Letters to the Editor: Newport Beach must find solutions for today’s (and tomorrow’s) traffic problems

Traffic is always an important issue for Newport Beach residents. I watched with great interest the Oct.24 City Council Study Session, where several methods of dealing with traffic flow in our city were presented. While these efforts are appreciated, whatever happened to the Corona del Mar bypass?

When Newport Coast Drive was completed in 1992, the traffic through CdM decreased significantly. Four years later, when the 73 Toll Road was completed and the free route to and from the 73 Freeway was replaced with a toll, traffic returned to CdM.

Creating awareness of alternate routes to and from areas inland will certainly improve traffic through CdM. To accelerate this process, the bypass effort should be organized into two separate phases, the first is one that enacts measures the city can employ now and independent of other public agencies.

These would include real-time traffic monitoring and messaging to alert Coast Highway-bound traffic. A second parallel effort would be working with other public agencies to facilitate a broader and more effective bypass. This would include the Transportation Corridor Agency, the city of Irvine and traffic solutions surrounding the drop-off and pick-up of students at Sage Hill High School.

Local leadership is needed to implement these quality-of-life improvements now.

As we plan for Mariner’s Mile, we must be certain that we support local businesses and residents and not turn this stretch of highway into a wide thoroughfare with added automotive traffic lanes. It is also important that we work with our neighbors in Costa Mesa to reduce the impact of the termination of the 55 Freeway on both of our cities, particularly cut-through traffic on our residential streets.

Now is the time to plan for autonomous vehicles and the impact of home delivery and shared ride services, such as Uber and Lyft. For example, how do we prevent double parking for pickups that stall overall traffic movement, and how will the demand for parking be reduced in a shared economy?

Under the leadership of Tony Petros, the council made several major investments in bicycle safety and improved traffic flow, but these seem to have fallen in priority.

The key to addressing both our traffic issues and the need for better managed parking is the upcoming revision of the General Plan. As a council member, my position on the General Plan will be focused on how we reduce the impact of traffic, better provide for parking and use the General Plan to improve our quality of life. This will not happen if our City Council is not committed to putting residents first.

Michael Toerge

District 6 Candidate for City Council.

Newport Beach

Banning project went further than it should have

Re. “Newport council to nullify Banning Ranch approvals,” (Nov. 25): I am still upset that this project got as far as it did with the local powers that be.

Unless you benefited financially or politically, this project was a nightmare for the Newport-Costa Mesa coastal communities and adjacent southeastern Huntington Beach. The negative impacts were too numerous to mention.

Environmentalists opposed it. Citizens opposed it. Traffic planners opposed it. The increase in density was off the charts. The increase in traffic radiating out from the project was off the charts. The need for new infrastructure was off the charts.

Looking out over the area, it was like anticipating the environmental carnage in the movie “Avatar,” should developers get their way. It is time that local politicians listen to their constituents and their misgivings regarding developer assaults on residential quality of life. The Banning Ranch project was only the biggest recent one.

Tim Geddes

Huntington Beach

Jazz showcase coverage sounds great

Thanks for the piece “Jazz trio will showcase a track full of surprises,” (TimesOC, Nov. 19), and its position and prominence. It sent to the show four regular fans who didn’t see my promo emails, plus 12 others who came who never heard about me or my players and sought me out at the intermission or after the show to tell me they came because they read your article in the Sunday morning insert.

There may have been others who didn’t talk to me. Lucky for the show they were all early risers (some called before 10 a.m. for reservations). We’re booked back in to the Rec Room in Huntington Beach again from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sundays Jan. 7 and Feb. 4. If the Rec Room and I are mutually satisfied with those shows we may become a first Sunday of the month series at that venue.

Mark Davidson

Santa Ana

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