Costa Mesa tepidly backs Gisler Avenue bridge

Alicia Robinson and Dave Brooks

The Orange County Transportation Authority voted Monday to commission

an environmental study and preliminary design of a bridge linking

Gisler Avenue in Costa Mesa with Garfield Avenue in Fountain Valley.

The transportation agency’s board decided Monday to spend $250,000

on study and design work. Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa officials

have long detested the plan for a bridge over the Santa Ana River,

believing it would make their cities dumping grounds for more traffic

without solving congestion problems for anyone.

That position, which led Costa Mesa city officials to oppose

funding for the same study in 2003, hasn’t changed, Costa Mesa City

Manager Allan Roeder said. But the city did give the transportation

agency its blessing to go ahead with the study.

What’s new is that the transportation authority will head the

project rather than Fountain Valley, and the study will be bound by

the same constraints as the earlier Santa Ana River Crossing study,

Roeder said.

That means each of four cities involved -- Costa Mesa, Fountain

Valley, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach -- have to sign off on the

study before the transportation agency could move ahead with any

recommendations.

“We removed our objections so long as we retained a veto in terms

of going the next step, if you will, in terms of doing any kind of

construction,” Roeder said.

Huntington Beach Asst. City Administrator Bill Workman would not

say whether the city would approve study, but remained pessimistic

about the bridges prospectives.

“The city has had long-term opposition to those bridges,” he said.

Surf City is worried that the bridge will produce congestion

problems locally, while diverting retail traffic, and subsequent

sales tax revenues, to other municipalities. In August 2003, the City

Council unanimously voted to oppose the bridge.

Huntington Beach City Councilwoman Debbie Cook said the issue is

on the table because Fountain Valley refuses to remove the bridge

from the long-term traffic master plan.

“Maybe if this study comes back and shows that it won’t change

traffic, it will demonstrate to Fountain Valley that the bridge will

really have no beneficial impact,” she said.

Fountain Valley officials are pleased with the possibility for

approval to study the bridge, which they believe will provide relief

from pass-through traffic clogging their streets, Public Works

Director Bill Ault said.

“This isn’t building the bridge,” Ault said. “Fountain Valley’s

just interested in getting the information and completing the study,

so we can have more information on which to base our decisions.”

The environmental analysis is likely to take about 18 months,

Roeder said. He expects it to support what Costa Mesa has been saying

all along, that smaller-scale traffic improvements such as new

left-turn lanes will make more sense than a multimillion-dollar

bridge that will just move congestion around, he said.

Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva, who is on the transportation

agency’s board, said officials also will look at alternatives to the

bridge in case it doesn’t work.

“We have bottlenecks, and we have to relieve those wherever we

can,” he said. “My feeling is the [environmental report] will come

out and say what Costa Mesa would like for it to say.”