An Era Ends on Anthony Avenue

Looks like 80-year-old Lois Gergen of Garden Grove won’t need her decibel meter from Radio Shack anymore. Corinne and Tim Brubaker, who live across the street, will finally be able to open the front windows of their home. And it soon will be possible, after more than three decades, for all of them to have a conversation outside without shouting at each other.

To the relief of those who live on Anthony Avenue, Caltrans will break ground today on the first of seven sound walls that residents along the Garden Grove Freeway have been fighting for since Nixon took office.

“I don’t care how much dirt they kick up or how much noise they make. I’m ecstatic about it,” said Connie Naranjo, a homeowner on Anthony Avenue who has worked for almost two decades to get the walls built.

Residents who moved in as newlyweds are now pensioners who have spent most of their married life asking the state to please, please, please stop the noise. Their children played under the din of cars whizzing by, went off to the prom to the tune of horns honking just beyond the background.

People turned up the volume on their TVs to drown out the march of traffic as they watched the 1970s Watergate hearings and cooked inside on countless sweltering summer days because an outdoor barbecue was too sound-drenched to be fun.

Under two transportation programs approved by Gov. Gray Davis, Orange County will receive $35.7 million to build the barriers. They will be 16-feet high and made of brown concrete block to match existing sound walls. Vines will eventually cover them.

“The whole program is an example of the type of change we want to bring to the agency,” said Jeff Morales, who was appointed Caltrans director in June 2000. “We want to deliver projects on time. Our job is make them happen now. People shouldn’t have to wait 30 years.”

The walls are expected to provide a less exciting life, perhaps, but generally more relaxing days to property owners and residents, many of whom have lived for decades with the din of traffic, rumbling trucks and debris, including hubcaps and pieces of tire that occasionally fly into their yards.

Along Anthony Avenue, people with homes directly against the freeway rarely use their backyards. Some have raised the height of their fences, installed double-paned windows, or added rooms as a buffer. Many people sleep with earplugs or keep their windows and doors closed all year.

At peak hours, the highway sounds like a freight train whining and rumbling through the neighborhood. Normal conversation has to be so loud, it sounds like neighbors are arguing instead of socializing. Even at midday, the sound of cars on the 22 is hard to ignore.

“After 30 years, I’m happy,” said Irene Alex, who moved into the neighborhood in 1963, shortly before before the freeway was built. “For years, I wrote letters and made phone calls. I eventually got disgusted with the whole thing and dropped out for a while.”

Alex said her pleas to state and local officials were often ignored. Sometimes she would develop a rapport with a Caltrans official and then that person would retire or be reassigned, forcing her to start over.

“I became so discouraged I took a big folder of material I had gathered and threw it out,” Alex said.

Caltrans officials have maintained over the years that the Garden Grove Freeway was on a statewide priority list for sound walls, but the highway, they said, ranked near the bottom of that list and funding was limited for such projects.

“For budgetary and other reasons, things did not happen,” Morales said. “The governor finally wanted to do something and it is up to us to deliver quickly. We understand how important these walls are for the community.”

Morales and a host of local and state officials will gather at Garden Grove City Hall at 9 a.m. today to discuss details of the sound wall plan. Those on hand will include state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) and Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim).

Dunn and Morales visited the freeway last year and toured the area aboard a helicopter. The senator said he thought the visit helped spur the start of the walls, which will coincide with new car pool lanes and other improvements to the highway.

Caltrans officials said seven walls will be constructed along certain sections of the Garden Grove Freeway from Valley View on the west to Euclid Avenue on the east. All are scheduled to be completed by December 2002.

The first barrier will be built on the north side of the freeway from Valley View to Springdale Street, which will parallel scores of homes along Anthony Avenue. Caltrans officials say the $2.8-million structure will be finished by February.

“I guess I won’t believe it until I see the real evidence. I want some bricks and real digging out there,” said Gergen, who has lived next to the freeway for almost 25 years.

Because of the noise, she and her husband Virgil use their backyard only to store building materials or to hang wash on the clothesline. They can’t remember the last time they barbecued on their built-in brick grill and fireplace.

On Friday, Gergen pulled out a small decibel meter she and her husband bought, for $64, to take readings around the neighborhood. She said levels as high as 70 to 80 decibels were recorded in their backyard.

According to Caltrans, 66 is the maximum decibel level considered safe for most people living near a freeway.

Gergen tried to turn on the hand-held device. Nothing happened. “The batteries must be dead,” she said, setting it down. “Maybe I don’t need this anymore.”

Naranjo, her neighbor, used to joke that Virgil Gergen did not know what the fuss was about until he started using hearing aids a few years ago. After almost two decades of writing letters, Naranjo helped form the West Garden Grove Residents Assn. to fight for the sound wall.

More than a year ago, she organized an effort to hang protest banners along the freeway, painted on blue tarp.

“Caltrans kept telling me the walls would be built in three years. After awhile, they lost their credibility,” Naranjo said. “Since the banners, we have gotten plenty of response.”

What will life be like when the noise ends?

“I don’t know if I will be able to stand it,” Alex said.