Factions Converge on Issue of Traffic in Newport Election

There is one point on which proponents and opponents of the Irvine Co.’s $300-million Newport Center expansion project, Measure A in Tuesday’s special city election, agree: Traffic congestion is the issue.

The Irvine Co. argues that it will pay for about $40 million worth of road improvements that will more than offset increased traffic caused by the project. Gridlock, the grass-roots group campaigning against Measure A, argues that congestion would worsen by about 5% even with road improvements.

“Overall, the city’s traffic flow will get better with the project, because of the anticipated road improvements, than if the project doesn’t get built at all,� said Newport Beach Mayor John C. Cox, who supports Measure A.

But Gridlock co-founder Allan Beek said, “If you add up all the improvements and all of the new traffic, the result is more congestion, not less.�

For complex reasons, both men are likely to be proved correct.

There’s widespread agreement that traffic created by Newport Center will increase by 26,000 trips per day, or 42%, if Measure A passes, compared to 26% if the Irvine Co. proceeds only with the expansion already permitted under the city’s general development plan.

Anticipated street improvements, however, would boost road capacity well beyond those 26,000 trips.

But trips are based on destinations. They’re not confined to whatever new lanes are added to boost road capacity. So there’s also general agreement, even among project proponents, that improvements still would leave some roads and intersections overloaded, not only because of this project but because of planned development in Corona del Mar and elsewhere.

The Newport Center expansion plan, scaled down three times by the Irvine Co. since it was first proposed a decade ago, calls for several new office buildings, hundreds of new shops, town houses, cultural amenities and road improvements on 518 acres in and around the Fashion Island complex.

Gridlock, claiming that the project would change the city’s residential character, petitioned to have Measure A placed on the ballot. The Irvine Co. has waged a costly, professional campaign to convince voters that the city would gain more than it would lose.

Even without Measure A, traffic is an issue in the city, an issue opponents have seized.

Says Ray Catalano, an urban analyst at UC Irvine and a member of the Irvine City Council:

“If you put in the road improvements and don’t do any more development, then the roads will get better. If you do both, you end up, depending where you live in Newport Beach, not making the traffic experience better. They want to enhance the road system to minimize the impact of development. But there still will be substantial impact. In a way, it’s the kind of vote that is insidious. It pits one neighborhood against the other. Not every neighborhood will have the same impact or benefit.�

But in an interview videotaped by the Irvine Co. for its 13-minute campaign commercial, “Finishing Touches,� a transportation researcher says road improvements will more than compensate for the traffic.

“What’s hard for some people to realize is that these improvements would actually cut existing traffic congestion in Newport Beach and more than offset any new traffic generated by Newport Center,� says G.J. (Pete) Fielding, statewide director of the University of California’s Institute of Transportation Studies.

The city’s environmental impact report supports Fielding’s contention but also shows, through comparisons of traffic under various scenarios, that road and intersection improvements are absolutely necessary to prevent some intersections from exceeding 90% of “capacity utilization threshold,� the city’s standard for identifying trouble spots.

The improvements include the Irvine Co.’s planned construction of Pelican Hill Road from Coast Highway to MacArthur Boulevard near Bonita Canyon Drive, the widening of Coast Highway in Corona del Mar and MacArthur Boulevard, and a long list of smaller projects affecting Coast Highway, Jamboree Road and San Joaquin Hills Road, among other routes.

Some improvements already are required by existing ordinances; others are expected to become part of a long-range development agreement between the city and the Irvine Co. if Measure A passes.

In any case, city officials said, a new traffic study must be done if Measure A passes, because traffic figures in the city’s environmental impact report are based on the expansion plan before the City Council changed it in June. Those changes require more residential and less commercial development, which reduces traffic congestion at some intersections by altering the mix of people’s destinations.

Nevertheless, after all the Irvine Co. road improvements, at least six intersections would exceed the city’s 90% capacity limit by 1989. They are Coast Highway’s intersections with Balboa Boulevard, Riverside Avenue, Dover Drive and Goldenrod Avenue; Jamboree Road at Campus Drive, and MacArthur Boulevard at San Joaquin Hills Road.

But the environmental impact report also points out that at least two of these, the Balboa Boulevard and Goldenrod Avenue intersections, would have worse traffic problems in 1989 without the project and its street improvements.

By 1993, the list of intersections with congestion above 90% capacity would grow to include Coast Highway at Tustin Avenue, Bayside Drive and Jamboree Road; Jamboree Road at Eastbluff Drive North and at Ford Drive, and MacArthur Boulevard at San Miguel Drive.

Because of so-called background traffic and growth trends, by 1993 all but four of the overcrowded intersections would exceed city standards even if the project is never built.

If the project is approved, according to the environmental impact report, 15 roads or highways in the area would be congested beyond design capacity, including Coast Highway east of MacArthur Boulevard, east of Dover Drive and east of Newport Boulevard. The report doesn’t say how many of those roads would be over capacity if the project is not built.

County traffic engineers protested to Newport Beach officials that the environmental impact report underestimates the traffic for Coast Highway. But city traffic engineers say the city used more recent data.

County engineers also claimed that the report underestimated traffic on the planned San Joaquin Hills Freeway west of MacArthur, but city officials said the difference is not enough to scuttle the Newport Center project.

The county also complained that the report includes maps that depict an extension of University Drive west of MacArthur Boulevard, even though the city has deleted that plan. City officials said traffic volumes contained in the report don’t assume that the University Drive extension would be built.

Otherwise, county traffic engineers found little to criticize.

On traffic in and out of the city, the report was conservative. It did not take into account relief from the planned San Joaquin Hills Freeway, which is expected to divert some traffic away from Newport Center that would otherwise pass through the city.

Conversely, the project’s impact on the San Joaquin Hills Freeway is expected to be less than 3%, and even less on the San Diego Freeway. Projected volumes for those two freeways are very large, and local traffic, however aggravated, will be a minor component compared with long-distance commutes between north and south Orange County.

Although trips generated by Newport Center will be far-flung and spread out, they would not seriously affect street traffic in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana or Irvine, according to the environmental impact report. Officials of all three cities had declined to comment on the Newport Center project during the environmental study process, and none has raised traffic issues since then.

The state Department of Transportation never took a position on these or any other issues connected with the Newport Center project, except to request coordination of traffic improvements with Caltrans.

But a key issue remains: How much traffic would Pelican Hill Road divert around Corona del Mar?

The city’s report suggests that the figure may be as high as 16,000 trips per day. But Gridlock argues--and the city report agrees--that the volume on Coast Highway just east of the MacArthur Boulevard intersection will increase from the current average of 40,300 daily trips to 53,800.

Meanwhile, Gridlock members have threatened to sue Newport Beach because some intersections will deteriorate even with the street improvements.

The city’s traffic ordinance specifically prohibits this, except when the City Council determines that the benefits to other intersections elsewhere are worth the sacrifice, or when significant improvements benefiting the city are contained in a long-range agreement between the city and a developer. Such agreements are used to force developers to pay for civic improvements that they might otherwise not have to provide, and to prevent a city from constantly changing its project requirements.

Newport Beach has never signed such an agreement.

“That’s exactly what we intend to do if Measure A passes,� Mayor Cox said.

Times staff writer Heidi Evans contributed to this story.