At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting a presentation by Ken Striplin and Andrew Yi gave a very accurate accounting of the four proposals to correcting the traffic problems at Benz Road and the neighborhood’s response to each option.

One proposal opted for the speed bumps to be installed all around the Benz Road area.  This amounted to a trial of 20 – 30 bumps at 5 – 8 grand apiece or about $240,000 dollars maximum just for the trial.  The bumps would be temporary and could be reused elsewhere for more studies.

According to some residents, speed bumps would do nothing in limiting traffic volume, but are known to reduce speed by about 6 mph.  This would bring down the average speed on this 25 mph street from 45 to about 40 mph. Add noise, burnouts, braking, and acceleration and chassis’ slamming into them, and would be pure torture for the Benz residents.

The other two proposals were the Permanent Right Turn Restrictions at the top of Benz and Buckhorn (aka Phase II) that would be 100% effective, but virtually nobody likes, from any community.  The other proposal was the Copper Hill Meridian that would allow NO left turns onto Copper Hill from Benz or Buckhorn, but still allows right turns from Copper Hill or in other words, southbound traffic to go down Benz and Buckhorn.  This option is really only 50% effective at eliminating cut-thru traffic.

The Benz Road residents wanted the Diverter option, which would be almost 100% effective, cost almost nothing using K-Rails for the trial, and distribute the LOCAL traffic load EVENLY across the entire neighborhood, while eliminating the cut thru traffic altogether as if it were actually a cul-de-sac. No longer would there be a short-cut advantage leaving the main arteries and cutting through the Benz Road community.

The issue came down to doing the RIGHT thing for all the City’s citizens, whether it is one citizen, 28 citizens, 538 citizens or 185,000 citizens.  Alan Cameron, a community activist, clearly illustrated that when it came to matters of safety and quality of life in this city, it has never been put up for a popular vote.  He cited Photo Enforcement Cameras at intersections as his primary example. If left for a vote, nobody would have wanted them; but all agree that they are necessary, effective, and overall, add to our safety and a better quality of life.

Mr. Cameron also cited that this street was never designed to carry the current traffic load, and that the problem was not caused by the Benz Road residents. The residents should not have to pay for its resolution.

There were about 20 speakers from the Santa Clarita Neighborhood Coalition (SCNC), the Canyon Country Advisory Committee (CCAC), and the neighborhood that illustrated, at 3 minutes apiece, what the issues really were and reminded the council of what they really needed to do.  It was time consuming, difficult, but effective. There were also about 40 written comments, and even though several were not from the immediate area, or in the immediate center of impact, most relayed the points that every citizen had a right to feel safe and have a reasonable quality of life in their own home.

Laurene Weste and Laurie Enders stated they agreed with staff’s proposal and thought the speed bump experiment would be a great idea.  Marsha McLean fielded the thought that several trials should be performed starting with the lowest cost (the Diverter) and working from there.  She entered a motion, but when modified by Weste and Enters to allow Staff to include Speed Bumps as they saw fit as part of the trial, McLean backed out, her motion was not seconded.

Weste then entered a motion for a trial period with the Diverter option, add bumps where and when necessary surrounding the area, and remove the Turn Restrictions from both Buckhorn and Benz. Councilmember Laurie Ender seconded that motion, roll was taken two or three times, interrupted by more questions by Councilmember McLean, then the motion was finally approved 3 to 1, with McLean voting nay, and Frank Ferry being absent.

”It was like a breach childbirth;” commented one resident in regards to dealing with the City on this issue. Another resident chided Signal reporter Jim Holt about getting all the facts first in reference to The Signal’s announcement that city staff recommended the speed bumps, and nothing else. Based on the outcome on Tuesday, that appears to be incorrect information.

The meeting was adjourned about 11:20 pm.

Special thanks to Tony Natoli, a Benz Road resident and community activist, for suppling the first hand information in this report.