Resistance Builds as City Attempts to Streamline Traffic : Transportation: Proposals to restrict parking and add a lane to 7th Street continues to draw the most criticism. Review process is nearly complete. Plan goes to the City Council soon.

Once again last week, worried Long Beach residents crowded into a meeting room to tell city leaders that when it comes to transportation, they’ve got it all wrong.

Proposals to widen streets and restrict parking will only invite more cars and more congestion, argued a parade of east-side residents at the latest in a series of public meetings on an ambitious city blueprint for transportation improvements.

“If we make traveling through our city convenient, we will have an ever-increasing traffic problem,” emphasized Ed Buras, president of a neighborhood group that has formed to fight proposed parking limits along 7th Street, an east-west thoroughfare that cuts through southern portions of the city.

The plan to add another lane of rush-hour traffic to 7th Street by restricting parking is but one of several proposals that have sparked vehement public protests. The objections have been so fierce that the city staff dropped some of the most controversial suggestions, such as connecting Atherton Street to the San Diego Freeway.

The 7th Street plan lingers on, however, the subject of mounting criticism. About 200 people attended a Tuesday night City Council committee meeting on the transportation plan, and most of them were there to condemn schemes to ease the flow of traffic on 7th.

“We as neighbors will unite to slow the traffic, not to speed it up,” declared Pat Pillittere. “We don’t want the streets widened at 7th or any of the streets in Long Beach.”

She and others complained that adding another lane of traffic during rush hour would turn 7th into a virtual cross-town freeway, making it even more dangerous for pedestrians than it already is and inviting more through traffic from outside the city. Parking prohibitions will also send more cars into nearby residential neighborhoods and hurt businesses on the street, opponents contended.

In an interview Wednesday, city Planning Director Robert Paternoster countered that the plan is intended to do the opposite. Adding another lane would attract traffic to 7th, taking if off side streets in residential areas, he said He also said it is a bit of a myth that 7th is full of cars from out of town. About two-thirds of the traffic is local, Paternoster said.

“All we’re trying to do is solve a problem, not create it.”

The $232-million traffic improvement plan, presented in the form of revisions to the Transportation Element of the city’s General Plan, is in the final stages of review. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the City Council will hold another public hearing Sept. 17, after which the proposal will go before the full council for a final vote.

The suggested improvements include:

* Construction of overpasses at the Traffic Circle, Spring Street-Lakewood Boulevard, Alamitos Avenue-Ocean Boulevard, and the Iron Triangle between 7th Street, Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Bellflower Boulevard.

* Street widenings of Alamitos from Ocean to PCH and of 7th at the San Gabriel River and Los Cerritos Channel bridges.

* Parking prohibitions on Ocean Boulevard, Broadway and other downtown streets, as well as on 7th, Anaheim Street, PCH, Los Coyotes Diagonal and portions of Willow Street, Atlantic Avenue, Alamitos, Cherry and Clark avenues.

* Synchronization of traffic signals to smooth traffic flow.

* Intersection improvements, including left-turn lanes.

The plan also calls for a variety of efforts to encourage use of mass transit and car-pooling.

At previous public hearings, residents expressed numerous concerns centering around the impact of the proposed Disney theme park, the effect of street widenings and parking prohibitions on businesses and neighborhoods, and the need for more programs aimed at getting people out of their cars.

City officials say the transportation plan does not take the Disney project into account because it is only a proposal. If the theme park is approved, the plan will be amended to include Disney traffic considerations.