Jun
8
Banned on Lampson? 7,500 pound Ford 2001 F-250 4 x 4
(6/8/09) According to a Register online report earlier today, tonight the Seal Beach City Council will consider a proposal to ban all trucks heavier than 6,000 pounds from traveling down Lampson.
This is part of the ongoing angst of some College Park East residents about the Joint Forces Training Base’s pilot Green Waste Recycling Program. Specifically, some residents object to Base Commanding Officer General Combs’ plans for trucks carrying the greenwaste to access the Base via Lampson.
These CPE residents object to the planned 12 trucks a day traveling one way on the northernmost lanes of Lampson to enter and exit the Base in the vicinity of Arbor Park.
Advertisement:
Since most trash trucks fully loaded weigh over 26,000 pounds (13 tons), the proposal would seem to put an end to the most direct route from Huntington Beach, where the green waste is largely coming from, to the recycling plot near the center of the Base.
Recycling truck passing Rossmoor Highlands back yards.
Instead, trucks would have to continue circling around the Base to enter at the main entrance south of Katella on Lexington, then drive the perimiter of the base on a narrow road that runs directly behind Los Alamitos’ Rossmoor Highlands tract. Disgruntled CPE homeowners would prefer to see each truck make two trips (coming & going) directly behind Los Alamitos’ back yards rather than one trip 3 lanes of traffic away from their CPE back yard.
Judging by the response on this blog to our post, “The eco-general strikes back,” most who attended General Combs detailed public meeting left sympathetic to the General’s plan to help sustain the base and improve the environment simultaneously.
Unfortunately, it appears that our original concerns about the program may be coming to pass after all (see “Is it Seal Beach vs. Los Al?“)
In the process, it seems like the proposed truck ban would be so extreme as to also ban most full sized quad cab pickups, as well as many RVs. Wonder how many truck or RV driving CPE homeowners feel about that?
I didn’t realize that a “3/4 ton” pickup actually weighs closer to 3 or 4 tons, but that’s what my on-line research seems to indicate, especially if the truck is a quad cab or has 4 wheel drive.
Advertisement:
Should be an interesting meeting at Seal Beach city hall tonight.
Comments
12 Responses to “Seal Beach City Council to ban larger pickups from Lampson?”
Leave a Reply
Me, I’m gonna sit there on Friday afternoon and call in every RV that goes down the street. We all know people in CPE who have RV’s. This is going to be fun!
NIMBY has consequences.
And for the record, the SB police department can not decide to enforce the law for “trucks” going to the base and then not enforce the law for RVs going into CPE.
Hey, I wonder how Cypress would like it if Los Al decided to make a similar rule for Katella. :-)
Hmm, make them go up Valley View to Cerritos. Turn left on Cerritos. Go to Lexington, turn left to the base… whoops, can’t do that, can’t go straight at Lexington and Katella. Hmmm, down Bloomfield to Farquar and then Farquar to the base.
Then maybe we could get Garden Grove to stop trucks on Valley View. Now it gets real fun. :-)
Hey, I understand where you CPE residents are coming from. When I moved in off Katella I had a golf course across the street and up the street were a bunch of strawberry fields. Now I have Costco trucks (so much for the deal that Cypress promised that they wouldn’t go down Katella) Shaw Carpet Trucks and more. It’s called progress and it changes your quality of life. At least you already have a wall, we had to fight city hall to get one to protect houses that were less than 30 feet away (with a 3 inch curb and half dead vegetation as protection) from trucks sometimes traveling at over 50 MPH.
15 years ago, at night, I would be able to stand on my doorstep and listen to the crickets from across the way. Tonight I went out to enjoy my cigar to the sounds of ten trucks at 11:30 PM (I counted tonight just for this post).
So, while I understand that you may have a minor loss in the “quality of life” you are going to experience, it ain’t nothing compared to what many of us have had to live with. And while yours is for the benefit of the community (the JFTB will see substantial benefits) those of us to the north have made the sacrifice of our quality of life for absolutely nothing (except Cypress growing revenues).
The weight limit has always been in the books in Seal Beach, as was stated by the city attorney in Seal Beach’s council meeting tonight. All the council did tonight was vote and pass “Resolution 5884, directing the City Engineer to post all the signs necessary to indicate that vehicles exceeding a maximum gross weight of 3 tons are prohibited on Lampson Avenue.” The city attorney said this excludes trucks that are normally in the neighborhood.
From my understanding, that would include delivery trucks, garbage trucks, large SUV, motor home, etc., which are already included in this existing ordinance before tonight.
This issue of where the trucks need to be delivered is not over, by any means. I am sure the coordination will still be as the General stated at the May 26th meeting. He will still have to coordinate with Seal Beach and Los Alamitos about these deliveries. The only difference is, he can’t do it with semi trucks 50 feet ong like he planned, at least not in Seal Beach. Lampson Avenue has never been a commercial truck delivery route, and never will be. It’s not about “spoiled” like some have implied on other blogs, it’s about the facts of the road and how it’s built. It’s not built for those type of trucks, and never will be.
I must agree with Seal Beach on this one, Lampson – between Valley View and Seal Beach Blvd. is a two lane winding road that is flanked on both sides by mostly residential area, I know of at least two deaths in 12 months on Lampson due to it’s terrible design. It is just not a street to be used for anything other than getting to and from one’s home. I know the base is trying to do something good but getting to it from Lampson is just not a good idea, it is only a matter of time until a truck is pulling into the base and a speeding car comes around a bend………another fatality. Lampson is not Katella or even Cerritos for that matter it is a traffic engineering error, look at all the trees in the median, each one of them has the scars of being hit by vehicles, accidents are common, speeding is common….now we throw in semi’s its just a bad idea.
Below is an article about another base that is trying to stay alive by partnering with Waste Management/Chevron. If the JFTB is to remain open it must find ways to support itself. If the surrounding neighborhoods don’t want to be part of the solution then maybe it is time for the JFTB to go away. The compost project is a small one, but could lead to bigger projects.
This is something to think about CPE. What would you rather have on the JFTB land in the form of development?
Monday, June 8, 2009
District hopes to find more waste-to-energy solutions
By Bryon Saxton
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
bsaxton@standard.net
LAYTON — The Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District has a new team member in a fact-finding mission to determine if there are ways to get more renewable energy out of its waste incinerator plant.
The district board recently approved a “teaming agreement” with Chevron Energy Solutions Company. The parties are discussing the potential development and enhancement of the energy recovery facility in benefitting the district, as well as those it serves in the Davis and Morgan counties area.
The district’s largest single customer is Hill Air Force Base, which currently receives steam energy the plant generates by burning garbage.
The purpose of the agreement is to review current waste-to-energy operations and explore additional solutions that may be available to utilize the solid waste that is currently diverted to the landfill in Layton, said Juliet Don, manager of media and public relations for Chevron Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of Chevron.
Chevron will present its study findings to the district by year-end of 2010, Don said.
“We really believe to meet the world’s demand for energy, it is going to take every molecule,” she said.
The agreement will have the two groups working to identify potential projects that will provide renewable energy to the state and to district customers, District Executive Director Nathan Rich said.
To identify projects takes time and expense, Rich said, making Chevron a great partner where they have the resources and experience to help.
“The agreement does not nail down a lot, other than willingness to work together,” he said.
One customer, however, that may benefit greatly from the concept is Hill Air Force Base. It is already receiving from the district steam energy that is piped to the base for heating and cleaning.
“This is about providing the base a pure energy supply that will allow them to bring more missions to the base,” Rich said.
The district has been talking with Chevron for years about searching for renewable energy sources, and of late the stars aligned, he said.
“I think we make a great team.”
The type of pure energy the team is looking for is the kind that would allow the base to be functional in the event of a power outage.
“They want to be able to run their operations even if Rocky Mountain Power for some reason cannot provide them energy.”
Having that type of energy source, would make the base “BRAC-proof,” he said, referring to the Base Realignment and Closure committee which periodically reviews military bases for closure.
Having a secure and sustainable source of clean energy will also meet anticipated future federal mandates that will be asked of entities providing energy, Rich said.
At this time the team is not pitching a project. But the agreement does set into place the ability for the team to move forward in developing one.
Davis County Commissioner John Petroff Jr. said the two groups were brought together by having a mutual interest in the base. There has never been any discussion about money, “Just whether it would make sense for the two of them to team together.”
Yea…I guess it makes a lot more sense to have 130 semi trucks a week on Lexington than Lampson.
Lots of interesting discussion here. Thanks to all for joining in, & keeping it relatively similar.
We have a regional traffic problem, with two huge Military Bases which will most likely be developed into something else over the next 40 years.
It’s going to take some serious analysis and working together to end up with a West Orange County that makes sense, rather than excabration of the existing insane patchwork by further Balkinization of our part of the OC.
Maybe a coordinated “super city” would work best, but based on the way CPE has been treated in the past by the rest of Seal Beach, I’m not sure that’s the answer either. It may well be worth exploring.
Ongoing municipal warfare isn’t the solution. Somehow Los Al always seems to end up on the losing end.
Sell high and move!
Somehow I don’t feel a multi-ton vehicle run by an untrained operator is somehow safer than a multi-ton vehicle run by a trained operator. But those CPE residents with RV’s don’t see any problems.
When I was in college I got a part-time job as a school bus driver. I had to be special trained before I could be licensed. I had to get special trained for “livery” before I could do that. I need a special license to drive a motorcycle. But any yahoo who can afford to rent one can drive a multi-ton vehicle that averages over twice the length of the largest passenger vehicle that their license is supposed to cover.
And those are safe on Lampson and trained multi-ton vehicle drivers are not?
Am I the only one who sees this sad passion play for what it is? A farce. This is not about safety. If it was no RV would be allowed anywhere near Lampson.
Sounds like the police in Seal Beach need to do a better job of catching speeders down Lampson to prevent accidents and deaths. I would be willing to bet money, that the drivers of the 50′ trucks used by Rainbow Disposal have excelent driving records and very few accidents.
What if the General has all the compost delivered using trash trucks. Would that save lives? Would that keep the speeders from crashing their cars? Does anyone know if there are more or less accidents on Katella than Lampson?
The reason drivers speed on Lampson is because there is no traffic. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is there is no traffic.
Try speeding on Katella, can’t do it because there is too much traffic on Katella.
I think everyone should avoid Katella and start traveling down Lampson AMAP. Also Cerritos is a road less traveled. :)
Save SB from too much death, clog up Lampson
so crasers can’t drive!!
Don’t miss General Combs class response me-first NIMBYs in A true hero, Gen. Combs soldiers on.