Orange Grove Boulevard’s stone mansions, earthy craftsman homes and tree-lined parkways speak of Pasadena’s grand history. So do the magnificent floats of the Rose Parade when they line up on the street every Jan. 1 before dawn.

But for the last few months, the street is getting buzz on social media and attention at City Council meetings for another reason: a plan to put the iconic street on a “road diet,” down from four traffic lanes to two but with more left and right-turn pockets and a buffered bike lane in each direction.

The changes won’t impact the famous north-south portion. Initially, the reconfiguration plan centered on the 4.2-mile east-west section of Orange Grove Boulevard, roughly from Lincoln Avenue on the west to Sierra Madre Villa Avenue on the city’s eastern edge. However, after feeling the heat, the city is scaling down the project, suggesting the road diet only for the easterly, residential portion from Lake Avenue to Sierra Madre Villa Avenue, 2.9 miles.

Residents who live on Orange Grove Boulevard and in the vicinity are lining up against the road diet. Groups advocating for safer pedestrian crossing and sharing city streets with bike riders like the idea in concept but also are unhappy because the project does not go far enough.

“We like half of it. We wish they would do the whole thing,” said Greg Gunther, chairman of the city’s Transportation Advisory Committee. He and others from the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition say the western half would be well-received because it contains more bike-dependent residents as well as pedestrians who are in danger of getting hit or killed by a car going too fast. “Ironically the greatest need is here,” he said, during a sit-down interview at the Starbucks on Orange Grove Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue.

Meanwhile, comments on Nextdoor and other social media sites from Pasadena homeowners are mostly negative. “I can’t imagine a worse decision. The traffic on Orange Grove is busy enough as it is and to reduce the lanes by 50 percent would only make matters worse,” wrote one resident in an anonymous post on Nextdoor, used by people to discuss neighborhood issues.

Sabrina Kaleta, a resident of the Lamanda Park neighborhood just south of Orange Grove, commented that she doesn’t think this idea will work on this street. “I totally support creating a complete path of bike lanes throughout the city but on streets with less traffic.”

Though one continuous road, the east-west Orange Grove, called East Orange Grove east of Fair Oaks Avenue, is much different than the north-south one, sometimes called “Millionaires Row.” The east-west Orange Grove’s western portion goes through Northwest Pasadena’s black and Latino working class neighborhoods, carrying cars, bicyclists and pedestrians through a busy, commercial zone.

Looking east from Lake Avenue to Sierra Madre Villa Avenue, the four-lane Orange Grove Boulevard is less traversed, surrounded by 672 homes. It’s also where almost 2,000 cars a day pass by Assumption Schools and Norma Coombs School traveling above the posted 40 mph speed limit, according to a city report.

Over the last 10 years, the city estimates there have been 418 traffic collisions on Orange Grove Boulevard east of Lake Avenue, resulting in 309 injuries and three deaths.

Joaquin Siques, city traffic engineer, said the primary issue is safety. He said the city receives many complaints from residents about cars going too fast and people finding it difficult to cross the street.

By going to one free-flow lane in each direction, the driver can only go as fast as the car in front of him, he said. The road diet eliminates weaving in and out of the two lanes and the turn lanes will make it safer for residents to turn into their driveways.

“We want to bring back the residential character of the street. We are trying to get cars to slow down,” Siques said Friday.

Many who oppose the idea say the reduction in lanes, even with more right- and left-turning lanes, will back up traffic at signals. The city report says East Orange Grove Boulevard has become an alternate to the the often-jammed 210 Freeway.

Although he said the bike lane is not the focus, he added: “There is definitely a need to provide an east-west connector for bikes and this is a good, wide residential street.”

Siques said the driver will experience minor slow downs but not enough to cause significant delays. He called many of the comments on social media “misinformation.” The city will present the proposal along with results of a new traffic study at two upcoming public meetings:

6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., March 22, Pasadena City College/Foothill Campus, 3035 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena

6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., March 28, Marshall Fundamental School library building, 990 N. Allen Ave., Pasadena