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Projects on Colima Road and Gale Avenue causing delays, headaches in

0 Comments | San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Jun 20, 2010 | by Juliette Funes

ROWLAND HEIGHTS – A mile of Colima Road has turned into a traffic nightmare.

Until September, a project on the street will likely keep traffic clogged from Fullerton Road to Nogales Street, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

It took Gasper Gonzales 20 minutes to drive from the Puente Hills Mall in Industry to Fullerton Road.

“I don’t think they planned this out properly,” said Gonzales of South El Monte, who was grabbing a bite to eat. “They didn’t realize it would have this kind of impact.”

The $1.5 million Colima Road project includes new irrigation systems, raised medians with landscaping, changes to traffic signals and reconstruction of damaged curbs, gutters and sidewalks, said Public Works spokesman Gary Boze.

Parts of Jellick Avenue, Paso Real Avenue and Andrada Avenue are also affected from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The road improvement project is expected to be completed by mid- September, Boze said.

To make matters worse for commuters, construction work has also been ongoing for the past few months in Industry on Gale Avenue, which runs parallel to Colima Road.

“The combination of work on Fullerton and Gale, it is unfortunate that all these projects have been going on at the same time because it certainly makes traffic congestion a heck of a lot worse,” said Mike Popovec, a member of the Rowland Heights Community Coordinating Council. “The whole community has been directly affected by it.”

During construction, the county has been closing lanes, which is causing drivers to navigate through nearby parking lots.

When he lived in Rowland Heights 15 years ago, there were fewer strip malls, and traveling down Colima was a breeze, Gonzales said.

“They didn’t have all this here before. There wasn’t this many people before,” he said. “I come back to the city and it’s unbelievable
landscape curb