Residents want to slow it down

Alicia Robinson

For some residents of Baker Street in Costa Mesa, success at

petitioning the city for parkway trees has bred a new petition drive.

This time the goal is one many Newport-Mesa neighborhoods share --

slowing down traffic.

After getting the city to plant trees in the public right-of-way

earlier this year, about three dozen residents -- mostly on Baker

Street between Royal Palm Avenue and Mesa Verde Drive East -- are

taking a quick next step.

They want the city to reduce the number of traffic lanes on their

portion of the street by repainting the lines. While most residential

streets are between 36 and 40 feet wide, Baker Street is at least 50

feet wide, said Costa Mesa Transportation Manager Peter Naghavi.

The speed limit there is 30 mph, but residents complain that

drivers regularly exceed it. The petition asks that the city change

the road from two lanes in each direction -- each about 15 feet wide

-- to one 15-foot lane each way with a 10-foot center turn lane and

10-foot parking lanes on either side.

Over the years, traffic and speeds on Baker Street have grown so

much that turning into or out of a driveway can be a dicey

proposition, residents complain.

For Carolyn Gowin, who has lived in the 1600 block of Baker Street

for 25 years, the solution is to just hit the gas and hope for the

best.

“I back out. I go, ‘Oh well, I’ve got lots of insurance,’” she

said.

“If I had to do it again, and I was looking for a house, there’s

no way I’d buy this house I have, and the reason is, this street is

so busy.”

And if she wanted to sell her house, Gowin would likely find her

property value has been driven down by all the cars. Real estate

agent Valerie Torelli said the heavy traffic makes homes in that area

“some of the least expensive homes in Mesa Verde,” and it reduces

their values by at least $20,000.

The city is still collecting traffic and speed data on Baker

Street and may have that information by the end of next week, Naghavi

said. This is the first time residents have asked to slow traffic by

restriping the road, but the city frequently gets requests for

traffic-slowing devices such as speed humps, he said.

The city of Newport Beach also has seen increasing interest in

slowing down traffic in residential areas, said Steve Badum, the

city’s public works director.

Because of that, the City Council recently formed a task force

charged with creating guidelines for researching and addressing

neighborhood traffic concerns.

“The whole theory behind traffic calming is people will drive as

fast as they feel comfortable,” Badum said. “A way to make them slow

down is to make them feel less comfortable.”

Speed humps and raised medians can make drivers slow down, but

they also slow down emergency vehicles, so most fire departments

oppose such solutions. And they can be expensive -- Badum said

estimates for traffic calming in Newport Heights came in at more than

$1 million.

“We don’t have a million dollars to spend in that area, so we need

to look at what’s going to be the most effective tools to solve the

problems,” he said.

Newport officials have had short-term success setting out trailers

that show drivers their speed, and they’ve increased code enforcement

to prevent construction vehicle accidents. In the last year, three

construction vehicles have overturned near Newport Coast Drive and

Ridge Park Road.

But for many people in Newport-Mesa, the first step toward

tackling the speed problem may be easing their own feet off the gas.

“I think I’m just like everybody else,” Gowin said. “Everybody’s

looking for a quick way home, anything to get off that freeway.”