It sounds like a bad sequel. You laughed through two weekends of “Car-mageddon” in West L.A. You cried through two years of “Bridge-mageddon” on Seal Beach Blvd. Now the comedy, the tragedy, the gridlock is coming to the heart of your community.
Yes, it’s time for “Kat-mageddon, ten weeks of cruel and outrageous insanity as dual lane closures on Katella go into effect 24/7 starting tomorrow morning.
Consider this article your personal cheat sheet on exactly what’s going on, what could change, how to survive or even benefit from the craziness, and how we might be able to minimize these construction nightmares in the future.
Exactly what’s going on?
Actually, with some conflicting statements from officials and a flurry of changes and rumors, it’s hard to say for sure, but here’s my summary of what the project website said as of Monday.
A 10-week closure of one lane in each direction is planned for Katella Avenue, where it passes the Los Alamitos Medical Center campus (from Bloomfield west to Cherry). Lane closures will start after morning rush hour tomorrow on Thursday, March 27. The # 1 lanes (the so-called “fast” lanes) will remain closed 24/7 for a little over ten weeks, through Friday, June 6.
The closure will enable the Medical Center’s contractor to remove and rebuild the existing median, just ten years after it was built, in order to:
1. Prohibit left turns into or out of Maple where it dead-ends into the LAMC’s brick medical building.
2. Add a signal and larger left turn pocket on Katella at Kaylor (just east of the hospital itself).
3. Add a new left-turn pocket into a new driveway between the new Medical Office Building currently under construction and the LAMC’s Total Care Pavilion (formerly the French Alzheimer’s facility).
What might still change?
1. There is a last-minute push to keep three lanes open during the construction by temporarily eliminating parking on both sides of Katella, and curving all three lanes to the right on each side. That idea was initially rejected by the City’s Traffic Engineer because of concerns about speeding traffic coming too close to pedestrians. So the original proposal was revised to only restrict parking during rush hours, when nobody is speeding down Katella, and possibly close off the curbside lane when traffic is moving faster.
2. Several proposals have been made to shorten the duration of the lane closures by hiring additional workers, adding a second or third shift, and/or working weekends. The last I heard, the contractor was considering using some of those approaches with the landscapers to modestly shorten the duration. I’m told the Alamitos West facility on the south side of Katella does not object to 24 hour work, and last time I checked nobody was sleeping overnight in the doctor’s offices that line the north side of Katella.
3. Completion time in any construction is only an estimate. Weather, labor stoppages, or supply problems are all among the factors that could delay completion.
How to deal with it, or even benefit from it:
1. Avoid Katella between Los Alamitos Blvd. and Lexington through June 6, at least during peak traffic hours.
2. The City website recommends Cerritos Ave. as an alternate, but do not attempt that on school mornings between 7:20 a.m. and 8 a.m., when gridlock already exists around Los Al High (Cerritos & Los Al Blvd.) April 9, 23, and 30 are “late start Wednesdays,” when the gridlock comes later, from 8 – 9 a.m. School is out from 4/12-21 for Spring Break, which should also give us all a break from some of the gridlock.
3. Depending on where you are and where you’re going, Lampson, Ball/Spring and Lincoln/Carson could be better alternatives than Cerritos/Spring.
4. Try to avoid cutting through residential neighborhoods to avoid traffic. This gives us all a great opportunity to work on our “Golden Rule” skills. Think about how you would feel if all that traffic from Katella was streaming through your neighborhood. Those neighborhoods includes Farquhar, which was never designed as an artery and is lined by residences, ball fields and a park. It’s also the only way in and out of some neighborhoods, and is already gridlocked at the west end during rush hour.
5. This is a great opportunity to learn the money saving and time saving habits of consolidating or eliminating trips. Or try walking, biking, skateboard, scooter or bus. The MapMyRun app will tell you exactly how many calories you burn by walking, biking, skating or running. And Google maps will give you precise directions for taking the bus anywhere.
6. Delay your travel to off peak hours or weekends. What a great excuse to ask your boss if you could try shifting to a four-day, 10-hour work week, or even telecommute a day or two each week.
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Dave Emerson is a Los Alamitos resident and the Los Alamitos Traffic Commission 2014 Chairperson and editor of the LosAlNews.com blog.
