Redondo OKs Plans to Improve Traffic

In an effort to ease chronic congestion in the 40-year-old streets of Redondo Beach, the City Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to nearly two dozen suggestions for improving the street’s major arteries.

The list of improvements, drawn up by a residents’ traffic committee with the aid of a traffic engineering consultant, ranges from widening Aviation Boulevard to installing a long-awaited left-turn signal at Inglewood Avenue and Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

Each was aimed at easing the traffic flow along streets that in recent years have been forced to carry many times more vehicles than they were originally designed to hold.

The recommendations capped the first part of an extensive hearing called by the council to address the city’s growing traffic problems. Because the agenda was too long to be completed Tuesday night, the hearing was continued to next Tuesday, when the council will discuss traffic that cuts through North Redondo on residential streets to avoid congestion on main roads.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

City officials noted that all the suggested projects will require further study and formal adoption in the city’s General Plan, and some will take as long as 10 years implement.

“No decisions are being made at this point. We’re just looking at alternatives,” said Mayor Brad Parton.

However, Parton added, the list would be a first step in addressing the commuter gridlock that has particularly plagued the North Redondo Beach neighborhoods on the outskirts of the area’s major office parks.

Among the ideas that the council quashed outright was a proposal to remove the dips on Inglewood Avenue. Proponents who regularly drive that route claimed it would cut wear and tear on cars and ease gridlock on the thoroughfare.

But City Traffic Engineer Ken Montgomery said the dips, which drain off rainwater, also help discourage speeding. Although the project “sounds simple, it would require an extensive storm drain system” that would be expensive for the city to install, he said.

More feasible, the council decided, were proposals to:

* Redesign traffic signals at Aviation Boulevard and Grant Avenue.

* Widen Aviation between Space Park Drive and Marine Avenue and add a northbound right-turn lane to Aviation south of Artesia Boulevard.

* Install dual left-turn lanes on westbound Artesia approaching Aviation and on both sides of Artesia at Inglewood Avenue and new right-turn lanes at Artesia and Inglewood.

* Prohibit left turns from Manhattan Beach Boulevard onto Green Lane during the morning rush hour.

* Widen Manhattan Beach Boulevard between Aviation and Freeman Boulevards and widen the westbound right-turn lane at the Manhattan Beach-Freeman intersection.

* Improve the intersection of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Inglewood Avenue by installing a left-turn signal on Inglewood Avenue, widening the east side of Inglewood Avenue between that intersection and the San Diego Freeway, banning parking on the west side of Inglewood from that intersection to Grant Avenue, improving the Inglewood median from that intersection to Mathews Avenue, and extending the left-turn lane at eastbound Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

* Widen Inglewood Avenue northbound from Vanderbilt Lane to Artesia, and ban parking on the east side of Inglewood from Artesia to 171st Street.

* Ban left turns at 182nd Street and southbound Inglewood Avenue during the afternoon rush hour.

* Extend the left-turn lanes on eastbound 190th Street west of Hawthorne Boulevard and install a dual left-turn lane at westbound 190th Street at Anza Avenue.

* Improve traffic light synchronization citywide.