The City’s plans for improving traffic flow on Huntington Drive will mean more turn lanes at several points and no  more left turns at two spots.

This driver exiting alley at right will no longer be able to cross Santa Anita and make a left turn.

The work is part of a plan to revise three intersections along Huntington Drive between San Rafael and Santa Anita in hopes of improving traffic flow on Huntington. The projects include (see photos):

• Creating additional left turn lanes on southbound and northbound Santa Anita at Huntington. This will include closing off the cut-through from the alley south of Huntington on the east side of Santa Anita (photo at right and bottom right).
  
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• * Adding another northbound right turn lane where Huntington makes a sharp turn to the east at the intersection with Santa Clara by shaving off a piece of the County’s Arcadia Park property  (photo at left).
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• Closing off another median cut-through for left turns at San Rafael near Citizens Bank and to the 100-to-1 bar. The City announced at the Council meeting Tuesday that this work will now be delayed since the Gold Line’s impending closure of Colorado Boulevard over the next month to take down the train bridge would severely limit access to the residential area north of Huntington Drive and south of Colorado. (Photos at right)

The Arcadia City Council and Chamber of Commerce are trying to hold Metro to a promise it made to build the parking lot at the Arcadia train station for the Gold Line extension in a way that it could be expanded later from 300 spaces to 800 spaces as demand increased.

In recent months it has become apparent that those plans have quietly changed, which could lead to limited parking until an entirely new, expensive, and lengthy Environmental Impact Report and design change were to be completed and approved. Gold Line officials are now suggesting that train riders will simply and happily begin carpooling, walking, and riding buses and bikes to the station, thereby reducing parking demand.

Work is underway on an 11.5-mile extension of the Gold Line from its current terminus at the Madre Villa station in Pasadena to Azusa. The new $18.5 mil. “iconic” bridge over the eastbound lanes of the 210 freeway into Arcadia is expected to be completed by September (the public is invited to meet the artist of the bridge design at the Arcadia Public Library on June 26). Meanwhile, work is beginning this month to demolish the train bridge over Colorado Blvd. to make room for a new, bigger bridge there. A bridge will then be built over Santa Anita Avenue — officials have yet to commit to  start date or schedule for this work. Those tracks will lead to the station and adjacent parking garage on the northwest corner of First Avenue at Santa Clara. Additional construction will be needed to expand the bridge over Huntington Drive at Second Avenue. The next leg after Azusa would be to Claremont and Montclair, and eventually to the Ontario Airport around 2025, though approvals and funding are still needed for the latter stages.

Station platforms (in yellow) have since been revised to be west of First Avenue adjacent to the parking garage.

When Metro was gathering support for the project, they promised that the Arcadia parking garage would initially be built with only two levels, but designed from the beginning to be constructed in such a way as to be easily expanded by as many as three additional levels of parking to handle up to 800 cars.

But during presentations at Arcadia City Council meetings and during questioning at Arcadia Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Forums, it has been revealed that the current plans do not include the design of an expandable parking garage, and that the current EIR does not account for anything more than two levels of parking.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a resolution “requesting” the Metro Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority to design and construct the Gold Line Arcadia station parking structure to allow for future expansion of up to 800 spaces as required by the full build alternative as documented in the 2007 Final Environmental Impact Report and subsequent supplemental EIR.

That was just a few minutes after Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian, during a regular update of Gold Line progress to the Council, confirmed that the current plans for the parking structure call for a two-level garage with a capacity for 300 spaces (50 fewer than the planned station at Monrovia). He also confirmed that although the pillars of the garage are being built big enough to eventually handle three additional levels of parking, a new design and EIR would be required if and when demand increased for parking. But he said that based on current usage patterns, when parking garages reach capacity, train riders are finding more environmentally friendly ways to get to and from stations, such as bicycling and carpooling.

Later in the meeting, the Council approved $70,000 for a consultant to help the fledgling Arcadia Downtown Business Association establish a Business Improvement District to tax property owners in the area just south of the Gold Line station to create shops and entertainment in the area that will not only create a more enticing environment for local residents but that will also leverage the potential customers arriving and leaving the parking lot at the station.

– By Scott Hettrick

West Colorado Boulevard will be closed west of Santa Anita Avenue to San Antonio Road from 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. for three weeks from Monday, May 21, to Friday, June 8, as the train bridge is removed to make room for new ones to be built for the 11.5-mile Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension from Pasadena to Azusa light rail scheduled to open in 2016.
During a fourth week of work, the road will be closed day and night from Monday, June 11, to Friday, June 15.

May 11 photo from Gold Line Facebook page: The I-210 Bridge form work is almost ready for concrete. The architectural form-liners are nearly all in place and reinforcing steel is being installed.

Meanwhile, eastbound lanes of the I-210 Foothill Freeway will be impacted on June 11 as concrete is poured for 18-hours at the new “iconic” bridge. Pre-construction activities, such as gathering soil samples, locating and surveying underground utilities, and will be ongoing throughout the summer.

(Click here for an index of recent stories and updates on various Gold Line projects and news.)

During the Colorado Blvd work, local access to residences and businesses will be maintained by use of access streets along the detour route on Colorado Place and Santa Clara Street; a portion of the eastern edge of the Newcastle Park will be fenced off but access to the majority of the park will be maintained.

At a future date to be announced, Colorado Blvd will need to be closed again when work begins on the construction of a new bigger bridge to carry two sets of side-by-side tracks for the Gold Line.
Separately, work that the City of Arcadia recently announced to close off left turn access in and out of San Rafael on Huntington Drive has been indefinitely delayed until after all bridge work is done on Colorado Blvd. The two projects being conducted simultaneously would have effectively locked local residents in or out of the area by restricting the only access roads to the north and south of the area.

A construction notice that went out to local residents and property owners in the area is included below. For questions about construction activities:

Visit www.foothillextension.org and sign up to receive important progress updates and construction alerts to your email.

Community Hotline: (626) 324-7098

Dan Kulka, Community Relations Manager
Kiewit Parsons Joint Venture
(626) 610-0300 / dan.kulka@kiewit.com
For project information:
Sylvia Beltran, Community Outreach Coordinator
Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority
(626) 305-7012 / sbeltran@foothillextension.org

The Arcadia Unified School District Board of Education has recruited a high school principal from Los Alamitos in Orange County to be the new principal at Arcadia High School.

Dr. Brent Forsee

Dr. Brent Forsee will replace current AHS principal Dr. David Vannasdall, who was recently appointed to the District’s Deputy Superintendent position, replacing Dr. Robert Leri, who took the superintendent position in Tahoe Truckee. Vannasdall has being serving in dual capacity while awaiting the appointment of the new principal.

Dr. Forsee, who graduated from Pasadena High School and lives in Monrovia with his wife and 14-month-old daughter, is also currently the Director of Assessment in Los Alamitos. He previously was an assistant principal for Glendale Unified School District and a special education teacher for San Diego Unified School District. He earned degrees in History and Special Education as well as School Administration from Point Loma Nazarene University. He earned his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California.

Coming from fourth place to win by a neck at the wire, last month’s Santa Anita Derby winner I’ll Have Another notched the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown today by winning the Preakness in Baltimore in front of a record crowd of more than 121,000.

I'll Have Another (left) passes Bodemeister at wire. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images, from Bleacherreport.com

That sets up a chance to complete the Triple Crown at Belmont Park in New York three weeks from today on June 9.  It’s been 34 years since Affirmed became the last horse to win the Triple Crown in 1978. Big Brown was the last to have a chance by winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2008, but an injury prevented the thoroughbred from completing the Belmont race.

Today’s Preakness was also a victory for Arcadia High School graduate Tyler Cerin, now a 24-year-old horse physical therapist living in Azusa who is one of several tending to the 3-year-old colt, as reported in today’s Pasadena Star-News.

Jockey Mario Gutierrez moved his horse ahead of Mike Smith and Bodemeister for the first time just a few yards before the finish line. Bodemeister led a slow pace the entire race until that point. Both horses finished far ahead of the rest of the pack that included third place finisher Creative Cause. The top three finishers were all California horses.

It was the second disappointment in two weeks for famed Santa Anita trainer Bob Baffert, Smith, and Bodemeister, after losing to long-shot I’ll Have Another by 1 1/2 lengths at the Kentucky Derby earlier this month.

I’ll Have Another is owned by Paul Reddam and trained by Doug O’Neill. Reddam purchased the colt for $35,000 at a 2-year-old in training sale in Ocala, Fla., in April of 2011. Prior to winning the Santa Anita Derby April 7 at 4-1, I’ll Have Another won Santa Anita’s Grade II Robert B. Lewis Stakes on Feb. 4 at odds of 43-1.
The horse became the first Santa Anita Derby winner since Sunday Silence in 1989 to win the Kentucky Derby. Prior to that seven other horses have parlayed victory in the Santa Anita Derby to the Kentucky Derby winner’s circle: Winning Colors (1988), Affirmed (1978), Majestic Prince (1969), Lucky Debonair (1965), Swaps (1955), Determine (1954) and Hill Gail (1952).

Racing resumes at Santa Anita in late September and the 2012 Autumn Meet will be highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup World Championships on Nov. 2 & 3.