Closures to become permanent
The City Council has directed staff to plan permanent cul-de-sacs along Lima and Avon streets after a year of temporary closures. Cordova and California streets are expected to get angled barrier closures.
The temporary closures on four streets and an alley north of Alameda Avenue that were installed about a year ago to mitigate traffic in a neighborhood in the city’s Media District will now become permanent.
After more than an hour and a half of public testimony from about 50 speakers, the Burbank City Council voted 4-1 to have staff begin the design process and later construct cul-de-sacs at Avon and Lima streets and angled barrier closures at Cordova and California streets.
The majority of the council members also approved several other traffic-mitigation measures, including adding speed bumps on the streets between Fairview and Naomi streets, narrowing Fairview Street and Whitnall Highway and restriping Oak Street at Hollywood Way to make the flow of traffic in and out of that side of the neighborhood safer.
Chained barricades close off the intersection at Alameda Avenue and the 200 block of North Lima Street.
David Kriske, assistant community development director of transportation, said that city staff recommended not going with permanent closures initially because, according to the traffic studies conducted over the past year and a half, traffic was not any worse with the road closures than without them.
However, he did note that streets east of the closures did see an increase in traffic, which was to be expected.
Though city staff recommended partial closures and speed bumps on Avon, Lima, Cordova and California to address concerns that residents had about commuters cutting through their neighborhood when getting onto or off the Ventura (134) Freeway — an issue that has plagued the area for over 10 years — the majority of the City Council opted to listen to residents and move forward with permanent closures.
“The neighborhood’s been waiting 13 years. We can’t wait anymore,” said Mayor Jess Talamantes, who supported the permanent closures. “We have to move forward on this. Whatever the reasons were that [the project] was put off over the years — somebody forgot about it or put it on the back burner. It’s been 13 years.”
North Lima Street is among routes slated to be permanently closed in the wake of the planned Talaria project.
Councilman David Gordon, who cast the lone dissenting vote on the item, argued that the city would not have had to turn to constructing cul-de-sacs and closures on those streets if the city properly studied the Talaria project — a 241-unit apartment building atop a Whole Foods market slated to be built across the street from the neighborhood on Alameda.
The temporary street closures were put in place in January 2015 to study the traffic around the area and to prepare for the predicted traffic impacts of the mixed-use project.
“This is going back after Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall,” Gordon said. “Now we have to go back and fix it, I fully agree … This is, excuse my French, ass-backwards. That’s what we’re doing here tonight.”
Gordon agreed with city staff and wanted to continue the temporary closures and continue doing traffic studies until the Talaria project is completed. However, his colleagues said that the residents have waited long enough and that something needs to be done immediately.
“I think there’s ample information for us to consider here,” Vice Mayor Will Rogers said. “Rather than replaying what happened two years ago over and over again, I’d like to move forward now that we have sufficient information.”
