Hawthorne Press Tribune
Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - March 1, 2018
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This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................2
Classifieds............................3
Film Review..........................2
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Lawndale .............................4
Legals................................ 4-7
Pets........................................8
Wiseburn..............................3
Weekend
Forecast
Officer Shelly Yoshida Honored
The February Employee of the Month Award went to Officer Shelly Yoshida (center), as presented by Police Chief Robert Fager (far right) during a City Council meeting. Yoshida is an active mentor and
program leader in the Hawthorne Police Department’s Explorer past as well as the South Bay Explorer academy program. She was recently assigned a new role as school resource officer for Hawthorne
High School. Photo: City of Hawthorne.
New Signals, Bike Lane, Sewer
Lines for Hawthorne Boulevard
By Derrick Deane
Hawthorne Boulevard is getting set for a
new wave of much-needed upgrades and sewer
updates in the coming months. City Manager
Arnie Shadbehr offered an update on both the
Hawthorne Boulevard Improvement Project as
well as the Sanitary Sewer Master Plan.
The project is so large in scope that Shadbehr
presented what he called Phase One, which
would encompass the section of Hawthorne
Boulevard from El Segundo Boulevard to Imperial
Highway. The project has been in planning
for more than a year and will include complete
pavement reconstruction and repaving along
the entire length of Hawthorne Boulevard as
well as installation of a bike lane. “This project
is going to include some center median curb
relocation, so we had to redesign and realign
the center median curb and open room for a
bike lane,” Shadbehr said.
Shabehr added that the bike lane was one of
the important elements in securing grant funding.
The new lane will run the entire length
of Hawthorne Boulevard and connect to the
L.A. County bike lane that begins at Imperial
Highway. “Each time when we put together
a grant application, we have to see what the
grant objectives are,” Shadbehr said. “We have
to work around the grant objectives. One of
the elements of this grant was the bike lane,
which is part of the multi-modal transportation
facility”
Shadbehr noted that the other key objective
with the grant was addressing mobility in the
city. “As a result of the Environmental Impact
Report (EIR) for the Hawthorne Specific Plan,
the construction of the hotels and the new
restaurant add an additional 2,500 [people] a
day in addition to what we have right now,”
he said.
The project seeks to install traffic signals at
three intersections. The first will be Hawthorne
and Broadway that will get two new 26-foottall
signals and a 24-foot-tall signal in addition
to adding new streetlights, a signal controller,
and video detection that will include the bike
lane. “The bike lane will activate the traffic
signal,” Shadbehr explained. :It is activating
from Rosecrans to El Segundo and continuing
all the way to Imperial Highway as if it is a
motorized vehicle.”
The second signal implementation will
take place at the north entrance of the
Hawthorne Mall. A 24-foot-tall signal and
a 15-foot-tall signal will be installed along
with the new video detection for the bike
lane. “We’re also adding new signal heads
for better visibility,” Shadbher said of that
particular installation.
At 120th Street, the controller will be reprogrammed,
Shadbeher added, “because of
the widening and re-striping and shifting the
lanes to accommodate the bike lane for the
video detection zone. We are doing the same
things at Imperial Highway.”
The third signal installation will take place at
Hawthorne Boulevard and 126th Street where
the new hotels and restaurant will be located.
“We are adding a new eastbound lane as well,”
Shadbehr said. “Right now, there is only one
lane going eastbound.”
The new lane will be for left turns onto
Hawthorne Boulevard going northbound and
has been something that Shadbehr and his
staff have been planning for a while. “If you
noticed when we were installing the infiltration
chambers between El Segundo and 120th
Street last year, we removed the median island
at 126th,” Shadbehr said. “We created that left
turn pocket in anticipation of this new traffic
signal. Back then, we didn’t have proper
funding to do the signal. Now we are in a
position to do it.”
The project will also replace 4,000 square feet
of sidewalk, 8,000 square feet of curb ramps,
and 24,000 square feet of driveways in order
to upgrade and comply with the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) codes.
Another major part of the project will involve
a sewer pipeline that will be installed, partly in
anticipation of an increase in people once the
new hotels across from City Hall are completed
and open for business. A key, large pipeline
will run from Broadway Avenue, under the
Hawthorne Mall, and connect with the County
Sanitation Trunk Line under Birch Avenue. “This
pipe is currently running at 85 to 90 percent
at capacity,” Shadbehr said. “Because of that,
we are adding a new [1,800 linear feet] relief
sewer pipe to share the load on that pipe -- and
in particular with the new hotel construction,
that is going be discharged to this same pipe.
This sewer line is very important. It is serving
66 acres of land in the vicinity of Broadway
and Hawthorne Boulevard.”
Part of the sewer improvements are a result
of the Sanitary Sewer Management Program
mandated by the state in 2007. The program
carries stiff fines for sewer overflow, including
$25,000 a day for each violation and $25
per gallon of overflow. Hawthorne currently
operates a two-man sewer crew who “flush the
100 miles of pipeline twice a year.”
Some of Hawthorne’s sewer pipes date back
the 1920s and a few areas of the pipeline have
historically experienced overflow. To combat
any potential overflow, the City of Hawthorne
teamed up with physicist Dr. Greg Quist PhD.
about installing devices on manhole covers.
“Thanks to our free market economy, he came
and met with us several years ago -- and with
his partner, they developed a high-tech, highquality
device called a Smart Cover,” Shadbehr
said. “It is constantly radiating ultrasound and
measuring flow level in the sewer system and
then sending signals to satellites.” Shadbehr
added that the Smart Covers have been working
for the past eight years in the city with no
overflow issues. •
Friday
Rain
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Saturday
AM Rain
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Sunday
Mostly
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