MAILBAG:Time Warner customer not alone in woes

And I thought I was the only one having trouble with Time Warner.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been on the phone trying to get someone to listen to my problem.

I would be watching a program and suddenly the picture would freeze. Or I had sound and no picture. Or I had nothing!

I was without cable for nearly a week.

It just bolstered me to read Lloyd McDaniel (“Take Time Warner to task for poor service,” July 28) was also having trouble and that I wasn’t the only customer with a bull’s-eye on my name.

Thank goodness I did not go for the phone deal.

ARDY HURST

Banning Ranch won’t use 19th Street bridge

Thank you for publishing Geoff West’s interesting and surprising letter (“Newport should plan for its development traffic,” July 24).

It spanned many issues important to both cities. However, the thrust of the letter missed by a wide mark: it is not Banning Ranch which will use the 19th Street bridge, it is the current and future regional traffic including Costa Mesa traffic traveling to the surf in Huntington Beach.

First, Newport is planning to handle any and all traffic generated by the modest development of Banning Ranch. However, Newport’s newly adopted general plan regards the primary use for the area as open space and supports the active pursuit of Banning Ranch for open space. That is a tall order and may not occur. Nonetheless, most of the area will remain open space and will be enhanced with restored wetlands, and soils and water remediation.

If the environmental community cannot raise sufficient funds to acquire the site, then some limited residential uses likely will occur. The General Plan limits that growth to 1,375 units, 75,000 square feet of commercial uses, and a small hotel. This plan is drastically reduced from the original plan approved by the County of Orange. The newly adopted General Plan will reduce traffic.

And that traffic likely will use streets other than the 19th Street bridge. The newly adopted General Plan provides for improvements along Coast Highway at two new intersections, Bluff Road and 15th Street, both of which will come from Banning Ranch.

The 19th Street bridge is not a traffic improvement for local traffic. It will handle regional traffic to, among other places, State Route 55. West seems to acknowledge this by recognizing that the Newport Boulevard and 19th Street intersection is severely congested now.

With the proposed new residential uses on the westside of Costa Mesa including the Rutter development, the Westside urban plan, and others, Costa Mesa will generate its own traffic which will join regional traffic in accessing Huntington Beach and points north by means of the 19th Street bridge.

I share West’s spirit: the cities must work together on all of their challenges. I believe that the two cities have the will to do it. But it must begin soon.

ROBERT C. HAWKINS

HOW TO GET PUBLISHED

Mail to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Send a fax to (714) 966-4667 or e-mail us at dailypilot@latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, hometown and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.