SANTA ANA : Floral Park Traffic Plan to Be Debated

More than 100 residents are expected to attend tonight’s City Council meeting as officials consider a controversial plan to restrict traffic through the Floral Park neighborhood.

Proposed by Councilwoman Lisa Mills, the plan seeks to alleviate an expected surge in traffic through the northwest neighborhood once Main Street is closed for the Santa Ana Freeway widening project.

Under the plan, traffic on Broadway would be prohibited from traveling west onto Santa Clara Avenue. Eastbound traffic on 19th Street would be prohibited from turning onto Broadway. The effect would be to decrease commuter traffic on 19th and Santa Clara, said traffic engineer T.C. Sutaria.

The Environment and Traffic Advisory Committee recently approved the $20,000 plan on a 5-3 vote, and the council will consider whether to adopt it.

Many neighborhood residents support the plan, because without it, they say, traffic on streets such as Santa Clara could nearly double to as many as 20,000 cars a day.

“What it means is having our neighborhood function as a neighborhood instead of an extension of the freeway or as a commuter route,” said Walter Urie, a member of the Floral Park Neighborhood Assn.’s traffic committee.

He also emphasized that the plan is a temporary measure to deal with the closure of Main Street.

“This is not a neighborhood traffic plan. This is not an attempt by the residents of Floral Park to block off the city. We embrace the city. We live in Santa Ana because we love it. The potential impact to our neighborhood requires this measure,” he said.

However, Look Out, a newsletter that was circulated in March, criticized the plan. Published by community activist Suszan Ales, the newsletter said the proposal would unfairly “block public access to public streets.”

The traffic plan follows a sweeping traffic proposal in 1991 by the Floral Park Neighborhood Assn. to restrict traffic on streets in the area. The bitterly fought proposal was rejected by voters in January, 1992.

That fight sparked a feud as residents from other neighborhoods called the plan elitist and designed to prop up property values at the expense of others. Defenders of the plan said increased commuter traffic on residential streets constituted a safety hazard, especially to children.