Tracks of My Tears – Gold Line Introduces New Traffic Delays

25 cars wait patiently to turn left. – Photo by Terry Miller

Traffic Nightmare Looms on Duarte Road in Monrovia

By Terry Miller

It is never fun getting stuck in traffic, but taking 25 minutes to get from Peck Road and Duarte eastbound to Myrtle (one block) is absurd on a city street. But that is exactly what is happening to frustrated motorists, especially during rush hour.

It happened to me on Thursday after I completed an assignment at Santa Fe School. I thought I would never get to Myrtle, it was truly exasperating, to say the least.

Oliver Chi, city manager, told Monrovia Weekly that the city is aware of potential problems and is studying traffic flow and problems as needs arise. “With the Gold Line coming in, we are certainly aware of potential traffic impacts in the area. As you may be aware, Metro just started running simulated ridership scenarios on the Gold Line around two weeks ago. Since they started that process, we’ve actually had our City Traffic Engineer out in the field assessing the impacts and we are certainly going to do everything that we can to try and fix any problems that are identified.”

I thought it was bad when there was construction for the final phase of the Foothill extension. That was an ocean breeze, compared to this.

Something is very wrong with the lighting arrangements/timing of signals and the lack of consideration for those wanting to go north on Myrtle to reach old town.

The testing of trains, we know, is part of the issue … but what is going to happen when the trains run every 10 to 12 minutes as is planned when the trains pull into the Monrovia depot on March 5.

One resident who responded to the online version of our story had this to say:

“You are absolutely correct. All these years of learning how to program traffic signals and getting it right, it seems like they’ve thrown it all out the door. Other cities are nowhere near this bad.
Left turn arrows coming on at crazy intervals, a green light leading under the freeway meeting a red light 75 feet away, lights not coming on for minutes on end when cars are waiting and there’s no cross traffic, lights going red every 20 seconds for a few seconds then back to green … it’s insane. It’s almost as bad as in the old Gremlins movie.
Are they hiring non-professionals to do this work? Someone please get on the ball for your taxpayers!”

Have the planners thought this out well enough? I think not!

Does light rail now mean heavy traffic in Monrovia? Let me know your thoughts: tmiller@beaconmedianews.com.

More from Featured