HUNTINGTON BEACH : New Hearing Slated on Old Traffic Fight

A lengthy dispute over what to do about traffic problems in a residential neighborhood is not over yet.

A month after City Council members agreed to install trial barricades to curb traffic on Cascade Lane, they scheduled a new public hearing to reconsider that action.

The hearing will be held April 20, after which the council will decide whether to follow through with the barricades or adopt a new strategy.

The main reason they are reconsidering the issue, council members said when deciding this week to schedule the hearing, is that many residents near Cascade were unaware of last month’s hearing.

Those residents are concerned that the traffic barricades, while providing a respite on Cascade, may merely shift the problem to their streets. They submitted a petition to the council with 150 signatures, calling for a new hearing.

The council on March 2 approved two barricades for six months, hoping to stem the reported 2,600 vehicles a day that have found Cascade to be a handy shortcut connecting Bolsa and McFadden avenues. The barricades have not yet been bought. If approved after the April 20 hearing, they will be installed in May.

Cascade residents for more than a year have complained about the traffic problem. Commuters zip down their street as an alternative to typically congested Golden West Street or Beach Boulevard. Homeowners say the crush of motorists poses a safety threat, not to mention the nagging noise and exhaust that comes with it.

They had called upon the council to install barricades at the Huntington Beach-Westminster border that would block traffic from using the street as a commute route. But fire officials said that would hinder emergency response times, so the council chose an alternative barricade plan, under which vehicles could still make their way through the tract but would follow a longer, S-shaped route.

But opponents note that city Traffic Engineer Jim Otterson projects that the barricades would only mildly curtail traffic but affect more streets.

During Monday night’s discussion, residents from Cascade Lane and those from neighboring streets squared off against each other, arguing whether the approved barricades offer a good solution.

Barricading the street does not solve the problem, “it just expands it throughout the neighborhood,” said Mary Ostrowski, who lives on nearby Shasta Lane. “I don’t want to have to tell my 3-year-old daughter that she cannot play in her own front yard.”

But Cascade residents say they have been putting up with that problem for years and believe that barricades will ease it.

“We feel our health and safety demands an immediate barricade system,” Cascade resident Pat Whitsel said.

City Atty. Gail C. Hutton said the council is not required to hold a new hearing notifying all of the tract’s residents but added that it would be “equitable” to do so.

“This will provide a full, open hearing for all sides, and a decision will be made afterward,” Mayor Pro Tem Grace Winchell said.

Councilman Jack Kelly cast the only dissenting vote, arguing that the council should not further prolong the dispute.

“This thing has been going on for 8,000 years, it seems, and there’s been a lot of aggravation on both sides,” he said. “This just keeps going on and compounding itself. We shouldn’t be taking these breathers.”