Residents: Post office traffic too much for neighborhood

Marshall Krupp said he’ll go as far as Washington, D.C., to get politicians’ attention about the traffic jams on Susan Street and Sunflower Avenue near the post office.

Krupp, who lives in the Providence Park community at Susan and Sunflower in Costa Mesa, and two other residents, spoke to the Costa Mesa City Council last week, urging them to move to eliminate what they said were traffic jams caused by trucks going to the post office.

Krupp is asking that Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and the post office — on the Santa Ana side of Sunflower — collaborate on four issues:

 Install what’s called a radar speed feedback sign that monitors the speed of vehicles moving in both directions along Susan.

 Ban trucks from exiting the 405 Freeway onto Susan, and instead require them to exit at Harbor Boulevard or Fairview Road.

 Have the post office reconfigure its public parking lot to eliminate congestion at the intersection of Sunflower and Susan.

 And have police patrol the area regularly to enforce speeding laws.

Krupp said his requests are reasonable, and they all come down to public safety.

“We’re going to have an accident someday that’s going to be horrendous, and people are going to wonder why, and it’ll be because the city of Costa Mesa, the city of Santa Ana will not have done anything about it when it was brought to their attention,” he said.

But Costa Mesa Department of Public Services Director Peter Naghavi said the city has taken steps toward accommodating the residents at Providence Park where about 350 town and single-family homes were built in the middle of that industrial area of the city.

The city first addressed the issue by restricting trucks from traveling on Susan between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. When that didn’t work, the city restricted trucks from going south on Susan at all times, Naghavi said.

The city also reduced the speed limit from 40 to 35 mph.

The post office also took some steps toward accommodating their neighbors. It requires its trucks to use either the Harbor or Fairview exits to get to the facility. However, trucks that do contract services with the post office use the shortest route to get to the facility, said Richard Maher, post office spokesman.

Costa Mesa is working on coordinating a meeting with members from the post office, city of Santa Ana and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to reach a compromise with the residents at Providence.

“The postal service wants to do what we can within reason to be good neighbors while we continue to uphold our obligations to providing services to our community,” Maher said. “Hopefully working with the city will resolve this issue.”