LOS ALAMITOS : New Traffic Signal Near School OKd

Heeding the pleas of students and parents concerned about safety, the City Council on Monday narrowly approved the installation of a traffic signal in front of Los Alamitos High School.

About 50 people jammed council chambers, the vast majority of whom were students, parents and staff members of the school who favored putting in the signal.

The council approved the project by a 3-2 vote, with Mayor Robert P. Wahlstrom and Councilman Anthony R. Selvaggi holding the dissenting opinion that the signal would not solve the safety problems in front of the school.

The signal will be installed on Cerritos Avenue between Los Alamitos Boulevard and Del Norte Way during the summer.

Students and parents related stories of numerous “fender benders” and near misses as cars line up on eastbound Cerritos Avenue each morning to turn left into the school.

They told of the fear they felt looking for a safe opening to make the left turn and darting across the fast-moving traffic on westbound Cerritos.

Not only was safety a concern, they said, but also traffic congestion. Jay Coffman, a senior at the high school, said it takes students an average of 10 minutes to get into the school parking lot in the morning and 20 minutes to get out of it in the afternoon.

Wahlstrom said there were other alternatives--including rerouting traffic around the block and prohibiting left turns into the campus--that should be considered.

“People should not be rewarded for violating the traffic laws of our city,” Wahlstrom said, referring to jaywalkers. “I don’t like the false sense of security a signal gives people. . . . I think we would get a very poor return on our investment.”

With the council’s approval of the plan, $12,000 will be allocated from the city’s 1989-90 fiscal year budget for the design of the signal. An additional $80,000 to complete the project would come out of next year’s budget.