Raised medians will be the scene for residents driving down Los Alamitos Blvd. as early as next year.
Preliminary designs, a budget and schedule for an improvement project on the boulevard were presented during a special city council meeting on May 2.
Off the bat, the improvement project looks to be a way for the city to increase safety for both motorists and pedestrians on the boulevard as well as increasing the visual appeal of one the most traffic-ridden streets in Los Al.
The visual appeal is something that Councilmember Troy Edgar said as being important for the overall theme of the project.
“Economic development has always been the theme for this project,” said Edgar at the meeting. “We are starting to look dated.”
Mayor Richard Murphy agreed with Edgar that the project would help attract customers to local businesses on the boulevard as well as attract new businesses.
The current “scramble,” as Los Al’s Development Services Director Steven Mendoza put it, on the boulevard currently makes it difficult, and at times dangerous, to visit businesses.
Fourteen different turning movements were found through a study by city engineers to be currently possible on the boulevard. That number includes both turning on and off the boulevard between Catalina St. and Serpentine Dr.
“Raised medians can significantly reduce the complexity of Los Alamitos Blvd. by assuring that traffic moves in a direction that is predictable,” reads the May 2 city staff report.
The project’s design attempts to reduce the chaos of cars turning on the boulevard by including the construction of left turn lanes into the medians at various intersections.
Pedestrian safety was also kept in mind as the project includes the development of offset crosswalks, which forces pedestrians to cross the street one direction of traffic at a time due to its design.
Also, signage inviting visitors to local businesses and dining establishments is planned to be on display on the new medians according to the plan.
“It will bring more pride to the city,” said Councilmember Dean Grose at the meeting.
In total the plan is expected to cost about $2.5 million.
The project is currently split up into three segments.
Segment 1 spans from Katella Ave. to Cerritos Ave. Segment 2 spans from Cerritos Ave. to Los Al’s northern boundary. Segment 3 spans from Farquhar to Katella Ave.
At the meeting, the city council provided direction to move forward with the first segment of the project.
Los Al’s next step for the improvement plan is preparing public outreach materials for segment one and then presenting it to the public in an open house format. The open house was planned for June 6.
A timeline provided with the project says Los Al is planning on finishing its public outreach materials and presentation by July. Then for the next four months would be a public review period until November.
Given that everything is approved and stays on the same timeline, residents can expect outreach about construction on the boulevard to begin by the end of this year.
According to the timeline, construction of the new raised medians in segment one could begin as early as February 2017.
