Tuesday, February 15, 2011

So, who's gotten stuck on Fair Oaks lately?

Careful not to fall in an open trench.

11 comments:

Mister Earl said...

I am very confused. Is the work on Fair Oaks supposed to make traffic flow more smoothly when it's all done? Or is it just decorative and designed to slow traffic down? If the latter, it would seem to contradict the low-build alternative to the 710. Is this work helping or hurting that effort?

Is it true that this includes parking meters on Fair Oaks, which I think is penny wise and pound foolish. What we really need is more parking facilities that serve Fair Oaks. Although I love the Comerica Bank restoration, I wonder how well the bank is actually doing on a busy corner with virtually no parking. Compare to US Bank in the Vons shopping center and Chase Bank that have plenty of parking.

WV: diformi. All this work is diformi Fair Oaks.

dbdubya said...

This project goes all the way back to when Jim Rogan was in Congress. The Rogan bill provided funds to make improvements to support the low build alternative. There were four projects and this is the third to be completed. The intent was to improve traffic flow through town. The first project was the lane reduction and addition of a planted median and traffic signal on Orange Grove. I believe it also paid for a signal synchronization project on Fair Oaks. Somehow the addition of a landscaped center median, bulbouts, and other pedestrian friendly and attractive improvements is supposed to improve traffic on Fair Oaks. There isn't enough money for the fourth project which probably would have the greatest significance. That would be a hook ramp for northbound traffic onto the 110 Freeway. That would reduce the bottleneck at the freeway. Hopefully funds will be found for that in the future.

I don't believe parking meters are part of the plan unless that's a recent change that was kept under the radar which is highly unlikely.

Anonymous said...

This is ridiculous. How will this do anything for traffic?

Anonymous said...

I did! I did! I'll never go on Fair Oaks again, ever.

Anonymous said...

Mr Earl
no parking meters in this project
no parking meters being considered

a project approved back in 2004 back when the modifications for parts of Mission St were also approved

Mike T

Trish said...

so, as I understand it, the goal is to impede traffic, to "make it better"?

oy.

guess no one in town remembers the stop signs on Alpha, in the middle of no where, to make traffic better. People for whom the signs were put up didn't stop and locals were just annoyed.

and the OG median strip might force traffic to comply, but I still had people running up my wazoo was I wound thru the maze N of the 110.

not sure I have better suggestions at the moment for improving traffic flow on FO or OG, but have to agree with Earl...not going to help folks who are fighting 710

Green Guy said...

Let me get this straight, they're going to make it harder to drive on Fair Oaks in order to ease the traffic on Fair Oaks? How is this going to work exactly?

Shanna said...

I'm glad we knew the back way to get to Wild Thyme.

Mister Earl said...

Thanks, Mike T and Dan W. Karin: News of what you're not going to do is always front page!

WV: mizedeb. A concept in which slowing traffic eases it with skillful use of medians.

Arthur said...

This is asinine. It's a perfect example of fixing something that was not broken.
But how many side streets have pot holes?......
The city makes $100,000 annually from filming permits and instead of putting that to use, they hired staff to absorb that revenue because they cannot use it to fix real problems.

Walk Pasadena said...

So, I was on a very draining business trip - 3 days in Barcelona, 1 day in Madrid, 2 days in London. I got into LAX at 6PM and I was beat. I decided to take the 105 to the 710 and up Fair Oaks as opposed to taking the 405 to the 10 to the 110, after the trip I just wanted to get home to Pasadena.
Everything went pretty well on my long drive home until I hit Fair Oaks. It took forever and I swore to myself I would not drive on Fair Oaks again until I had confirmation that the work was over. Awful!