Road Improvements May Finally Tame the Mixmaster

Longtime residents and workers on the Eastside haven’t got anything good to say about the seven-pronged intersection where Atlantic Boulevard crosses the Santa Ana Freeway in the city of Commerce.

“A nightmare,” said Ester Munoz, a 25-year resident of East Los Angeles. “Confusing,” said longtime Commerce resident Eva Long. “I’ve never been in a blender,” said Commerce City Hall worker Brian Wolfson, “but it’s gotta be similar to an experience you’d have in a blender.”

They refer to that despised stretch as the Mixmaster, an utterly confusing thoroughfare from which nobody can seem to figure out where they’re going or even how they got there.

It’s been that way for years because Atlantic narrowed underneath an old railroad bridge as it intersected at various points in the stretch with Eastern Avenue, Telegraph Road, Goodrich Boulevard, Ferguson Drive, Stevens Place, Triggs Street and the freeway. The result resembled a seven-legged octopus--if there were such a thing.

Drivers were prevented from making some turns because of the divided roadway, causing tie-ups. There weren’t enough street signs to help the confused. Some motorists, for example, couldn’t even find Triggs because of the intersection’s unusual alignment.

Some 50,000 vehicles, including many big trucks, pass through that stretch of Atlantic on most days--double the amount of any other intersection in the heavily industrialized town of nearly 13,000 residents.

While veteran sheriff’s deputies say the Mixmaster isn’t the most dangerous street on the Eastside, it’s probably the most hated.

“If you can avoid it,” sheriff’s Sgt. Keith Obenberger said, “do so.”

Now, after more than 40 years of complaining, all that is about to change.

A two-year, $25-million project, scheduled to be completed Oct. 30, will improve things, city officials say. Among the improvements is an upgraded rail line over Atlantic, a widening of Atlantic to six lanes in some places and the addition of left-turn lanes so motorists on Atlantic can get to Telegraph. In addition, new storm drains, curbs, gutters, retaining walls, street lighting and traffic signals will be installed.

The locals are already salivating at the anticipated improved traffic flow.

“Finally!” exclaimed Armando Gomez of Bell Gardens. “I can’t wait to go through on Telegraph.” For Gomez, going east on Telegraph from East L.A. is important because he’ll save time getting to his favorite spot for leisure in Commerce--the town’s casino.

“I can’t believe that I wasted all that time in that damned bottleneck,” Gomez said. “I could have been in the casino winning money.”

Such tales about the traffic seem endless.

Some on Atlantic or Goodrich got flustered because they couldn’t get to Telegraph because no left-hand turns were allowed. Right-hand turns onto Telegraph weren’t that easy either, because of all the merging lanes.

Still others--determined to go east on Telegraph--learned to negotiate a tricky set of turns from Atlantic, Eastern and Stevens Place.

Some truckers tried to negotiate Atlantic’s narrow lanes underneath the aging railroad bridge or turned around, resulting in mile-long lines of vehicles.

Drivers wanting to go north on Eastern sometimes couldn’t find the street on the north side of the mixed-up intersection. Only the savvy knew that Eastern did continue north--from Telegraph, a mile west of the Mixmaster.

And Triggs?

Some never found it because Triggs is a small road that goes over the freeway and only connects with the Mixmaster from the west. There’s no street sign on Atlantic to indicate where Triggs is.

Once, one motorist admitted, he hopped on the Santa Ana Freeway and drove to downtown Los Angeles. Then, he reversed course and returned to Commerce to get off at the Triggs exit, arriving where he wanted to be--after a 20-minute detour.

The traffic problems on Atlantic go back to before World War II, when heavy industry began to dominate the area.

Two tire and rubber plants were located there--the U.S. Rubber factory on Telegraph and the B.F. Goodrich complex on Goodrich. The old Simons brickyard also figured in the increasingly heavy traffic.

“There was always a lot of traffic,” remembers Long, 80, a former U.S. Rubber employee who moved into the Commerce area in 1940. “I always had a problem there. I couldn’t get through.”

Built in the early 1950s, the Santa Ana Freeway added to the snarls on Atlantic and to the confusion.

“The sign on the freeway said ‘Eastern,’ but I couldn’t find it when I got off at Atlantic,” said longtime motorist Ralph Ochoa, laughing as he remembered the southbound offramp that serves both streets. “I can laugh now, but I didn’t then.”

Some blue-collar landmarks such as the brickyard disappeared. The Citadel outlet shopping mall replaced the Uniroyal plant, and the Goodrich plant was demolished to make way for the headquarters of the East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU).

But the traffic problems remained.

When livestock shows and fishing tackle and boat shows were staged at the old Great Western Exhibition Center at the south end of the mixed-up intersection, crowds jammed the streets.

After Commerce became a city in 1960, officials investigated ways to finance street improvements. The price tag, however, seemed too high.

Then, several years ago, a deal was struck that allowed Commerce to share the project’s cost with the county (11%), the state (35%) and the federal government (17%). The city is paying for the remaining 37% of the $25-million cost.

For the past two years of construction, motorists on Atlantic have had to deal with mile-long lines and delays of up to 30 minutes to get through. While it hasn’t been easy, they try to remember that traffic will improve in the end.

Longtime resident Raquel Arriaga, who is Commerce’s mayor, recently had a dinner meeting at Tamayo restaurant, which is across Goodrich from the TELACU headquarters. Normally, it would have been a one-mile ride for Arriaga on Atlantic and Goodrich, even on a hectic day.

Instead, Atlantic was closed, forcing Arriaga to take a five-mile detour on Telegraph, Garfield Avenue and Olympic Boulevard to arrive at Tamayo.

“It was a hassle,” the mayor said, “but there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Predictably, not everyone will be happy with the new, improved Mixmaster.

Officials concede that there is a problem with the new street alignment.

Southbound motorists on Goodrich, for example, won’t be allowed to proceed through the intersection on Atlantic and continue south as they had been able to do in the old days.

Instead, under the new plan, Goodrich will dead-end at Atlantic because of a mandatory right-hand turn that will force drivers to turn north on Atlantic; proceeding south will not be possible.

“Hey,” one motorist observed the other day, “why can’t you go south on Goodrich to Atlantic? I don’t want to go north on Atlantic. That’s the direction I came from.”

Welcome to the Mixmaster.