Newport turning a corner

Newport Beach officials are speeding up plans to improve traffic on city streets after residents ranked clogged intersections as their top concern in the results of a recent survey.

“The city council has said they want to move ahead with this project as quickly as possible,” said Antony Brine, Newport Beach traffic engineer. “We’re trying to put together as many parts of the project together as quickly as we can.”

As part of the traffic improvements, the city will install remote-controlled cameras later this year at a few strategic intersections that can be monitored from City Hall — the first of their kind to be used in Newport Beach. The cameras will allow city staff to monitor roads and change traffic signals in a matter of seconds in response to what is happening at city intersections.

“Being able to have that surveillance capability gives us more immediate accessibility to make those changes,” Brine said.

The first phase of the traffic improvement project will include replacing traffic controllers at 22 intersections and installing the city’s first cameras at some of the city’s busiest intersections like MacArthur Boulevard and East Coast Highway and MacArthur Boulevard and San Miguel Drive.

“These intersections have the highest volume of traffic where the city can get the biggest bang for its buck,” Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie Daigle said.

The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion in December.

More traffic controllers and cameras will be installed in subsequent phases of the project over a period of several years.

Seventeen percent of respondents to a city-commissioned survey released earlier this year said they were dissatisfied with traffic flow in Newport Beach.

“According to our survey the No. 1 item the city wants us to emphasize is traffic flow,” Daigle said. “And we’re responding to that — We’ve come up with what we think is a very good design.”

BY THE NUMBERS

1.4

Projected dollar figure in millions for Phase 1 of traffic improvements

22

Number of intersections that will receive new traffic controllers in Phase 1

3-5%

Estimate by city officials of traffic flow increase on city streets

112

Number of existing intersections city will eventually update with new equipment