Building and employment are bouncing back from the lows of the recession with a vengeance in Irvine, and with that growth comes people – lots of people, zooming about or cycling through the city.

How do they get around? Cars, trucks, bicycles, buses: you name it, and it’s likely to have traveled near to or on an Irvine roadway.

Employment boosts Irvine’s population – already over 250,000 individuals – to about 340,000.

Residents are taking notice.

“Traffic starts at 6 a.m. and lasts to midnight, it seems sometimes,” said Harvey Liss, a longtime Irvine resident and community activist.

In turn, officials are taking notice of residents’ complaints.

Earlier this year, the City Council allocated nearly $250,000 for a comprehensive review of citywide “mobility” – a term that encompasses private vehicles, public transportation and bicycle trails.

Fullerton-based firm Albert Grover & Associates is conducting the review, aiming to reveal to how to reduce congestion during peak commute hours.

More recently, the council voted to fast-track a handful of planned and ongoing traffic projects.

Projects that the council requested be done more quickly than initially planned include the widening of two stretches of roadway: Jamboree Road, from Main Street to Barranca Parkway, and University Drive, from MacArthur Boulevard to Campus Drive.

The addition of a pedestrian bridge over Jamboree Road, north of Michelson Drive, will also be completed more quickly than it would have been.

Officials also sped up plans to widen intersections at University and Culver drives and at Jeffrey Road and Walnut Avenue.

Dave Roseman, an Albert Grover consultant, said fixing congestion is “a little bit of math, a little bit of art.”

Since there isn’t always one obvious way to fix jams – stop traffic one way and the flow of vehicles traveling perpendicularly are likely to get fouled up – projects need prioritizing.

As part of the firm’s effort to determine what needs immediate attention, consultants have been tasked with getting input from residents to inform their recommendations.

“We want to hear from the public. It’s vitally important,” Roseman said recently at the first of three community meetings about traffic the firm scheduled this summer. “As daily users of the transportation system, you guys are the experts. You use it every single day. You know what works and you know what doesn’t work.”

Some of the methods under considering include additional traffic signal synchronization.

Some such projects are already underway. By fall of 2016, an updated signal timing plan is expected to be in place for the traffic lights along Alton Parkway, from Red Hill Avenue to Portola Parkway, and along Barranca Parkway, from Red Hill to Robin Circle in Mission Viejo.

The final community traffic meeting is 6:30 p.m. Monday at Cypress Community Park.

Residents are invited to share their concerns with the people who are compiling information that will be presented to the council in the form of recommendations as to how alleviate congestion.

For those who can’t attend, an online survey through which residents can submit suggestions is available on the city’s website through Sept. 3.

The traffic study is slated for completion in early 2016.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/traffic-676191-residents-community.html