"Somebody's gon'er get kilt." One of the guys in my Burbank Senior
Golf Club group said that the other day as the subject, as usual, got
around to the really serious traffic problem we have where Walnut crosses
the DeBell Golf Course parking lot entrance across from the clubhouse and
pro shop.
Since the opening of the great nature center about a mile up Walnut --
where it dead-ends at the trail heads leading into our beautiful canyons
-- visitor car and mountain bike traffic has tremendously increased.
Coming back from the nature center is a steep, downhill grade, and it is
not uncommon for both autos and bikes to reach very high speeds
(certainly far in excess of the 25 mph limit), and go zinging by the
parking lot entrance where, at any given time, a dozen or more golfers
are strolling or riding golf carts across the street to the starter's
shack.
On tournament days (the men's seniors, for example, will field a 140
player "shotgun" the first Thursday of every month, with all 140 players
going to their assigned holes at one time) it is not inconceivable to
imagine a dozen or more Burbankers leaving this planet in a single
accident.
All of our clubs (seniors, juniors, men and lady clubs) have met
repeatedly with city officials to express our concerns. We are politely
and "off the record" told that a stop sign, crosswalk, speed hump or even
a warning sign placed farther up the hill will not happen unless or until
someone is killed, maimed for life or seriously injured. Even sympathetic
cops have told us (off the record) that getting the Burbank traffic
department to put a stop sign would take a lawyer and years of
bureaucratic red tape.
But the sign would go up within days of a fatality? Why do we have to
wait until someone is killed?
Months ago, we signed a polite petition requesting a stop sign. The
powers that be do not know what happened to that petition.
Summer is coming, and the new nature center is a great attraction that
will draw crowds of nature lovers daily up that beautiful canyon road.
That means the chances of a terrible accident happening will be vastly
increased.
May I suggest that if you value the life of your senior parent,
teenage golf enthusiast, or your own enthusiasm for the great game of
gold at DeBell Municipal Golf Course, that you use this paper to call
City Hall's attention to a disaster in the making. One that can be
avoided for a few hundred dollars worth of stop sign.
One final word: Someone at City Hall, in his great engineering wisdom,
decided that spending umpteem thousands of taxpayer dollars to move back
the trash bin less than a hundred feet (a project requiring a full crew
of men more than a week and entailed building a new block structure to
house the trash bin) would allow golfers a better view of death
approaching. We still can't see those lethal machines boring down on us,
and that is not a feasible solution anyway.
Give us a simple stop sign, please. And put a caution sign halfway up
the hill toward the new nature center, warning motorists and bikers that
a stop sign lies ahead.
JACK SHEFFIELD
Burbank