HomeMy WebLinkAbout12 - 19th Street Bridge Report - SARX StudyJanuary 11, 2000
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA
ITEM NO. 12
TO: Mayor and Members of the City Council
FROM: Public Works Department
SUBJECT: 19TH STREET BRIDGE REPORT (SARX STUDY)
RECOMMENDATION:
Work with the West Newport Community to inform them of the impacts to their
community related to the removal of the 19`h Street Bridge from the circulation system
and review the City's representation on the SARX Technical Advisory Group.
DISCUSSION:
The City Council requested a status report on the Santa Ana River Crossing Study
(SARX) during the meeting of December 13, 1999. The SARX study will produce a
program level Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the possible elimination of two
planned bridges over the Santa Ana River from the Master Plan of Arterial Highways
(MPAH). One bridge would connect Garfield and Gisler Avenues and the other would
connect 19th Street with Banning Avenue. The EIR is focusing on three alternatives,
one is to delete the bridges from the MPAH, the second is to leave them on the MPAH
and the third provides for alternative alignments for the two bridges. The alternative
alignment for the 19`h Street bridge would have it connect to 17`h Street rather than 19`h
Street on the east side of the river and have it connect to Brookhurst Street in
Huntington Beach without a direct connection to Banning Avenue.
The project has fallen significantly behind the original schedule due to the complexities
of working with four cities and their varying tabulations of existing and future land uses.
This information was needed to develop a computerized traffic model for this subarea
of the County. This hurdle has been overcome and work is again progressing. The
current schedule has the following milestones:
• Model runs completed by March 2000
• Mitigations and costs developed by June 2000
• Draft EIR released in August 2000
• Final EIR released in December 2000
SUBJECT: 191" Street Bridge Report (SARX Study)
January 11, 2000
Page 2
The City will receive detailed presentations on the Draft EIR once it has been released.
In order for any change to the MPAH to occur, it will be necessary for the City Councils
of Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach to agree on the
change.
The SARX study is being managed by the Orange County Transportation Authority
(OCTA) and funded by OCTA and three of the four cities, with Fountain Valley opting to
not contribute. Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach have indicated support for the
deletion of the planned bridges from the MPAH, while Fountain Valley and Newport
Beach have supported not only keeping the bridges on the MPAH, but also their
construction.
Due to the high level of concern expressed by Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa
residents during a study of the bridges in the early 1990's, OCTA has formed an ad -hoc
committee called the Technical Advisory Group (TAG). This committee includes Public
Works staff and one citizen representative from each of the cities. Up to this time, staff
has been able to identify only one individual who is interested in getting involved in the
SARX study and representing the residents of Newport Beach. Costa Mesa and
Huntington Beach have networks in place to arrange for large numbers of residents to
attend meetings and speak passionately against the bridges. It would certainly help
Newport Beach if we could develop a similar group of residents to represent our
position once the TAG begins meeting again in April.
Respectfull sub i d,
PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT
Don Webb, Director
By: po
Richard M. Edmonston.
Transportation & Development Services Manager
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