Letter of the Week

Jennifer Kho’s front page story on OCTA funds and the 17th Street

project continue to reflect the Daily Pilot’s favoritism to only reflect

the the small business owners’ views.

I have seen the names on many of the petitions presented to City

Council and I don’t believe more than 50% of the signatures are residents

of Costa Mesa. When residents were provided more information, many

expressed remorse of signing the petitions.

The 17th Street Merchants and Community Assn. may be out of touch with

the residents of the city. A survey of residents of the city of Costa

Mesa was conducted in July by Godbe Research & Analysis. A copy of this

document is available on the city’s Web site. According to the research,

almost a quarter of the respondents claimed to have “no problems” with

the issues that impact the city. However, the most important issue of

those that did have an opinion was “too much traffic.”

In a regional report, the Southern California Assn. of Governments’

“State of the Commute” report (Oct. 5, 2000), noted that motorists are

increasingly dissatisfied with their commute. Freeway congestion and

surface traffic was reported to be worse.

Traffic and growth will continue. There is nothing short of approving

“no growth” plans to stop this trend. We need to plan now for traffic in

the future. City environmental reports indicate that with no or minimal

improvements on 17th Street, certain intersections will be virtually

gridlocked in 20 years.

Common sense seems to indicate that widening the corridor would be a

win-win project for both residents and business owners. Having more

traffic on the commercial corridors (17th Street) would increase business

traffic and therefore income to businesses, while also reducing the

amount of cut-through traffic to residential neighborhoods.

If the 17th Street association believes otherwise, we have yet to see

any proposals from them that offer alternatives to increased traffic

flow. The city has four plans on the table. This association has offered

none.

The petition that was circulated asked the City Council to “stop the

widening of any portion of East 17th Street to six lanes in either

direction between Orange Avenue and Irvine Avenue in Costa Mesa.”

This is simply not an acceptable nor logical solution.

DAVID GUDER

Costa Mesa