Sep
3
Major changes on Katella, Los Al Bl on Tuesday’s Council Agenda
Filed Under 2010 Issues, City Council Meetings
(Los Alamitos, 9/3/2010) Another interesting assortment of issues from pawnbrokers to dog license fees face our Council this coming Tuesday at 7, but the most significant is an aggressive plan to fast-track major changes suggested by SKAG’s Compass study on our Katella and Los Alamitos corridors.
My questions are:
- Is this what we really need on our most congested arteries?
- Is enough time allowed for “public outreach?”
- Why the dramatic push to hurry this through, especially compared to the Council’s animosity to the Planning Commission’s desire to expedite a commercial overlay and building moratorium on these same two streets over a year ago?
Are these your goals?
The Compass Study’s six project goals included
the following four:
- Create a central, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly place for those who live, work, learn, and shop in Los Alamitos.
- Create a reason for people to turn left or right from Katella Ave. onto Los Alamitos Blvd.
- Develop strategies for the reuse of key commercial centers and other underutilized parcels and incentivize lot consolidation.
- Maximize the multimodal nature of the corridors and capitalize on future BRT [Bus Rapid Transit] investments.
In other words, the Compass program is focused on getting people out of their cars and onto the sidewalk, bus, or bikes.
I’m all in favor of walking and biking, but I’ve tried going places on our “Express Bus” down Katella, and my experience wasn’t nearly as positive those of my friend & the News Enterprise Editor Brian Smith’s. I think pigs will be flying over Katella before we get the majority of the people driving down it into busses.
I’m not saying it might not be a good idea in theory, I’m just saying it ain’t gonna happen. A monorail down the middle of Katella might work.
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s famous put-down of Dan Quayle’s comparison of himself to JFK, I rode on the OCTD Bus, I know the OCTD Bus, the OCTD Bus was a friend of mine, and the OCTD Bus ain’t no monorail! And, FYI, people shopping at Costco or bypassing the 605/405 interchange ain’t gonna hop in a bus to get there!
Frankly, I think the money would be better spent on finding ways to turn lead into gold.
Advertisement:
Are these your desires?
To achieve their goals, the Compass study proposes radical changes on both our major streets. The results look beautiful–just check out the sketches on pages 2 & 3 of the Staff Report on Downtown Revitalization Timing.
But they look beautiful on a quiet back road through a small village–not for the road thousands of cars are forced to travel daily to get to freeways, school, work, home, and shopping.
What are some of these changes?
- Reduce the width of Los Al Blvd. north of Katella from about 115 feet to 57 feet (curb-to-curb)
- Reduce parking along Los Al Blvd.
- Add curves to Los Al Blvd.
- Expand sidewalks and parkways from to as much as 47 feet.
To me, that sounds lovely, but those changes doesn’t make sense on the Los Al Blvd. I drive down every day. A street where at rush hour it routinely takes three two minutes signal cycles to get through the 6th busiest intersection in Orange County. They don’t make sense on streets that the OCTD already rightly considers in gridlock.
That’s just my opinion–I’ll be interested to learn yours in the comment section below.
Is this your timeline?
The proposed timeline would have the project ready for construction by next August. The initial period for “public outreach” concludes in just four weeks! (See Staff Report on Downtown Revitalization Timing, pages 4 & 5, along with the Project Timeline.)
Now there is a second phase for additional public outreach right around Christmas time and New Years, when we’ve all got lots of extra time on our hands (?), but that’s after the “conceptual design phase.”
And the “Public Outreach ends mid January, while presentation of the final design to business owners continues intermittently through June 2011. I don’t have a problem with businesses getting plenty of time to study this, I just think the local residents (and voters!) should enjoy that same luxury.
There’s lots more that could be said, but I’ve said enough. The real question is, “What do you think?”
I’ve probably got some things wrong, and there are many other points of view, so please make your voice heard through a comment below. Use either of our two “share” icons to invite your friends to join the conversation. (Hover your mouse over both icons to compare the options.)
I hope to get up a post on the pawnbrokers and dog license fees over the course of the weekend, but you can click here for the full Tuesday, 9/7 Council Agenda, along with links to all the staff reports and attachments.
You’ve been doing an excellent job of keeping your comments mostly focused on the issues, diplomatic (or at least civil), and of using family friendly language.
Keep it up!
Related posts:
- SCAG Vision for Katella & Los Al Blvds on Monday Council Agenda
- Los Alamitos needs your input on Katella/Los Al Blvd. study
- 2010 Council priorities, new city engineer, trash bid on Los Al City Council’s Tuesday agenda
- Lexington & Los Al Blvds, & left turn into 24 hour fitness on Monday Council Agenda
Comments
5 Responses to “Major changes on Katella, Los Al Bl on Tuesday’s Council Agenda”
Leave a Reply
What is most of the traffic on Katella doing?
Passing through.
We are the way to and from the freeway, and that’s all.
Since we can’t change that, then the only question is “How do we get those people to stop and drop their money here on the way through?”
The answer to that is retail. The answer to that is to make Katella a destination. That will take forethought and planning. That will take community input with great ideas coming from unknown and unlikely places.
Now, when was the last time there was a city-wide forum where people could propose ideas to the City?
The last time that we had a city-wide meeting the LA County Sheriff was looking at basing their helicopter fleet in the JFTB.
There seems to be a need by many to create a “vibrant downtown”. Fine. Put in a pier and we can create Seal Beach’s Main Street. But without a beach or a pier to come to, we are at a loss. Maybe we can make a quaint place like Second Street… on the 6th busiest corner in Orange County?
Let’s start dealing with reality rather than the fantasy of a quaint downtown. The reality is that the only piece of contiguous property in Los Alamitos that is large enough to support a parking structure and retail development is the LAMC (which isn’t going to rezone) or is currently zoned industrial (or is the cities largest park).
Since we aren’t about to rezone our only major green space to retail, and since the LAMC is attempting to expand, that leaves one primary alternative, the rezone of the industrial property to commercial retail and then waiting for Arrowhead Products to decide that they want to sell it because it has more value sold than as industrial.
The price for 50 years of city councils taking short term planning strategy is the price we pay for the piecemeal zoning mess we have today. More of the same is not acceptable unless your goal is to create the slum of the SuperCity.
Wow! Ok, so if people don’t want to travel anywhere near Los Al and Katella because of these changes, where will they go?
My answer seems clear: not on their bikes or on foot but rather zooming through the neighborhoods to avoid that intersection.
You know, I’ve seen smaller towns have their own bus system. Does anyone know if that really works? Having two small home town buses that go up and down Katella and Los Al in the morning before school and through the night til about 9pm sounds wonderful.
It STOPS in the Vons lot at ghanal and the high school. On Katella it stops at paullys, bloomfield, Lexington, Gourmet Cafe with a loop at Costco, Laurel Park, Starbucks and finally City Hall.
Ok, half serious here but Ive seen these small inter city buses before.
Call it the LAB/CAB
Los Al Bus
It’s green
It’s local
It’s affordable
It’s convenient
It helps seniors (It’s a senior Program)
-maybe federally funded
The whole idea of renovating Los Al Blvd. is ridiculous. It’s going to be one of the biggest mistakes yet made by our city council. I don’t even want to think about the headache we are facing. “Traffic Flow” is right, cars will be zooming through the neighborhoods instead, myself included.
But I don’t believe having a city bus will affect the overall traffic flow through town because those that will take the bus, already are on the bus. No student will suddenly decide he wants to ditch his/her car to take the new bus.
You are probably right…what young kids today would ever give up their new Beemer from mom and dad to ride a bus.