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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-