San Marino Group Gears Up for Action Over Busy Avenue : Traffic: A leader of the Los Robles group threatens protests or recalls over alleged city inaction. A councilman says proposed changes would dump cars on another neighborhood.

During the seven years that Terry and Sharon Hotchkin have lived on a corner lot at Los Robles Avenue and Monterey Park Road, four cars have crashed into their yard.

Each year they have witnessed a serious accident, and one time a traffic signal ended up on their front lawn.

The Hotchkins and dozens of other San Marino residents along the busy artery linking the Foothill (210) Freeway and Huntington Drive complain that City Hall has failed to curb the daily onslaught of 20,000 speeding cars, buses and big rigs that drive the avenue paralleling part of the Long Beach (710) Freeway gap.

They and other residents of the wide north-south avenue struggle daily with extra trash, car horns, MTA buses and the difficulty of getting in and out of their driveways. Three out of every four vehicles on the road are commuters driving through the wealthy enclave, according to a recent city traffic study.

“It’s a safety issue,” Terry Hotchkin said. “We’re tired of being a sacrificial lamb. Be it protests or recalls, the residents here will actively consider these measures to get the City Council to do something about the traffic.”

Los Robles residents calling themselves SMART (San Marinans Anxious to Reduce Traffic on Los Robles) have demanded since September that the city take immediate action. They have suggested major road changes such as extra traffic signals, narrowing the street and blocking some turn lanes to reduce the traffic.

Instead, the City Council on Oct. 12 chose another, less busy road for alterations, then in November authorized some inexpensive changes to Los Robles Avenue to slow traffic.

City leaders acknowledge the residents’ anger, but say they must look at the citywide picture and what impact removing traffic from Los Robles would have on surrounding streets. To do that, officials said, further action will likely follow an analysis of a citywide traffic master plan by the city’s Traffic Study Task Force, expected to be completed in three or four months.

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“We’re sympathetic to their problems, but we’ve got to look at the consequences of moving traffic to another residential street,” Councilman Eugene H. Dryden said.

“We must consider how we can solve the problem in the best overall way and that’s why the traffic task force is looking at the whole city.”

Dryden said the changes called for by SMART would force about 1,500 vehicles onto Garfield Avenue, making life worse for the residents there.

In addition, city officials said SMART’s $480,000 worth of suggestions would bring about only a small cut in traffic volume and that some changes to reduce danger from vehicles are already being made.

“The council authorized the city to paint parking lanes and edge strips to reduce the width of the road and that will reduce speeds,” said Debbie Bell, assistant city manager.

Traffic signals at the intersection of Wilson Avenue and Los Robles also will be upgraded ahead of schedule. “They are getting something right now and there is light at the end of tunnel,” Bell said.

SMART’s leaders remain unconvinced. “Striping and parking isn’t really going to do anything,” said Alan Shenoi, a SMART leader. “We literally have a de facto 710 Freeway here. We can’t visit our neighbors . . . friendships have been formed by people who only live on one side of the street. It’s sort of like a river.”

Tim Kuhlman, another leader of the residents’ group that now has 210 members, said the problem has worsened in recent years as the economy has improved and Old Pasadena has developed.

Kuhlman said traffic has increased 10% in the last two years and now one in eight San Marino accidents happen on the single avenue that accounts for less than one of the 70 miles of road in the city.

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But city officials dispute Kuhlman’s numbers, saying he counts accidents at the Huntington Drive intersection, which is past the houses. According to the city, traffic increased 15% over the last eight years.

The residents’ traffic plan includes installing 18 landscaped mid-block chokers and islands to reduce road width, painting median strips, creating new median left-turn lanes, rerouting buses, additional traffic signals and eliminating the turns from Huntington Drive. The plan would require the cooperation of Pasadena to the north, which is already trying to reduce the use of its section of Los Robles with more traffic signals and narrower lanes.

SMART leaders say they hope to extend their coalition into Pasadena and Alhambra. “We’re all victims of traffic,” said Kuhlman, who noted that Alhambra for years has complained about the throng of drivers.

But while Los Robles residents have kind words for Pasadena and Alhambra, they have none for South Pasadena, their neighbor to the west.

“There are no signs. It’s not made inviting. Left turns (from Huntington Drive) have been blocked, stops have been placed instead of lights, turns have been blocked unilaterally,” Shenoi said.

South Pasadena City Manager Kenneth C. Farfsing denied that his city has taken steps to increase traffic on Los Robles, which he said has been a major artery for decades.