City Council Puts Traffic Plan in Gear : Congestion: A test program is approved to discourage commuters from intruding on residential streets.

The problem never was how to make the streets in Beverly Hills more livable. What city officials were striving for was to somehow make them less drivable.

Such confusion was always at the core of the city’s 20-year struggle to keep commuters from other cities from intruding upon Beverly Hills’ well-tended residential streets. The debate dragged on so long that many residents suggested that officials would do just as well to build a wall around the town and rechristen it Ft. Beverly.

Last week, however, the City Council took the first step toward implementing the “livable streets” program. Despite a fair amount of public outcry that a series of traffic detours would make driving too difficult for some Beverly Hills residents, the council voted unanimously to begin a test program this summer to reduce traffic in the congested southwest corner of the city.

“Traffic has become a monster,” said Councilman Allan L. Alexander. “We simply can’t step back and let it happen to us. You have to step up and try things.”

In order to keep traffic off residential streets and to divert commuters onto main arteries such as Beverly Drive, this is what the city will try, possibly at the beginning of July:

Prohibiting westbound traffic on Olympic Boulevard from making right turns on six residential streets during peak morning hours (7 to 9:30). Drivers will be deterred from entering El Camino, Rodeo, Peck, Bedford, McCarty and Linden drives.

People driving north across Olympic will be prohibited from entering three heavily traveled residential streets: Camden, Roxbury and Spalding drives.

During peak afternoon commute hours (3:30 to 6:30), eastbound traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard will be prohibited from making right turns onto Moreno Drive and Charleville Boulevard.

Speed humps will be installed on these streets to slow down traffic: El Camino, Rodeo, Camden, Peck, Bedford, Roxbury, McCarty, Linden, Spalding and Moreno drives. The speed humps on each street will be located in the first or second block north of Olympic Boulevard. The humps, lower and broader than conventional parking-lot obstacles, will be designed to reduce speeds without breaking axles.

Drivers leaving commercial buildings south of Wilshire Boulevard and north of Charleville will be prohibited from making southbound turns heading toward the residential neighborhoods.

While the multipronged plan appears confusing and possibly difficult for police to enforce, City Manager Mark Scott said Beverly Hills residents will hardly notice it.

However, the test program area, which stretches from Santa Monica Boulevard to Olympic Boulevard and from Moreno Drive to Elm Drive, is likely to become a highly unpopular region for Los Angeles commuters.

“This test is not going to be as big as problem as many people think,” Scott said. “I think what you might find is that we might not be doing enough.”

Still, more than two dozen speakers commented on the plan at Tuesday night’s council meeting, with the crowd split evenly for and against it.

“There’s no such thing as livable streets,” said Bill Di Salvo. “People don’t live on the streets except for the homeless. What you’re doing is micro-managing for 5,000 residents of one section of the city.”

But Steve Webb, co-chair of the Livable Streets Committee, said the plan is ideal.

“This plan offers very little inconvenience for the people who live here and a lot of inconvenience for people who don’t,” he said. “And that was our goal.”

Implementing the program on a test basis, Webb said, will allow the city to take out restrictions that don’t work and to modify others for best results.

The test program is expected to last up to four months. City officials will count traffic during the test period to determine how successful the program is in diverting cars off residential streets. If traffic reductions are significant, City Council members said, they will consider making the plan permanent and trying other programs in adjoining neighborhoods.

“I think that this has a real chance to succeed,” said Mayor Vicki Reynolds. “The key point is that the test program is flexible.”

Some residents, however, remain unconvinced that the plan will somehow enrich their lives. If anything, they say, it’s just the latest in a long line of bureaucratic restrictions.

“You’re going to make it worse than it was before,” said resident Pauline Spiker, who once again suggested that a wall might serve better. “(Already) you can’t park on those streets, and now you can’t ride on those streets.”