The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday unanimously directed the city manager to contact traffic navigation app developers like Waze to see what can be done to curtail the apps diverting traffic onto residential streets.

The request came from Councilwoman Suzie Price who represents southeast Long Beach, an area of the city that includes the the triangular intersection of Pacific Coast Highway, Seventh Street and Bellflower Boulevard. The location is often called the Iron Triangle for its congestion during peak commuting hours.

Price said that traffic-diversion apps like Waze have pushed vehicles away from impacted areas like the Iron Triangle into residential streets, which is creating safety issues and bothering residents.

“As we all know, some residential streets are not appropriate for high volumes of traffic whether it’s because they don’t have appropriate crosswalks, whether it’s because the roads are narrow, the noise impacts to the neighborhood,” Price said. “Whatever the case may be, a lot of our residential streets are not designed for cut-through traffic.”

Main thoroughfares that cut across the city like Seventh Street, Anaheim Street and Ocean Boulevard are designed to withstand the pounding of large volumes of vehicles while smaller residential streets are not. City officials say that the increased traffic can speed up the timeframe in which residential streets need to be repaired.

City could ask traffic apps to stop diverting cars onto residential streets

Working with developers like Waze has had mixed results with some municipalities resorting to putting up signage to prevent cars from turning into neighborhoods or creating special travel districts that require a sticker to enter certain streets during peak commute times.

It’s unclear what kind of approach Long Beach will take, but a report back to the City Council is expected within the next 60 days.

While the council unanimously approved Price’s motion, there was still an interest in making sure traffic is not crammed onto already congested portions of the city’s road system.

“Seventh Street, while not a residential neighborhood, has a lot of homes and driveways so I’m just concerned about the impact kind of trying to offset some of that,” said Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce, whose district includes a stretch of Seventh Street.

“It’s a main thoroughfare; I know we’ve had an identity crisis on Seventh Street,” she said. “But I think it’s worth a fuller conversation about how we absorb traffic on those streets.”