The latest: The 10-week, 24/7 lane closures we warned you about last week just got shorter!
The plan now is to devote the next 2 ½ weeks to constructing the new signal just east of the hospital building.
The latest: The 10-week, 24/7 lane closures we warned you about last week just got shorter!
The plan now is to devote the next 2 ½ weeks to constructing the new signal just east of the hospital building.
After that, Katella’s two center lanes will be closed for seven weeks 24/7 to allow for the demolition and reconstruction of the center median.
Kudos to the contractor and city staffers for their ongoing efforts to reduce the impact of the construction. Additional steps that could further reduce construction gridlock are discussed near the end of this article.
Lessons for next time: rebuilding of the Katella/605 interchange is being planned even as you’re reading this. So is adding at least one lane to the 405. And the medical center expansion has two more phases to go.
So, here are a few thoughts on how to reduce traffic congestion from future projects:
1. Limit non-emergency lane closures on Katella and Los Alamitos/Seal Beach Blvd. to non-peak hours or non-school days for Los Alamitos’ five public schools. This already is Los Alamitos’ unwritten policy for smaller projects.
Perhaps it’s time for Los Alamitos City Council to consider a written policy restricting all non-emergency overnight lane closures to weekends, pupil free days, school holidays, and summer, winter, and spring breaks. Exceptions would have to be authorized by the traffic commission or city council, after a public hearing.
That would force a public discussion in advance and put control in the hands of local residents.
2. Requiring at least two shifts daily for lane closures extending over more than one weekend. The shifts might need to overlap some to avoid excessive noise in some cases. Again, exceptions could be granted by either the city council or traffic commission. If Seal Beach had this requirement in place, the many months of one-lane gridlock required for the 405 bridge construction could have been cut in half.
3. Involve local residents and businesses early in the planning phase of any major construction that will significantly affect traffic in Los Alamitos.
A construction “traffic control plan” was required for the current construction, and was approved by the city’s traffic engineer last August, with no input from the city council or traffic commission.
In fact, the first our city council heard of the seven weeks of 24/7 lane closures was just eleven days before the closures were to begin! Council Members Dean Grose, Warren Kusumoto and Richard Murphy, all former traffic commission members, had serious concerns about the extended gridlock. There would have been much more flexibility if their concerns had been heard last summer, when our traffic engineer was reviewing the construction traffic management plan.
The first the traffic commission heard of the coming closures was in mid February. Even then, it was not as an agendized item for discussion but a “report” not specifically on the agenda. In other words, neither local residents nor the commissioners would have know about the coming lane closures even if they read over the commission’s Agenda.
Of course our staff professionals need to review these matters, but they don’t live here, and some of them don’t even work here. Our traffic engineering firm is based in Tustin. There is no substitute for the input of local residents early in the planning process.
Still not too late?
It may not be too late to apply some of these ideas to the coming Katella lane closures. Specifically, the seven weeks could be cut in half if the contractors worked two shifts during the lane closure weeks. I’m told by city staff that Alamitos West and Katella Manor are fine with even 24 hour a day shifts..
As another option, pushing the start of the lane closures back eight weeks to Monday, June 9 would begin the lane closures after our schools had begun summer vacation. That might require some modification of occupancy deadlines, but it might be worth it.
With staff professionals and local residents and businesses working together and supplying input, we can mitigate traffic better on future projects.
As I used to say, before the blog’s name was changed, “Working together, we can fix Los Al!”
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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.
