Compton residents continue to clap back at City Hall

Compton residents continue to sound off in their hometown newspaper.  Residents have submitted another seething article to the Compton Herald regarding their issue with the Wilmington Ave. Port Access Plan.  Residents want to know when and how Wilmington became a designated truck route.  Unfortunately the blame is being placed on Mayor Aja Brown who had zero to do with the designation.[adsenseyu2]

Related:  LOCAL VOICES: Truck corridor planned for Wilmington Avenue affront to residents

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Every urbanized county in California is required to develop a Congestion Management Program (CMP) to integrate land use, transportation and air quality decision-making at the local and county level. The origin of this requirement was the passage of Proposition 111 in 1990 that mandated the development of a CMP for every urbanized California County, and required that the new gas tax funds authorized by Proposition 111 be used to reduce congestion and improve air quality.

In 1993 the Bradley Administration adopted city ordinance 1,889, that says they would comply with the CMP program.  The CMP required the designation of truck routes, through the city, that could NOT be removed as a truck route.

By 1995 the Compton Renaissance transit line opened and streets were repaired, due to the new revenue being earmarked for these projects.

The money is designed to repair roads, create bus lines, promote ridesharing and carpooling in order to ease traffic burdens, created on surface streets, by those avoiding the freeway.  As the 105 freeway was added and Metro continues to expand their rail system, the need to plan further out than 10 years became necessary.  Thus, cities are now planning 20 years out.  This explains why the current Compton CMP is through 2030.

The CMP requires the city to submit a traffic count, every odd year, to measure how much traffic is traveling down city streets along with decibel testing for noise.  Because the city is located within 4 miles of multiple freeways, traffic studies should be done city-wide not just the same two intersections (Alameda/Compton & Alameda/91) that Planning submits annually.  These two intersections are mandated by LA County and studies are conducted by LA County.  Conflict or nah?

Are any projects exempt from the required traffic studies and decibel testing?  Yes.  Projects exempt from CEQA aren’t required to go through the normal testing process.

So to recap, Wilmington was designated a truck route back in 1993 and studies began on the Brickyard site in 2010 according to the State Treasurer’s office.  However the current Brickyard project passed council last year, on a unanimous vote, despite the significant health risks to the residents.  Therefore residents can’t lay exclusive blame on the mayor.

During the May 24, 2016 council meeting a public hearing was held to certify this years 2030 CMP, which includes map of the trucking routes and it was approved 3-0.  The mayor and councilman Isaac Galvan did not cast a vote.

The money that follows the designation will go into the building of the new bridges along Wilmington Ave.  Because the annual amount attached to the annual CMP, has a significant portion going towards the rebuilding of the bridges.  The mayor put Measure P to the voters to ensure additional monies would be available to shore up the difference to repair roads citywide.

City council didn’t certify Measure P election results at Tuesday’s meeting due to lack of votes.  Calls placed to the city clerk’s office, inquiring about how many days council has to certify the results, they replied “they don’t know”.  They are waiting for the city attorney to tell them.