School loop road will go to council amid din

Marisa O’Neil

The debate about a loop road proposed to ease traffic problems at

Newport Coast Elementary School continued Monday, the eve before City

Council members will make a decision on its future.

At the meeting organized by city officials, parents and homeowners

in the area voiced their concerns for safety, traffic, pollution and

property values around the school, where they said chaos ensues at

pick-up and drop-off times. City council members will tonight vote

whether to accept a bid that would allow work to start on the road

next month and finish by Labor Day.

The item was continued from the June 8 council meeting to give

residents and city officials more time to explore other options. It’s

likely the council will vote to go ahead with the plan unless

residents are as vociferous with their opinions at tonight’s meeting

as they were Monday, Councilman Dick Nichols said.

“They want it to go ahead,” Nichols said of the City Council. “It

has a majority of people [supporting it]. If people don’t show up,

they won’t look at anything else.”

The city explored a variety of options, including placing a signal

at the school’s entrance on Ridge Park Road, prohibiting left turns

into the school and creating a left turn lane on busy Newport Coast

Drive, Public Works Director Steve Badum said. None but the loop road

proved feasible, he said.

The proposed road would run 1,100 feet from northbound Newport

Coast Drive, around the school’s playground and dump out into the

parking lot. It would be 20 feet wide with a sidewalk for parents to

drop students off if they choose not to wait in the queue and would

only be open for pick-up and drop-off times, about 90 minutes a day.

Some homeowners in the Tesoro gated community, which sits on a

ridge above the school and proposed road, worried that increased

noise, pollution and the sight of the road would decrease property

values.

One home in the community just sold for $1.7 million, resident

Mike Sheehan said. Sheehan lives in Tesoro and has a child who

attends the school but is opposed to the proposed road.

“I don’t think we’ve tried hard enough to operationalize and

enforce the rules,” he said of the current traffic problems.

Parents complained that traffic queues are so long, school buses

are sometimes late, and some people drop their children off across

the street. That creates more traffic problems and lots of

near-misses with children, cars and construction traffic speeding

down Ridge Park Road.

“Until you’ve got a physical change in the school site, all the

cops in the world can’t change the situation,” Newport Beach Police

Chief Bob McDonell said.

Tesoro resident Gary Pollard, who does not have a child at the

school, argued that the traffic around the school creates a greater

detriment to property values than a loop road would.

“This isn’t the best solution; it’s the only solution,” he said.

Newport Coast resident and parent Jean Donnelly said that if done

right, the road would be a good solution and create no more noise for

homeowners than the school bells and children playing on the field.

“If we could control the loop road and respect the homeowners, it

would work,” she said. “I don’t want to see a kid get killed, and

it’s this close to happening.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.