01-17-1966 - Special Meeting - Minutes•
•
MINUTES OF THE STUDY SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL
CITY OF WEST COVINA, CALIFORNIA
JANUARY 17, 1966
The study session of the City Council was called to order by Mayor
Nichols at 8:05 P,M,
ROLL CALL
Present: Mayor Nichols, Councilmen Jett, Snyder, Krieger, Heath
Chairmah.McCann, Commissioners Adams, Travis,
Gleckman, Mottinger
Others Present;- Mr, George Aiassa, City Manager
Mr, Herman R. Fast, Public Services Director
Mr, Harold Joseph, Planning Director
Mr, George Zimmerman, Assistant City Engineer
Mr, H. Heckeroth, Executive Assistant
Mr, L, M. Wade, State Highway Engineer
Mr, W. E. Schaefer, Assistant District Engineer
Mr. A. W, Hoy, Deputy District Engineer
'SAN.BERNARDINO 'FRE'EWAY
Mayor Nichols: We would be much appreciative if you
gentlemen would move right into your
presentation at this time,
Mr, A. W. Hoy; We are representing the Division of
Highways tonight,
(Slides were presented and Mr, W, E. Schaefer gave a brief summary of
this matter,)
Mayor Nichols: Thank you very much, Those of us who
have lived and worked in West Covina
over the years have certain feelings and attitudes about our freeway
system and hopes and aspirations for its future use through our City.
Quite probably part of the feelings we have are emotional and quite
probably part of them we have are not based upon fact, Still, these
feelings do exist and one of the reasons we have asked you to meet with
us tonight is to help clarify in our minds what freeway planning
involves, what the limitations are in general, what just in general
terms we might be able to hope for for our community, what we might
hope to achieve, f
The feeling basically that I think we
have is that the San Bernardino Freeway was planned in 1877 and that
no one thought anyone would be living out here then and then suddenly
everybody fooled the State and moved to West Covina and suddenly
what we have is not adequate, is fouling up our service roads, our
whole community, ruining the business climate and slowing bringing
death to every living resident. Obviously, that is an exaggeration.
We feel we have an aggravated problem of cross-town service. These
have been the things we have battled, trying to get access to our
community and trying to get people back and forth across our community,
-1-
C, C, 1/17/66 Page Two
'FREEWAY - Continued
With that I would like to sort of start a
brief symposium between you gentlemen commenting in; general what the
philosophy is of freeway development today, what the limitations
inherently are, and about where we stand in West Covina relative to
the planning that has been going on and then perhaps'allowing some of
our Commissioners and Councilmen to ask questions that they might have
of you gentlemen,
Mr, A, W. Hoy: You are entirely right, This freeway
was designed maybe not quite 1877 but
in the early days when a good deal of the surrounding area was citrus
groves and the interchanges were tied in with the road pattern that
then existed, which as the City grew I think it probably grew too fast
for people to realize just what was happening, so now we are faced
with something I don't think anybody likes. We are at the point
where we want to add an additional lane on each roadway, We have a
limited time left in which to accomplish this work under the
Interstate Program, We would like to cooperate with the City and see
if we can't remedy -some of these problems and get a better interchange
pattern here,
I think the City is to be complimented
in having the foresight to hire consultants to help in studying this
problem because it is not an easy one, You still have street patterns
that make it difficult to adapt interchange patterns to. We would
like very much as we add the additional lane to be able to correct
some of these problems that exist now and our time is getting short
because our construction has to be entirely completed and the bills
submitted to Uncle Sam by October of 1932,
Our construction generally takes about
three years after we have agreement before we can go to construction
because of the time required to obtain necessary right-of-way,
clearance problems, utility moves, et cetera, If you consider a
three-year period and then another year and a half minimum for
construction, you can see that our time is fast closing in on us,
Mr. Schaefer and Mr, Wade have been
working closely with your people out here, Maybe they have something
to add at this time or would be available for any questions that you
may have,
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: We are very anxious to improve the inter-
change to the local roads as well, We
are most anxious to get together with you and work something out,
Councilman Heath: You said something about October of 1972?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: That is when all the work has to be not
only completed, it has to be completed
early in the year, That is the final date for vouchering any bills to
the Federal Government on the Interstate network, We will have to
convince our headquarters of whatever is recommended but we will have
to sell the Bureau of Public Roads, and it is entirely possible that
they may not participate in the cost, We have`;Aihad some of that in
other areas on the San Diego Freeway, I don't know what the situation
will be here. Their attitude has been for the most part that if the
freeway has.once been constructed then even though we go in to add
lanes that then they will not participate in the additional cost for
remodeling of interchanges. I wouldn't want to say that i's the final
answer here because we will try to sell them on anything we think we
can collect,
-2-
Co Co 1/17/66 Page Three
FREEWAY Continued
1 Councilman Heath: When do we have to have a final design?
What is the latest date?
Mr. A. W. Hoy: Right at the moment, we are in the process
of planning a new planting program and
whereas we did have this in our last year's planting program
scheduling to go to construction in 168-69, due to the fact we haven't
worked out the problems here we can't certify right-of-way, we had
to shove it off to 169-70, That is the widening of the freeway and
the changing of the interchanges, It should be right now that we would
know what you want to give us to give us time to certify our right-
of-way requirements and proceed with the final design and right-of-way
acquisition,
Councilman Heath: Has your department or any department
under your jurisdiction suggested any
proposed changes in these interchanges?
Mr, A, W, Hoy: We have been working considerable extent
over the last few years, However, in view
of the faot the City had hired consultants which we understood were to
consider More than just the interchanges but also the circulation
throughout the City, we held back to some extent waiting to see what
you came up with in regard to that study,
Councilman Heath: You have no plans or rough sketches of
what you would propose on these inter-
changes?
Mr, A. W, Hoy: We haven't any that I would want to say
we would recommend right now.. We have
reviewed some that you have been reviewing and looking at'them from
that standpoint, A good deal depends on your local street patterns,
If your consultant is coming out with recommendations for changing
your streets, that would in turn have a bearing on what we would
consider in our interchange design,
Councilman Jett: We on the local level are a little
concerned, I think one of the major
things that the majority of people have had in the back of their
minds is that the ultimate we would like to see was the complete
interchange, the cloverleaf, The reason for this was we felt this
allowed right-hand turns at each connecting point, With this in mind,
I would like to ask one question. At what distances would it be
necessary to locate this type of an interchange? Are they a mile
apart, a half mile, what?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: (Presented plan and explained same,)
This was not drawn in relation to the
intersections, This is just the geometrics to that scale, I might
add here that we really think that the four -quadrant cloverleaf has
some deficiencies and is not as good an interchange as the two -
quadrant cloverleaf. In urban situations like this, it does not
permit free turns,. The most usual situation would be that you would
actually control that right turn by a stop sign or in some cases you
-would have a traffic signal, Our approach to this has been that this
driver is going to have to stop and make a turn and the other design,
the simple diamond, makes it simpler for him. That loop off -ramp
has a higher incident of accidents, for example,
-3-
C, C, 1/17/66 Page Four
FREEWAY Continued
Mr, H, Heckeroth: I think we directed our comments mainly to
the freeway, There are also problems on
your City streets, Getting off, if you come in and get off, going down
to the next intersection and trying to make a left turn means that
you have to cross three lanes of traffic on the City street to make that
turn and immediately you are involved in conflict with your City street
traffic, In other words, another problem related to the four -quadrant
cloverleaf design in relation to the City street is the distance
between. the ramp termini at the City street and the ajoining inter-
section which if you have a controlled signalized intersection at the
ramp termini makes the maneuver on the City street to your next City
street intersection much easier because.1t is controlled traffic.
You again lose this free right turn that you are trying to gain by the
four-leaf quadrant, It just doesn't exist where high volumes of
traffic are concerned, You have to control the off movement,
Mr, A, W. Hoy.- It is our concern to try to provide the
facility that will do the best job, If
we can't deliver from the freeway to the local street and get them
away on the local street, we are going to have traffic backing up on
the freeway and causing problems in that manner. We are interested
in how the interchange is going to serve the local area. We want to
do it as best as we can taking everything into consideration,
Mr, W, E,
Schaefer:
I think the
two -quadrant provides a much
safer trip
in the usual case,
Councilman
Jett:
Thinking in
terms of a thousand cars per
hour, would
this be the peak load?
Mr, W. E,
Schaefer:
Yes,
Councilman
Jett:
Can we expect to have these volumes here?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: We reviewed Victor Gruen's 1975 traffic
volumes and we are, I would say, pretty
much in concurrence, and I don't believe in any of these on the
basic schemes that he has presented that exceeded a thousand cars an
hour,
Councilman Jett: The patterns that Victor Gruen has recom-
mended to us in most instances I think
has been these two -quadrants, Regarding Grand Avenue, with this deep
underpass that exists there at the present time, how much of a problem
is it going to be to get a two -quadrant at that interchange?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: I would say that that would be the
pattern represented there for the ramp
on the Victor Gruen study, That is about all that can be accomplished,
I have not studied this myself, but at this time, that is the way it
looks, Actually, you cannot get a ramp on the east side down to Grand
Avenue without eliminating Holt Avenue, Is that a fair statement?
Mr, L. M. Wade: I think so,
Councilman Jett: Would it be possible to have an off ramp
that would go into that frontage road
that would service that area?
-4-
Co Ca 1/17/66
. FREEWAY - Continued
Page Five
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: No, Even if it were one way, I don't think
you could get it in without giving up one
of the other ramps,,
Councilman Jett: That poses a problem. This means we will
have to have two left turns in order to
get back into this service or theater area, This is about the best in
your opinion that we can get there?
Mr, W, E, Schaefer: That is my opinion, yes,
Councilman Snyder: Looking at this plan over here, and I
realize you may not be able to say, do
you see any immediate problem with the nearness of these interchanges
as proposed there?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: Yes, we do,'
,Councilman Snyder: Might you give us a clue?
Mr, W, E, Schaefer: Actually, we haven't worked up any
geometrics on this. We haven't worked
it up in sufficient detail to tell you exactly what distance there
would be between the on ramp at Barranca and the off ramp at Grand.
Obviously, it is very close and it will give us a problem,
• Councilman Sn yder: This is closer to what is acceptable
than this (indicating.)?
Mr, W, E, Schaefer: Yes,
Councilman Snyder: You indicated earlier that you, in
effect, hadn't done much planning on your
own on interchanges in this City knowing we had our own consultant,
Is this the usual procedure for the City to come up with their own plans
and the State to look at them?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: No, it is not, We figured this was a
rather special case because of your
peculiar street pattern that the City kind of grew up with, We didn't
know what you might have in mind in trying to work out some of these
east/west moves and north/south moves,
Councilman Snyder: Say we were to submit this to you as our
final plan, Then what takes place? You
look at it and determine what you will go along with and then we get
together again and determine the final outcome?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: We would have to get into the geometrics
and actually figure out distances between
and see what our weaving section will be like and what tolerances are.
I think we reviewed them in the cursory manner to the point we feel
it probably would be acceptable, but I would not want to make a
definite statement until we got in and checked them further. We
would have to have them reviewed by not only ourselves but our head-
quarters and the Bureau, but I think from our cursory review of it
here that we feel fairly confident that it could work out all right,
Councilman Snyder: Thank you, I understand your position
at this time,
-5-
C. Ca 1/17/66
'FREEWAY - Continued
Page Six
Councilman Jett: Would you recommend a diamond here?
Mr. W. E, Schaefer- I wouldn't particularly recommend a
diamond,, You do have rights -of -way
reserved.in the area of the interchanges so loops can be accommodated
without tearing your street pattern up too much,,
Councilman Jett: Do you use the diamond because of the
space required?
Mr,, W,, E. Schaefer.:-: That is one of the things to be considered,,
Councilman Jett: On this additional lane, would these
the additional lanes come in? intersections be put in at the same time
Mr, A, W. Hoy: It would have to be,,
Councilman Snyder: One of the errors everybody knows is
we tried to maintain frontage roads
here right next to the freeway and now we have them and we have to
live with them but I think the reason diamonds won't work too well
here is because we are still trying to maintain frontage roads,
Isn't that true?
. Mr, W. E. Schaefer: Yes, especially since your frontage road
is a pretty important street at the moment,
Councilman Heath: May we assume from your conversation that
you have just not studied but casually
looked at these plans that our consultant has proposed?
Mr, A,, W. Hoy: It has been more than just a casual look
but it hasn't been down to actually making
a detailed study to figure out exactly what your distances are between
interchanges,
Councilman Heath: From this limited look you have taken
do you feel that there are recommendations
and changes you would recommend in these plans that we have?
Mr, W, E. Schaefer: I can't say that I would recommend any
changes without doing a lot more thorough
review than we have given it,
Councilman Heath: It would look to me that where we would
stand right at this point would be this:
That we have some plans before us which may be the basis from where we
could start and it would only be fitting to forward these plans to
these gentlemen here and have them go over them and make their sug-
gestions and recommendations to us at a later date, I would speak
for myself in this: That the thing I am striving for or the thing
I would like to see accomplished in this study is that these inter-
changes are going to be here for a long time, Let's do them and do
them right, I would like to see them designed and constructed along
the principle which I have learned or understood to be the first
principle of traffic handling and that is we eliminate left turns as*
much as possible and make continuous flow of traffic. There may be
cases where that cannot be done, but I think this should be our
C, C, 1/17/66
FREEWAY - Continued
Page Seven
foremost idea of keeping traffic moving and eliminate these left-hand
turns, I would think the next thing to do is to ask the Highway
Department to review these proposals with our concept in mind of
what we want and see how much they can prepare them to meet that
requirement,
Mayor Nichols: If I may pursue this from a philosophic
standpoint a little further, as we go
through these matters of the City engaging a consultant, the con-
sultant makes a rather involved study, he works with our staff and
perhaps some informal consultation with the State Division of Highways,
he comes in with what he feels is an answer to the City's problem,
We spend many hours looking at it and being assaulted by various
elements of the public who are pleased or displeased with various
elements of what these proposals are which really are at the prelimi-
nary level, and then we take some sort of a vote which causes a local
explosion one way or the other. At that point we send them on to the
State Division of Highways and then and only then really are these
studies and geometrics, et cetera, laid upon the plan and then and
only then do we expect back some sort of an answer as to whether or
not we are completely off on some erroneous pattern or not, Why
is this type of pattern followed in the development of final plans for
freeways? Why at some more preliminary time before we go to local
hearings and so much local involvement does not the State Division of
Highways become involved so that at the time we meet with our citizenry
and our community we can more definitely say that this plan is about
what we will go and "No, what you are suggesting won't"?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: I think you are there. We have reviewed
these things in general terms and think
this is about what we can go, What we would like to get from the City,
and I may be speaking out of turn, what we would like to get from the
City is some kind of definite recommendation as to the traffic pattern
they would like here. because I know that both the consultant and the
staff have.gone;to quite a bit of work on this, certainly far more
than we have, and we think they are competent people certainly and we
think these things are worthy of very serious consideration,
Mayor Nichols: What you are conveying informally at
this point is that other than the
fitting of such a plan into the developmental stage and to see how it
could be adjusted and worked out, you would like to get this Council
to forward something of this nature to you and get on the ball,
Mr, W, E, Schaefer-. That's right,
Mayor Nichols: Let me ask one additional question that
digresses from this, As we worked over
these matters and as we talked with the consultant and held hearings,
quite often the matter of economics was injected into the discussion --
yit es, it would be nice to have this beautiful overpass or this great
bridge to continue this but this just can't occur, "They" won't
buy this kind of thing, This is not',.too convincing an argument to..
give again to the citizenry during a hearing situation, May I ask
this then: To what extent are you gentlemen operating under economic
limitations at your level where you in turn must pass on recommendations
to the State Division of. Highways, for example? Do you plan ideally
when you come in here or do you say you know there are certain budget
limitations and this is why you make such and such recommendation?
-7-
C. C, ' 1/17/66
FREEWAY.- Continued
Page Eight
Mr, A, W. Hoye I am a little bit at a loss to know just
how to answer your question because
naturally economics are an important factor,, We are spending the public
and taxpayers' money,, We have to consider when we are recommending
something just what are we buying when we do this, just what it will
cost, Just because it would be nice to have it is Qn -hing,, It is
another thing if it is going to promote greater safety -arid handle
traffic more expeditiously, etcetera,, it is kind of hard to just
say that we couldn't consider tht without knowing more of the details
or just what specific item you are talking about and what you, are buying,
Mayor Nichols: I understand that and perhaps by alluding
to a great sweeping bridge, I mislead you,
Mr, A. W. Hoy: I think I understood, but I have a little
problem trying to explain,
Councilman Snyder: Do you have such a measure to measure the
utility against the economic cost?
Mayor Nichols: That is precisely what I meant,,
Mr, A. W. Hoy: We have certain measures. In fact, we
are determining whether we can consider
certain interchanges based on traffic volumes and beneficial ratio
• that develop that the Bureau considered when we were making our
estimates, Any interchange should have a benefit ratio of one,
I don't want to get into the details of how that is figured out, but
mainly it is traffic volumes and costs and again there was the spacing
involved and the location of the interchanges. Can you give me
more of a specific instance?
Mayor Nichols: I have one in mind and it is not one of
great feeling but it is an example,, For
example, Azusa Avenue at the freeway, and let's look at our frontage
road which is there, which has had the development along it, which is
truly a heavily travelled intersection, a heavy traffic cross-town
artery, and I think we all agree it is not exactly ideal for east/west
traffic on the frontage road, As an amateur., I would visualize a
bridge structure parallelling and abutting the freeway structure
carrying the forntage road traffic in more or less a straight line not
interfering at all with Azusa Avenue obviously with the enlarging
of the freeway, requiring great condemnation of lands, et cetera, Do
you reach a point, though, you can see the value, the traffic flow and
a certain thing of that sort that the economics would be so costly
that you would have to discontinue it in your plan?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: We would have to discount it in our
planning because you are talking about
making another freeway, in effect, out of a local road. We have the
one freeway to build and then interchanges with the local street
patterns. I don't see that we could consider getting into the
separation to that magnitude out on a local facility,
Mayor Nichols: I just cited that because I have been
on the San Bernardino Freeway further
east where there are some service roads that seem to follow some sort
of a bridge structure and cross the roads that travel underneath and
were probably designed differently, I only used that to try to
demonstrate what I meant that something might be an improvement but
be so great in cost that you would have to stop right there because
of the cost alone,
-:
Co C, 1/17/66 Page Nine
'FREEWAY - Continued
• Councilman Snyder: In a two -quadrant cloverleaf by the time
you designed it that the quadrant you
desired for the traffic flow had been occupied by a factory or commercial
development which greatly increased the price of the land, here is
where your ratio comes in of utility against economics.
Mr. W. E. Schaefer: We would first have to determine whether
another pattern would work. Then we
would have to see how well it would work as compared to how well the
loop would work. It would be difficult to justify a loop ramp in such
a case, In most cases, the community would not be willing to give up
the factory, either. There is a judgment factor and it varies with
the individual situation, If you are going to build an interchange
it has to work and you have to spend enough money to make it work or
you don't build the interchange. There'are degrees of how well it
works,
Mayor Nichols: I think you have given me an answer,
simply that each one has to be approached
as an individual situation and that inherently the economics of it
don't automatically override good traffic planning,
Mr. W. E, Schaefer: No,
Mr, H Heckeroth: Proof of the pudding is the great variety
of ramp systems that are existing on
the freeways. Every one is individually directed to its own area, its
own solution and it is the right solution if it was derived at by
consensus opinion; it is the right solution for that location, taking
into account this benefit and cost idea,
Commissioner Gleckman: I think we have a unique situation, though,
here in West Covina with the freeway
being at grade with our service road and because of the existence
of the interchanges, we have no service road and it is impossible to
wild one now that the freeway is in without talking about bridges,
The State is interested as to where this traffic is going and we have
no roads to build to let them go some place due to the fact of the
interchanges. Are we now settling for what we can get just to complete
the project to 1972? Or, are we trying to solve the situation which
exists in the City of West Covina due to the fact of the freeway being
parallel when not having the access we normally would have as we have
seen. on the slides shown tonight. You have shown submerged freeways,
elevated freeways, but you didn't show anything at grade, and what you
didfor the city in which the freeway at grade went through. This
is our basic problem within our City. We are saying to the state,
are we here now to talk about what we must settle for? Are we here
to talk about what we would like to have but can't get within your
budget? Basically, are we here if this is what is being proposed due
to economics and as the only thing that we can have? On that basisp
the State will talk about it, I don't agree for. one and I haven't
agreed as indicated in what we have got in the past from the State.
I don't mean to put you gentlemen in the middle, but you are part
of it. We have an interchange that you just completed at Vincent
which. is totally inadequate, We realize it here in this City and
every time we ask why we have to live with it, they say it is in now.
This is something they proposed three or four years ago. We have
been fighting it for three, four years and the State said take this
or nothing and this was the message given to us and I don't agree with
this, I feel we are an entity in our own as far as the City is
sm
C. C, 1/17/66 Page Ten
FREEWAY - Continued
concerned, as Mr, Hoy stated, it is our money that you are spending,
part of it. We are entitled to some consideration and not complete
cut off and that.is the way I feel,
Mr o W. E. Schaefer: The Vincent Avenue Interchange was a very
expensive interchange, so you can't say
economics played a part there,
Commissioner Gleckman: There were quite a few people against that.
interchange and they said, "Let it come in.
Let's see what it does. You haven't seen it in operation. Don't fight
it," Okay, It's here, I ask any of the gentlemen sitting in this
room that have experienced that interchange to say this is what they
would like to have and this is what they are satisfied with for that
particular area. You are the.Stateo Where do we go in this particular
case from there?
Mr, W. E, Schaefer: I think part of the problem in the City
is that the unusual dependance placed
on the frontage road, and this is not a usual situation nor do I think
it is a very healthy situation. It is very unusual to have major roads
paralleling freeways and wherever this is done, whether the freeway
is elevated or depressed is somewhat irrelevant to this. You do have
a problem. What you are trying to do.is carry your major local traffic
• parallel to the freeway and mix it at=..all the freeway interchanges and
this is not normally a very good or practical solution. It is
something here that I think the City and the State are stuck with. I
don't think we are going to change it. I think what we are after here
or what the State is after at any rate is a reasonable solution.
All things considered, considering what we are faced with today --
Councilman Snyder: With all fairness, the interchange
functions. It is partly the east/west
City streets that foul the thing up,
Mr, A, W, Hoy: You.have problems here of shopping centers
that have developed and other businesses
going in and we are trying to find something that will do a job and fit
in without revamping your whole City street pattern the way it should
be in review of the developments here,
Commissioner Gleckman: What do we do now? I. -,..have always felt
when we talk about building interchanges
that we are going to have them a hundred years from now, and not for
three years from now,
Councilman Jett: Unfortunately, Center Street has
created a problem for us. As you come
off of the freeway, I think the interchange is all right, getting
on and off the freeway because we have right turns, but our problem
IR is created as you come off of the freeway and it is only 300 feet
where you are attempting to cross three lanes of City traffic to make
this left turn and this is what has created our problem,
Councilman Gleckman: I cited that as an example to say what
we are showing here this evening, you
gentlemen are the experts, we are the laymen. I am only saying that
what we see here, in my estimation, is something that the State may
accept because it is economically feasible and will give us relief
for the next two, three years and this is what I am saying. I object
-10-
C, C, 1/17/66
FREEWAY Continued
Page Eleven
to the idea of planning for two, three years if the State can sit here
and tell me no, I am wrong, this is the proper planning for what we
have in this City for the next twenty years, fine. Then you are the
experts. You tell me that. But nobody here has said that, nor have
the consultants said that,
Councilman Snyder: They didn't say they would accept this
because of its feasibility economically,
Mr, W. E, Schaefer: We have reviewed the traffic volumes to
1990 with our LARTS and we have
reviewed the interchanges based on the 1990 traffic,
Commissioner Gleckman: Had they not proposed what you are seeing,
do you gentlemen feel that basically this
would be what you are looking for for 1990?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: In our reviewing and figuring on the
interchange design, we are looking at
the 1990 traffic trying to determine whether what we are reviewing
or is being proposed will accommodate the 1990 traffic,
Commissioner Gleckman: Okay, On the interchange that recently
• went in, did this go in, and I am not
talking about this specific interchange, but in relation to the whole
plan, did this go because it was approved by the present City Council
and sent to the Division of Highways or was it something that the
State said this should suffice as far as their needs are concerned
so fine, we will go along with this?
Mr, A. W. Hoy: I am sure it was not intended to be
something for two or three years stop gap.
I am sure that it wasn't a situation of either the City telling the State
or theTState telling the City that this is it. It was something that
was worked out together as far as I know, I wasn't in on the details
at that time
Chairman McCann: I should like to offer some observations
in connection with the total development
of the off and on ramps, widening of the freeway, et cetera. I think
we have to commend the consultants for their general activity for their
presentation at the Commission. In the hearings that we held before
the Commission there were several changes suggested and brought up
not only from the members of the Commission and the staff, but also
from the people who were vitally interested, the property owners.
This area here in general has been hammered out and has gone through
hearings which I think was quite important and we found the consultant
amiable to suggestions and changes and several changes were made as
a result of those hearings which I think is a good way of accomplishing
this. What we have before us in these locations here, I think we
have found that the people who sat through the hearings, the land owners
and those vitally interested in it, were quite happy with what is
developing here,
Councilman. Jett: There is a point that is becoming to
become quite evident to me, As far as
our interchanges on the freeway and handling of traffic is concerned,
this is adequate and will do the job. The problems that we have in the
City are our local streets. This is our problem,
-11-
C. C. 1/17/66
FREEWAY - Continued
Page Twelve
Councilman Krieger: With respect to Mr, Jett's observation
here, the conversation up to this point
strikes me the same as the landing craft tanks. You get to the beach
and this is where you gentlemen are going to get us and then we turn
around and you say we are on our own, I think this is necessarily true
to a certain extent. There is a point where we are going to reach
with you gentlemen where we are going to be on our own and there is
only going to be one person helping us out of that situation and that
is us. I think our job while we are in the LCT with you is to make
sure that you land us at the best possible spot on that beach so we
can take up from there. To me, Mr, Mayor, this thing still boils down
to what spot on the beach can we go to that is going to get us beyond
the beach in one piece,
Councilman Jett: It looks like we are going to have to
make some studies, perhaps go back to
what I thought was feasible maybe three, four years and that was we
cover the Walnut Creek Wash and make that a through street completely
across the City which in effect would serve us as a frontage road,
and it is far enough way, a couple blocks, but any interchange with the
freeway would not be effected by our cross-town traffic,
Chairman McCann: I think that was one of the recommendations
• of the consultant,
Mr, A. W. Hoy: The general idea of many people, the Los
Angeles County Engineers feel that way,
the Orange County Engineers feel that way, if you are in developing
an area where you have your choice of instead of having a frontage road
adjacent to the freeway, it should be a couple blocks away, You should
get it away from your interchange, They are just problems when they
are right against the freeway. It isn't'always possible to do those
things. We have been in a different situation here in the City of West
Covina all along than what we normally have in working out these
things. If it wasn't for the fact that you people had hired the
consultants and were making this study, we would have been in working
our own ideas, bringing them in and talking them over with your staff
and we would normally have worked out between ourselves and your
engineering staff before it would ever come before you people. In
other words, I don't think you were wrong in hiring the consultant.
You have a peculiar situation here in your overall street network and
that was our understanding that he was not only to just look at the
interchange:with the freeway but your overall traffic circulation
pattern and come up with some recommendations, so we were kind of sitting
back waiting for this development.
Councilman Krieger: It was my understanding your earlier
comments were to compliment the City
having the foresight to obtain the consultant.
Mr. A. W. Hoy: I still mean that. I didn't mean to
infer that I felt differently, I was
trying to explain the difference in how we would normally be operating
because normally the cities aren't hiring consultants for an overall
study.of that nature,
-12-
r 1
LJ
•
f
C, C. 1/17/66
FREEWAY - Continued
Page Thirteen
Councilman Jett: One of our reasons for asking you to come
out here is we are laymen and there were
questions in our own minds how we go about this. I think for me one
of the most important points that has'been brought out here is our
inadequate street system within the City and I think this is where we
are going to have to devote a lot of time and a lot of attention,
Mr. W. E. Schaefer.: I think this is where your consultant has
been.a big help to you in developing
what is really a compromise between what exists and,what must be, and
the interchanges with the freeway, We can't tell you how important
the frontage road is to your City, is to'the business in your area.
We look to you for that, This is where I think your consultant has
been a great deal of help to you,
Councilman Jett: In the event we come up with an opinion
that covering Walnut Creek Wash would be
what we would -feel would be the best solution to our problem realizing
that the right-of-way is already existing and we were able to get
cooperation from the Flood Control for this, in lieu of any help from
the State on our frontageroads, could we expect the State to divert
some of those funds to assist us in approving this, basing that
street to be our frontage road instead of Garvey?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: I think the cost would be so large that
any contribution the State would make
would be insignificant. That would be a tremendously expensive thing,
Commissioner Mottinger:
the State has not thoroughly
submitted to them, get their
have any criticism. They are
flow pattern as set down here
The Planning Commission has recommended
one of these plans after hearings. Since
reviewed it, I would like to see the plans
careful analysis of it and see if they
in a position to tell us if the freeway
would be adequate,
Mr, A. W. Hoy: My feeling is you have hired a very
competent consulting firm for a study.
You have their recommendations. Why don't you submit them to us for
our review now unless you want to toss out what you paid good money for,
Councilman Heath: I would be highly in favor of that,
sending this proposal to the State and
let them review it and come up with recommendations and changes and
proposals,
Mayor Nichols: We may have a bad problem here, but I
don't get lost coming through this town,
Commissioner Gleckman: How about the spread diamond interchanges
along Orange to Sunset, for example?
Mr, W. E. Schaefer: Here again you would be interfering
with the frontage road and taking up
a tremendous amount of land. I would like to inject this. What we
are talking about right now, gentlemen, is beginning construction in
1970. We have to, have our final right-of-way determination in 1967.
-13-
•
•
•
C, C, 1/1.7/66
FREEWAY - Continued
Mr, A, W. Hoy:
Page Fourteen
You don't have'to 1967 to do that,
Mr, W, E. Schaefer: My point remains the same, Construction
is still a long way off and the longer
we drag this thing out, the further this construction is going away
from you and it won't be constructed tomorrow; it will be constructed
several years from now. I personally would like to receive a specific
recommendation from the Council. I'think your consultant has done a
good job for you and come up with some answers to the problem and we
would like to get a recommendation to carry this thing further. I
would hate now to go back to the District Office and draw more plans
on paper and then come back and discuss these again, If the Council
has had enough information from their consultant and staff to make
a recommendation on.this, I would certainly like --to see it,
Mayor Nichols: I think there has been considerable air
cleared and clarification of some
of these matters, We appreciate your taking the evening to come out and
meet with us and I think we will probably come up with something very
soon for you,
9:35 P,M,
I declare this meeting adjourned at
I
-14-