Higher Truck Traffic to Get Council Review

As the city staff continues to work on a regional solution to the increasing numbers of trucks on surface streets, the City Council tonight will consider taking steps to ease the problem locally.

Council members will look at alternatives, including restricting truck travel along major arteries such as Bake Parkway, where residents complain about continual traffic noise.

Lake Forest recently conducted a study which found that traffic on Bake Parkway had increased almost 50% because vehicles headed to surface streets to avoid congestion on the San Diego Freeway.

With commercial trucks also taking to side streets to bypass freeway construction at the El Toro Y interchange, Lake Forest has been working with other cities to create regional truck routes.

But negotiations have been slow because planners in communities that include Irvine and Mission Viejo predict patterns will change when the freeway improvements are finished in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Ann Van Haun said that Lake Forest should take steps within its own borders: “It’s still important to work for a regional solution, but we have to start thinking of our own territory a little bit.