcut : Santa Ana Residents Ask Council to Divert Traffic

Morning and night, the quiet, tree-lined neighborhood of Washington Square in Santa Ana turns into a traffic nightmare for residents.

During weekday rush hours, a motorized ruckus disrupts the calm as commuters abandon the congested arteries of Bristol and Flower streets for shortcuts through the residential area, just north of Santa Ana’s Civic Center.

“Traffic is spilling into the neighborhoods,” said Dion Baker, a real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood, on North Louise Street. “Drivers are turning the smaller streets into main thoroughfares.”

Residents of Washington Square say their neighborhood--bordered by 17th Street on the north, Civic Center Drive on the south, Flower Street on the east and Bristol Street on the west--is becoming one big shortcut.

But now, residents of Washington Square are declaring that enough is enough.

6-Month Trial Period

Residents want the Santa Ana City Council to pass a proposal allowing diverter markings to be painted at Washington Avenue at the intersections with Flower on the east and Bristol on the west. The diverters would be installed for a six-month trial period and would restrict traffic entering the neighborhood along Washington during rush hour.

“Washington Avenue (in the heart of the neighborhood) is a residential area that has been divided north and south by the traffic,” said Tom Lutz, who lives on Freeman Street and is president of Washington Square Neighborhood Assn., which is petitioning the council for the diverters. “The cars have become a barrier.”

The diverter proposal was passed unanimously by the city’s Traffic Commission in May. And the Planning Commission passed it with a vote of 5 to 2 in June. But the proposal has left some people fearing that a potential trend for traffic diverters could be ignited in other neighborhoods bordering thoroughfares.

“No fair,” said George Hanna, a Santa Ana planning commissioner who voted against the proposal. “It’s preferential treatment,” Hanna said. “It’s like, ‘I can drive on your street, but don’t you dare drive on mine.’ ”

The neighborhood doesn’t need diverters, said Don Sizemore, a planning commissioner who also voted against their use.

“The neighborhood streets are for the whole city of Santa Ana,” Sizemore said. “The neighborhood doesn’t need any diverters.”

Partial Diverter on Louise

Santa Ana traffic operations engineer T.C. Sutaria said the city has only a handful of streets with diverter markings that keep commuter traffic out of residential areas. Washington Square already has a partial diverter on Louise Street at Civic Center Drive. Other diverter markings are on 17th and Flower streets, 17th and Ross streets, and Lincoln Avenue and Grovemont Street.

The neighborhood has changed because of the traffic, said Washington Square resident Ed Magness, who has lived in his home on Towner Street for 28 years.

“It’s a ridiculous situation,” Magness said. “We have people out there who are driving 55 in a 25 m.p.h. zone. And they don’t care about stop signs. We need some form of enforcement.”