Street-widening project narrowly focused, some say

Deirdre Newman

An environmental report on the potential widening of Newport

Boulevard says the project will have minimal negative effect on the

entrance to the city, but some residents feel the project will not

accomplish the touted benefits.

The proposed project calls for improving the traffic and

pedestrian conditions on Newport Boulevard from 17th to 19th streets

by adding a fourth northbound lane throughout the area and adding a

fourth southbound lane from the end of the Costa Mesa Freeway to the

intersection with Broadway.

In November, the Downtown and Eastside Transportation Ad Hoc

Committee gave its blessing to the widening, although many committee

members had mixed feelings about the project. Tonight, an open house

will be held for residents to comment on the project and the

environmental report.

The report says two on-street parking spaces will be lost with the

widening, and nearby residential neighborhoods might see more traffic

during construction, which will be about five to six months, project

manager Dave Sorge said. In addition to improving traffic, other

pluses promised by the city are decreasing the number of accidents

and promoting a manageable downtown area.

Some residents, like Tom Egan, who was on the ad hoc committee and

is a Newport-Mesa Unified School District board member, said the

project will be a waste of time and money.

“The project would not improve traffic much, but it would cost a

lot of money and deteriorate our downtown,” Egan said.

The prospect of widening Newport Boulevard has been controversial

in the past because some merchants in the area are concerned it will

add to the area’s congestion, thereby deterring shoppers from

frequenting the shops.

Tom Sutro, who was chairman of the committee and is on the board

of directors of the Chamber of Commerce, said better circulation in

the project area will mean more customers.

“Nobody ever likes more traffic, but I feel that widening that

particular area will benefit those people that are just trying to get

from the 55 freeway down to Pacific Coast Highway,” Sutro said.

“It’ll move the traffic quicker, which in turn allows those residents

and people that want to shop at those businesses better access

quicker.”

Egan took issue with some of the other promised benefits of the

widening. While one of them is decreasing delays in the project area,

Egan said the amount of time saved in 2025 would only be one minute

and 47 seconds in the morning and one minute and nine seconds in the

evening. And Egan said the widening would not decrease the number of

accidents because most are from people running red lights, and the

data in the report was collected before red-light cameras were

installed.

Data for the accident rates was culled from April 1999 to 2002,

and the red-light cameras were installed downtown in October 2003.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.