Street safety or traffic snarls? Plan to add raised medians on Harbor Boulevard draws questions

Some Costa Mesa residents and business owners raised concerns Wednesday about a city proposal to build raised landscaped medians on Harbor Boulevard between Wilson and 19th streets.

During a community meeting at City Hall, many of the approximately 25 people who attended questioned whether installing the medians might snarl traffic or make it hard to access local businesses.

“It seems like it’s creating a lot of issues,” resident Anna Vrska said.

Though the project would improve the look of the nearly 1-mile stretch of Harbor — where there’s currently an empty median — the main goal is to improve roadway safety, according to city Public Services Director Raja Sethuraman.

“It’s a major gateway to the city,” he said. “It’s a place where we have a lot of businesses, and we want to keep attracting businesses, but at the same time, we do have a safety issue.”

Between 2010 and 2015, there were 84 midblock, or non-intersection, traffic collisions on Harbor between Wilson and 19th, according to Sethuraman. Almost half of those resulted in injuries, and one was fatal.

The proposed raised medians wouldn’t prevent accidents entirely, but they likely would reduce them by limiting where drivers can make left turns and generally slowing traffic in the area, Sethuraman said.

Such medians already exist on Harbor north of Wilson.

Some of those at Wednesday’s meeting, though, said the project could harm local businesses because potential customers would have to make U-turns or plan alternate routes to get around the medians.

Others said the medians themselves could create a safety issue because the landscaping might block the view of oncoming traffic.

“You’re trying to be safer, why put a hazard in the middle of the street?” said Tim Lewis, president of Red-E-Rentals at 2075 Harbor.

Another issue raised at the meeting is that the line of cars waiting in left-turn pockets on Harbor sometimes stretches into the existing striped median. Building a raised one, some said, would cause those vehicles to back up into other lanes, disrupting traffic.

Residents and business owners raised similar concerns during another public meeting about the new medians in August. Since then, the city has made several tweaks to the project — such as eliminating proposed medians in front of the 99 Cents Only store and the Maaco body shop.

Sethuraman said the city will review Wednesday’s feedback and consider whether any additional changes are necessary. The goal is for the project to go to the City Council for review in July.

Sethuraman previously said the project is expected to cost about $1 million, with about half of that coming from a federal grant.

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