Does that headline grab your attention?
It's just the kind of fear mongering headline that Westfield's Arcadia First! is using in ads and mailers. And, like those ads, this headline is accurate... to a fault.

Mail carriers dropped fliers in mailboxes around town today that feature a big photo of congested traffic on Huntington Drive at about 5:45 p.m. on Jan. 31, and asking us to imagine how much worse it will get when the "Caruso/Magna Mall" is opened.
First of all, what the flier and ads conveniently fail to mention is that much of that current traffic congestion they are showing in such dramatic photos is caused by Westfield's own Santa Anita mall!

If Westfield's Arcadia First is so concerned about traffic, why haven't they done anything to reduce their own increasing car trips and why are they continuing to add to it themselves with their own expansions? In fact, they are seeking approval from the city right now for yet another expansion that will generate even more traffic trips.

Ironically, the best solution to Westfield's traffic is the approval of Caruso Affiliated's proposed Shops at Santa Anita. While Westfield and its Arcadia First group have no new plans to reduce traffic congestion, Caruso Affiliated's proposal comes with a promise to spend about $10 million to improve traffic lights and intersections to the point that traffic at the 20 most impacted intersections will be no worse than it is now, and will actually flow more smoothly at 16 of those 20 intersections than it does even now.
Think about that. 
Caruso's plans for traffic improvements will not only offset extra traffic trips to his own Shops at Santa Anita but also the extra traffic that has already been created and ignored by Westfield and additional traffic Westfield will generate with more expansions.

When Westfield alerted the city back in 2000 about their series of planned expansions totaling 600,000 square feet, the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) at that time projected 16,080 net new car trips per day when all the expansions were complete. Certainly those projected numbers would have increased in the last 7 years, but even using those figures, if you want to extrapolate them in the most inflammatory way as Westfield does regarding the EIR for Caruso's Shops at Santa Anita, you could do the math this way: Westfield's 16,080 car trips x 30 days in a month = nearly a HALF-MILLION NEW CAR TRIPS PER MONTH... EVERY MONTH... FOREVER! Or you could accurately say, 6 MILLION NEW CAR TRIPS PER YEAR... EVERY YEAR... FOREVER!
But those are the kinds of manipulations and scare tactics that Westfield's Arcadia First is using in an apparent attempt to get Arcadia residents to help them keep them from having to face the mall's first real competition in Arcadia.

What you should be asking yourself is:

* Would you rather leave things status quo and allow Westfield to continue to expand and generate more traffic without doing anything to make those photos they are sending to you ever look any better even if the Shops at Santa Anita is never built?
* Or would you rather see approval of a development that offsets all new car trips it generates as well as the additional car trips being generated by Westfield?

The last two chances you will have to let city leaders hear your preference (unless Westfield's Arcadia First decides to start another petition drive to get another initiative on the ballot at our expense) will be at a special meeting of the Planning Commission on March 14 at the Masonic Lodge at 50 W. Duarte Rd., and again at a special City Council meeting on April 11 at the same Masonic Lodge.

City leaders need to hear from you and your neighbors, friends and family who live in Arcadia. 

Scott Hettrick
founder, Arcadia Wins!