FULLERTON : Concern Expressed on Road’s Safety

After a recent fatal traffic accident, some residents here are again concerned about the safety of a one-mile stretch of Bastanchury Road that has been widened from four to six lanes.

A young man was killed and seven others injured in a June 17 two-car accident in which one car was traveling 63 m.p.h., according to police.

“Now they go so fast,” said Mary Homme, whose house overlooks the road. “I feel that the speed has increased.”

The road was striped for six lanes in early June, after more than two years of road work. When Homme moved to the neighborhood 30 years ago, Bastanchury was a valley path. Then two lanes were built. They became four.

In 1990, Homme led a residents’ group called Save Our Bastanchury that tried to gather enough signatures to halt the $3.8-million widening to six lanes. The group collected the signatures, but in 1992 an Orange County Superior Court judge said the road could not be regulated by a local initiative because it crosses several city boundaries.

“It was like a foregone conclusion that something major was going to happen there,” 27-year resident Tonya Daggett, who opposed the road widening, said of the fatal accident. “We thought that there would be excessive speed when they put in those extra lanes.”

Don Hoppe, assistant city engineer, said the road should be safer now because bumps were removed and the turns are smoother. “It should be an improvement overall of the previous condition,” he said.