Commentary: Consider possible safety ramifications of Measure Y

As a District 4 resident representative on the 2006 General Plan Advisory Committee, I worked with the Newport Beach City Council to ensure that the final buildout development allotments at Newport Center did not generate traffic to exceed the six-lane capacities of Pacific Coast Highway, Jamboree Road, San Joaquin Hills Road and MacArthur Boulevard (four lanes adjacent to City Hall.)

Expansion of these six-lane roads to accommodate more development at Newport Center would have threatened homes, businesses, schools and churches built to the edges of the sidewalks.

In good faith, voters approved the 2006 General Plan Land Use Element update, listing the final buildout square footage allowed at Newport Center. Nothing was said about Newport Center going back for more development in the future.

Years later, City Hall approved traffic increases around Newport Center exceeding the traffic projections of the 2006 general plan. Newport Center has yet to finish its 2006 allotments, with 330,000 square feet office and 524 residential units under construction but not occupied, so we do not know the traffic impact of the estimated 8,000 daily vehicle trips that would be generated from this already-approved development.

Measure Y is now asking voters to approve additional massive development at Newport Center — 550,000 square feet of office/commercial space and 500 more residential units beyond the 2006 general plan allotments — that the city estimates will generate 9,120 daily vehicle trips.

The environmental impact report released by the city in March 2014 addressing Measure Y’s traffic increases said the result would be “significant” impacts to intersections and nearby freeways, where “no feasible mitigation measures that can be implemented by the city of Newport Beach have been identified.”

Proponents of Measure Y claim a Corona del Mar bypass would divert 2,000 daily vehicle trips off of Coast Highway, “away from Corona del Mar neighborhoods,” by going up MacArthur, across San Joaquin Hills and down Newport Coast Road back to Coast Highway.

Certainly the neighborhoods along the “bypass” would not appreciate the extra traffic, noise and air pollution, especially with children crossing the six lanes to Lincoln Elementary, Harbor Day School and Newport Coast Elementary during peak morning commuter traffic.

Having children crossing and bicycling throughout the day makes light synchronization difficult. Building pedestrian bridges is costly because of having to accommodate truck heights and elevators for wheelchair and bike access. The so-called “bypass” has been there since 1991, when Newport Coast Road opened, and does not need Measure Y.

Adding thousands of daily vehicle trips to already-congested MacArthur and Jamboree intersections during peak morning work traffic produces a safety problem for children walking and biking to schools at Jamboree and Eastbluff Drive. And parent and teenage drivers and school buses sit in gridlock, trying to get to Our Lady Queen of Angels School and Corona del Mar High, the only middle and high school on that side of the bay, where students come from as far away as Newport Coast, Cameo Shores, Balboa and Harbor Islands and Newport North.

The rating for the Jamboree intersection next to these schools is the poorest the city gives to an intersection with no traffic mitigation offered except light synchronization. Road widening is not acceptable to the residents, whose homes are built to the sidewalk edges.

When traffic is backed up on Jamboree, motorists sometimes veer off onto Eastbluff Drive in a rush to Route 73. Motorists often run stops and do not slow down for the 25 mph zone by Corona del Mar High, Our Lady Queen of Angels and Eastbluff Elementary schools. Crossing guards at Eastbluff try to escort the children safely across the busy street.

Eastbluff Elementary is the sixth school that would be affected by Measure Y traffic increases. A “no” vote on Measure Y would tell the city to stick with the 2006 general plan, which led voters to believe that Newport Center’s final buildout would not exceed the traffic capacity of the six-lane surrounding roads.

CAROL BOICE served on Newport Beach’s 2006 General Plan Advisory Committee.