Traffic Debate Goes Round and Round

On L.A.’s Eastside, the term “Cinco Puntos” conjures up images of delicious tamales, fresh homemade tortillas and succulent pork carnitas.

It’s been been that way at the five-pointed intersection between the city of Los Angeles and unincorporated East L.A. since the landmark Cinco Puntos tortilleria opened there in 1966. During the Christmas holidays, for example, off-duty police officers have to be brought in to keep order as customers clamor for homemade tamales.

“It gets crazy over there,” says Eastside building contractor and Mexican food lover Mike Garcia, who shops there often. “They got the best carnitas in town.”

There is, however, a bitter side to Cinco Puntos, and it has to do with the confusing intersection where the popular store, along with a supermarket, a flour tortilla factory and Evergreen Cemetery, are located.

Four streets--Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, Indiana Street, Lorena Street and Brooklyn Place--converge from different angles, causing confusion, speeding and more than their share of traffic accidents.

Motorists on Cesar Chavez roar through the intersection at unsafe speeds, making left-hand turns dicey for others. Some drivers on Lorena lose control and crash into the corner’s grass medians. At least two drivers have crashed into the store.

Overall, more than 149 accidents have been reported there since 1966, making it one of the most dangerous corners in the city of Los Angeles, although few serious injuries have been reported, officials say.

Now, things are likely to get a lot hotter.

Several local veterans organizations, with the help of Los Angeles City Councilman Rick Pacheco, are pushing a 4-year-old plan to reshape the intersection into a “roundabout,” also known as a traffic circle, at a cost of more than $6 million.

They see a roundabout--commonplace in Mexico, Europe and some parts of the United States--as a workable solution to the traffic problems at Cinco Puntos.

*

Recent studies cited by city officials show that roundabouts can reduce accidents up to 75%.

The veterans groups also want the reconfigured intersection to serve as a showcase for memorials to Latino veterans. The roundabout’s center would be a prime spot for relocating the Mexican American All Wars Memorial from another part of the intersection, they say. The 25-foot-high sphere honoring Latino veterans has been in a grass median there since 1946.

Some envision the memorial atop a raised platform--in much the same manner that the golden Angel of Independence towers over a roundabout on El Paseo de la Reforma, the famed thoroughfare in Mexico City.

Two other nearby memorials could also share the roundabout’s center, veterans say. One is a time capsule containing mementos from local veterans that now shares the same patch of grass as the All Wars monument. It was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1994.

The other is Morin Memorial Square, located across the street on another grassy parcel. Dedicated in 1968 to the memory of Raul Morin, who wrote about Mexican American Medal of Honor recipients in his 1963 book “Among the Valiant,” the square contains two flagpoles and a plaque.

Veterans who gather each Memorial Day for a ceremonial observance at Cinco Puntos think the roundabout idea is a good one.

“We put our lives on the line for the freedoms that people in this country enjoy,” said Emilio Olguin, a Korean War vet. “This is a chance for us to teach our youth of the sacrifices that older generations of Latinos and other veterans have made for our country.”

“What we want to do is enhance the intersection,” added Ross Valencia, a World War II Navy vet who is spearheading the veterans’ effort.

But there is opposition to the proposal.

While acknowledging that a roundabout might cure the traffic problems, the owner of the Cinco Puntos store says his business would suffer. Foes also complain that some property owners in the immediate area, including the cemetery, would have to give up some vacant parcels for the roundabout.

Vincent Sotelo, owner of the tortilleria, is upset because he fears that the project would eliminate Brooklyn Place, a one-way, block-long street that he says provides valuable access to his store.

He waves off arguments from others that the store can be reached from Lorena and Indiana. He also discounts assertions by city officials that Brooklyn Place would remain, but as a two-way street. “They don’t know anything,” he said.

*

Sotelo is fighting for his business because it is reminiscent of food stores throughout Mexico, stocked with such favorites as carnitas, corn husks, uncooked beans and spices.

The 79-year-old merchant, intermittently clutching at the arm of a visitor, went to his store’s front door and gestured at the nearby memorials, complaining that the veterans groups do not clean up the trash that vagrants and others frequently leave there.

“We clean it up,” he said. “The veterans don’t come over here to clean up. When they have their Memorial Day observances, I let them use my electric outlets for the loudspeakers. I let them use my bathroom.”

Sotelo hurled other pointed barbs at the veterans, prompting a reporter to ask if he had any personal animosity toward them.

“No, no, no, no,” replied the World War II veteran, who served in the 8th Army Air Force.

To make his point, Sotelo showed off a recent addition to the store’s front door--World War II photos of him and his brothers in uniform. “I’m a veteran too,” he said.

Local resident Diana Tarango thinks the roundabout is a stupid idea that would prompt more motorists to use Michigan Avenue, where she lives, as a shortcut.

“Have you seen the traffic circle in Long Beach [where Pacific Coast Highway and Lakewood Boulevard meet]?” she asked. “It’s confusing. It’s terrible.”

Others argue that a realignment of Cesar Chavez--straightening out two curves in the intersection--is a more reasonable solution.

The Cinco Puntos project would be in the city of Los Angeles but affect traffic in neighboring East L.A.--Indiana forms part of the city’s eastern boundary. So the cooperation of county Supervisor Gloria Molina, who represents the adjoining neighborhoods in unincorporated territory, is needed.

Molina spokesman Miguel Santana said the supervisor is neutral about the proposal but is looking to Pacheco, with whom she has had several recent public disputes on other issues, to be the key player in dealing with both sides in the controversy. If both sides can agree on a proposal, Santana said, Molina is likely to support it.

*

Dan Farkas, a transportation consultant who recently left Pacheco’s City Hall staff, said that the councilman has held several community meetings to explore the proposal but that no consensus has emerged so far.

Saying the city has no appropriate funds for the project, Farkas said the city will approach the governing board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, on which Molina sits, for money aimed at easing traffic problems.

“We would like to have her support,” Farkas said of the supervisor.

Meanwhile, locals, oblivious to the dispute, can’t imagine Cinco Puntos without the store--regardless of the traffic.

“Where would I get my carnitas for the USC football parties?” Alfredo Guerra of Montebello wondered the other day.