City to revisit traffic calming tonight

Tim Willert

After much debate and study and even more delay, the City Council

is scheduled to tackle Phase II of the city’s traffic-calming master

plan for the Mountain/Rossmoyne area tonight.

The council will consider removing seven temporary traffic

circles, installing 23 speed lumps, retaining 10 existing speed humps

and raising painted medians to slow traffic speeds in the area

bordered by Brand Boulevard, Mountain Street, Glendale Avenue and

Monterey Road.

“I am for protecting residential neighborhoods throughout this

city,” Councilman Frank Quintero said Friday. “There are numerous

neighborhoods that are impacted by cut-through traffic and parking.”

For eight years, traffic-calming proposals have been a bone of

contention among residents, including the Rossmoyne/Mountain

Homeowners Assn.

The association requested the raised medians and speed humps

during a May 8 meeting with traffic engineers and other city staff

members.

Association member Jim Weling, who lives in the 800 block of East

Mountain, supports the recommended plan.

“If the city would have ever done it correctly in the first place,

we wouldn’t have all this nonsense,” said Weling, who heads up

traffic and transportation for the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating

Council. “The major problem is you’ve got a group of people who no

matter what is proposed, they [dislike],” Weling added.

Speed lumps contain strategically placed gaps or openings and are

designed to reduce the speed of most vehicles, but not significantly

delay the response time of emergency vehicles such as ambulances,

fire trucks and fire engines.

City staffers and the Glendale Fire Department field tested the

lumps on May 30 on a seldom-used portion of Stancrest Drive, and the

results were positive, according to a staff report.

The item was set for council consideration June 18, but was

scratched from the agenda so traffic department staffers could

further research alternatives. It marked the latest in a long line of

delays that Quintero said has reached eight years.