Stop The Traffic Tsunami

By Jim Gardner

Traffic is the #1 problem identified by Lake Forest residents, yet the city plans to add 20,000 more cars, vans and trucks to our already overcrowded roads.

The recently announced "Portola Center" project is the tip of the spear for a multi-year multi-million dollar thrust that will bring nearly 3,000 new homes and 10,000 new people, and tens of thousands of new cars into our city. Imagine that. On your way to work tomorrow morning, imagine where we will fit another 20,000 cars in our city. Or the next time you go to the Post Office, imagine sharing the parking lot and the waiting line with dozens of more people.

The plain fact is that new homes not only bring new people and their cars, it also brings the cars, vans, and trucks that service those people. It also brings the people who come to visit the new residents.

Consider the gardeners who are ubiquitous in our city. If a gardener can take care of a single home in an hour (including the time it takes to come and go and set up), then one gardener can service about 50 homes in a week, assuming he's fully occupied, which is rare. So for every 1,000 new homes, we'll have about 20 new trucks roaming our streets. It's the same thing for the postman, the UPS delivery, the water trucks, the meter readers, the repairmen, the sales people, the newspaper deliveries, etc.

And, quite frankly, the City doesn't have a great track record in dealing with the existing traffic problems. The Alton Parkway extension was delayed forever and was finally finished a few months ago. Our traffic lights are still not fully synchronized so you can rarely go a few blocks without stopping for a light. There are many intersections where traffic backs up for half a block or more. Etc.

So if traffic is our #1 problem, and if we don't exactly have a great track record in dealing with this problem, how on earth can you justify adding tens of thousands of new cars into our city?

In the weeks since I pondered this question, inevitably I went to the Post Office on Raymond, visited the Library on the other side of El Toro, went by the Courthouse and also passed by the DMV. We all use these facilities at one time or another. What did I find?

The parking lot at the Library is so full that you often have to park in the adjoining shopping center. Once you get inside, there is almost always a wait to use the computer stations. It looks like the Library really has no room to accommodate more people or cars.

Unless you go there at very unusual hours, there is almost always a 10 to 15 minute wait at the Post Office. Sometimes the parking lot is full and you have to park in the street. More people and cars will only make the Post Office unmanageable.

The DMV is a disaster almost any time you go there. Be prepared for a long wait. More people will turn the DMV into the Titanic.

The Courthouse on Moulton is so full of cars even the overflow parking is full. You need to park in the adjacent church parking lot. And get ready for a 5 to 10 minute wait just to get into the Courthouse. More people and cars using this facility will grind the wheels of justice even slower than they are.

So it's pretty clear to me that some of our basic resources are currently at the tipping point, and bringing more people and cars into Lake Forest will mean a dramatic decrease in the efficiency and effectiveness with which we can make use of them.

There is no easy solution. The city council needs to take the traffic problem seriously, and all things considered, our options are extremely limited. But the one thing we should not be doing is adding more people and cars to the city. Traffic is bad now. There are no plans to improve the traffic, and adding more cars will only make things worse.

So why does our City Council want to add thousands of new homes, people, and cars?

The plain facts is that for the past decade, developers have been pouring thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of city council members, and city council members have been voting to give developers virtually everything they ask for.

It's not illegal for developers to give city council members money for their re-election campaigns, although you have to wonder why no city council member ever mentioned this before voting. Even more troubling, didn't it occur to the city council members that having accepted thousands of dollars from a business, that voting on an issue that stands to give that very same business millions of dollars in profits could be considered a conflict of interest.

Anyhow, the bottom line is that developers gave city council members thousands of dollars and city council members approved developer proposals to add thousands of new homes and tens of thousands of new people and cars to our city.

It's a good thing for the developers

It's a good thing for the city council members

Is it a good thing for the city?

We need a temporary moratorium on any new housing developments in our city until such time that the traffic situation is seriously improved. That may be too bad for the developers, and it may be too bad for the city council members who rely on their contributions, but it's the right thing to do for Lake Forest.

"Put Lake Forest First"

Before the needs of the developers, and before the needs of the city council members.