Leona Heights Neighborhood News

by Gordon Laverty

Leona Heights residents are grateful to our elected city, county, and state representatives who went to bat for us encouraging CalTrans not to allow trucks on Highway 580, but instead to improve I-880, thus addressing the concerns of The California Trucking Association. Maybe it will be a win-win situation for all parties. A corollary issue that needs to be dealt with is the inordinately high level of sound reflected from the concrete on Highways 580 and 13, which needs damping in our neighborhood. Paving with asphalt over the existing concrete would significantly diminish the traffic sound, as witness the lessened sound bounce where 580 was recently asphalted in the Grand Lake stretch. The Leona Heights Improvement Association Board of Directors will soon discuss and recommend action on this issue. Another traffic subject affecting many Leona Heights dwellers is the danger of increasing and increasingly speeding traffic on Mountain Boulevard between Kuhnle/Seminary and Calaveras Avenues. CalTrans work on the westbound 580 onramp at Rusting has not decreased the number of accidents occurring on the ramp curve. This leaves the unaddressed issue of increasingly high speed of vehicles going westward on Mountain Boulevard. Near misses are increasingly being reported to your correspondent, with the request that something be done to require reduced vehicle speed, such as low-height speed ripples added to the westbound lane of Mountain Boulevard and addition of at least a stop sign at Rusting in the eastbound lane. Oh, the joy of a moving, growing city! Hang in. We're hurrying work on resolution of these issues!