Costa Mesa meeting airs traffic and business concerns over proposed Harbor Boulevard medians

The latest edition of a plan to build raised landscaped medians on a stretch of Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa drew familiar objections and concerns from a vocal crowd of about a dozen people Wednesday night at City Hall.

As has been the case at previous community meetings, people at the latest session raised concerns that the proposed medians between Wilson and 19th streets could hinder traffic flow or harm businesses along the nearly 1-mile stretch.

Raised medians are already in place on Harbor north of Wilson.

Some business owners are worried that filling in the current empty roadway median would force drivers to make U-turns or take circuitous routes to get to their shops, potentially discouraging customers.

“My concept was … to get this done without harming anybody,” said Tim Lewis, president of Red-E-Rentals at 2075 Harbor. “We’ve pretty much done that [but] there are still a couple of issues there, and there’s still time to deal with it.”

City staff members said they’ve retooled the design of the median following comments at community meetings in August 2016 and May this year and during an initial City Council hearing in August.

“We went from a plan that blocked off so many more driveways to something that we feel is very minimal right now,” said city Public Services Director Raja Sethuraman. “So we came a long way based on the input we received.”

Businesses with a solid client base “will keep attracting customers anyway,” he added. “This is not impeding anything.”

A recent tweak to the median plan is that some stretches will be built lower and kept free of landscaping to allow fire vehicles to pass through if necessary, according to Sethuraman.

The estimated cost of the project is $800,000, he said, with about $500,000 coming from a grant.

While installing the new medians could help improve the look of the area, city officials say, the primary motivation is safety, with the particular goal of reducing head-on and broadside traffic collisions.

Eighty-four midblock, or non-intersection, traffic collisions were recorded on Harbor between Wilson and 19th from 2010 to 2015, according to city data. Almost half of them resulted in injuries, and one was fatal.

Though the proposed raised medians wouldn’t eliminate crashes, Sethuraman said they likely would reduce the number and severity by slowing traffic and limiting where drivers can make left turns.

Some people at Wednesday’s meeting, however, scoffed at the idea that the street features would do anything to improve safety or encourage drivers to take the pedal off the metal.

The median project is scheduled to go to the City Council for review and possible approval Dec. 5.

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