Councilwoman Katrina Foley said that nearby residents would have to be prepared to sacrifice some efficiency if they wanted to make their neighborhoods safer and quieter.
“The only way to stop the cut-through traffic is to make cul-de-sacs, create one-way streets, create some inconvenience for the people who live near Newport Boulevard,” Foley said.
Lisa Reedy agreed that such measures should be explored.
Gary Monahan, who owns a restaurant just off of Newport Boulevard, strongly disagreed. He said such actions would increase his commute to work from two and a half minutes to 10 minutes.
Hearkening back to his time on the City Council in the late 1990s, Monahan said, “We talked about cul-de-sacs. We talked about one-way streets: The majority of people on the Eastside did not want them.”
People going over speed bumps create noise, and culs-de-sac lead to people getting lost, Monahan said.
Community sentiment has changed a bit since the 1990s, though, according to Eastside Neighbors’ Group President Jeff McConville.
Because safety and noise concerns have worsened significantly, McConville said, more residents might be ready to accept traffic-calming measures that they weren’t as excited about before.
Monahan and Jim Righeimer slammed Foley for her expressing frustration with the time it’s taking to proceed with a large-scale restructuring of the 55 Freeway, echoing similar criticisms made by Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor at Tuesday’s council meeting.
The two men said that when Foley airs her concerns publicly, she risks diminishing the good will of other governmental bodies like the Orange County Transportation Authority, without which the project might not come to fruition.
