CITY HALL
City taking its lumps
The City Council on Tuesday approved a slew of speed hump requests
throughout the city, despite concerns by at least two council members
that the traffic-calming devices might slow down emergency response
times, and residents' worries that the humps would simply divert
traffic onto their streets.
The $90,000 project will involve construction of 13 new speed
humps and lumps on Coronado Drive, Doran Street, Geneva Street,
Highland Avenue and South Street and the reconstruction of 12
existing speed humps on Ethel Street, Glenoaks Boulevard and Los
Olivos Lane.
Speed lumps are similar to speed humps, but feature 18-inch gaps
that allow emergency vehicles to pass thorough unimpeded.
Construction of the speed humps is expected to begin in late
September and to be completed by the second week of October, Public
Works Director Steve Zurn said.
* The organization that has run Project Achieve, the city's
homeless-assistance and housing program for nine years, called it
quits this week, leaving the city in need of a new sponsor for the
program.
The Institute for Urban Research and Development has run Project
Achieve's access center, emergency shelter, transitional and
permanent housing programs for the homeless in the city since 1996. A
nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, the institute manages
programs receiving a combined $2.4 million in federal and local funds
administered through the city of Glendale.
But the institute's board of directors has informed Glendale that
it will run only the city's homeless programs through the end of
2005, citing financial constraints associated with managing the
Project Achieve contracts.
* A study examining the feasibility of constructing a 23-mile
highway linking the Palmdale-Lancaster area and Glendale has set the
price of such a project at $3.1 billion.
The study, conducted by San Francisco-based URS Corp. and released
this week, determined that even if the project were to be constructed
as a toll road, it would only bring in $1.45 billion in revenue in 30
years.
"I am not surprised at all about the costs," said City Councilman
Dave Weaver, a retired engineer. "It would be a massive boring job.
When technology gets to the point that you can have a boring machine
cut through mountains like butter, then it would be feasible. Until
then, the costs are prohibitive. You have to think about lighting,
ventilation and earthquakes, among other things."
* Thursday marked the first day fees were charged to adult
