Smart Street? Yorba Linda Group Doesn’t Believe It Is

You’d think most people would welcome $70 million from the government to widen a street in their town. In fact, it seems, most people do.

But a group of Yorba Linda residents is trying to dissuade the City Council from approving a plan to widen about four miles of Imperial Highway.

And if they succeed, county officials say, it could be the death knell for an ambitious project to improve the entire 13-mile roadway, a major east-west thoroughfare passing through six Orange County cities from Anaheim Hills to the Los Angeles County line.

“It’s definitely a significant major arterial,” Dean Delgado, a senior transportation analyst for the Orange County Transportation Authority, said of the state highway that handles at least 35,000 cars a day. “It’s one of the most congested streets in the county.”

Yet a county plan to alleviate that condition depends on local cooperation all along the way. If one city bows out, the improvements would not be contiguous, thus diminishing their effectiveness, Delgado said.

The street widening is part of the county’s “smart street” project, which uses funds generated by Measure M to unclog traffic congestion on 21 of the county’s major highways. Work on Beach Boulevard, the major pathway to the ocean on the county’s northern end, is nearing completion. Next up are Katella Avenue, Moulton Parkway and Imperial Highway. All three have undergone intensive feasibility studies to determine what should be done, and all have received the required environmental clearances.

Imperial’s design calls for widening the road at several points, coordinating traffic signals, eliminating on-street parking and providing bus turnouts.

But a group called the Organization of Unified Concerned Homeowners--OUCH--in Yorba Linda opposes any widening of Imperial Highway in their city.

“This is going to end up being an alternate route for people to cut through Yorba Linda,” said George Mendoza, a group spokesman. “We’re going to experience a great increase in unwanted transient traffic bringing pollution and all sorts of other things. We’re inviting more problems by making this a bigger road.”

Among other issues, he said, is the fact that a railroad crossing at Imperial and Esperanza already causes traffic to slow.

“The bottleneck was created by the railroad,” Mendoza said. If Imperial is widened, he said, “the bottleneck will just become a bigger bottleneck.”

Mendoza said his group is gathering signatures to put a measure on the November municipal ballot to let Yorba Linda voters decide. He plans to speak out at a public hearing on the matter before the council next month.

Council members are divided on the issue: Although one says that he is strongly opposed to any widening at all, his four colleagues--including the mayor--say they favor it, but only at certain points to make the road’s width consistent.

“This is the biggest to-do about nothing that I’ve ever seen,” Mayor John M. Gullixson said of the argument. “I can’t believe that somebody in this town wants to keep the street as it is.”

Officials in other cities along the route, meanwhile, are eyeing developments with some concern.

“The cities need to cooperate with one another,” said Frank Feldhaus, a councilman in Anaheim, which has approved its portion of the project. “Superhighways are generated in order to accommodate all the cities.”

County transportation officials are biding their time.

“It’s up to the city where improvements are identified to allow those improvements,” Delgado said. “One city’s opposition could significantly reduce the whole street’s competitiveness for the limited amount of funds available. It could knock Imperial Highway out of the running.”

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include sample sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.