Caltrans Investigates Removing Up To 2,171 Parking Places On PCH To Make Way For Bike Lanes
Written by 991KBU on June 29, 2022
Caltrans officials say they are looking into removing a breathtaking 2,171 parking spaces from Pacific Coast Highway … between the Adamson House and the county line.
This … to stripe in a bike lane on each side of the highway …
But more questions than answers remain after a public meeting last night … a public meeting marked by replies that were frequently unintelligible or of the “I don’t know variety.”
For example.
Caltrans officials said they do not know howe many parking places would remain … if they remove 2,171 parking places from PCH.
And no information whatsoever … as to how the Coastal Commission might feel about that.
KBUU was not able to get recognized at the WebEx meeting … which had numerous technical issues and log silences.
And our written questions to Caltrans about the Coastal Commission … raised in email three weeks ago and again last night … were not addressed.
That is not the only non answer from Caltrans last night. One bicyclist asked Caltrans if the bike lanes would include a buffer.
This is the Q and A:
NEWSCART A73456 CONFUSUION
CYLCIST: “… a cyclist would run into those doors. I don’t know if there would be a buffer between the part cars and the bike lane. Those are my two questions
CALTRANS REPONSE “ Um … [Unintelligible] parking [Unintelligible] class II [Unintelligible] [Unintelligible] And for the [Unintelligible] parking space.”
That was a Caltrans engineer… who frankly did not present any understanding of the question … his answer speaks for itself.
That was just the start of confusion and nonanswerrs.
Some bicyclists told Caltrans they not only want a buffer next to the parked cars … but a buffer next to the highway lanes itself.
Larry Avala is with Bike Ventura.
NEWSCART A73457 BUFFER ZONE LARRY ABALA
“I see that it is a class 2 (bikeway)… and I would be much happier to see a class 4 lane be put in there.
“but I would also like to see a buffer, but actually on the traffic side where the speed limit exceeds 35 miles an hour.”
But wait a minute … said Malibu mayor Paul Grisanti.
NEWSCART A73459 DISTRESSING PG 50 ft
“People who want us to have Level Four bike lanes everywhere don’t seem to have any relationship to the reality of the roadway easement that we have.
“It’s distressing that people will criticize space on the basis of us not having an extra 50 feet of width so that we could have everything… Unless there is some plan to buy an extra 50 feet that I seem to have missed.”
Grisanti wanted to know from Caltrans … if adding the bike lanes to the side of PCH would mean that bicyclists would be required to ride in them … and not in the 50 or 55 mile an hour traffic.
Caltrans official Lupe Tamayo tried to answer.
NEWSCART A73458 RULES PG
CALTRANS: “So you are asking if people would be ticketed if they …”
GRISANTI: “I am asking that if they put in dedicated bike lens bike lanes if you put in a dedicated bike lane and a cyclist decide to use the traffic lanes instead is that an infraction?”
CALTRANS: “it would be based on the vehicle code. So whatever the vehicle code whatever the California vehicle code states, then if it states that there is a dedicated bike lane and you are writing in the number two lane and you get sided then… I don’t know what the rules might be for that… But it all depends on the vehicle code.”
GRISANTI: “How can you design a road if you don’t know what the rules are?”
Well .. that certainly clears up whether building a bike lane would shift all bikes off the traffic lanes.
Grisanti said Malibu residents need to know if bike lanes will mean no bikes in traffic lanes … before they can decide whether to support eliminating 2,171 parking spaces for the bike lanes.
And that wasn’t;t the only confusion …
One bicyclist asked why Caltrans is talking about building bike lanes in western malibu … when it is eastern malibu that is most dangerous,.
Caltrans official Jane Yu Lupe Tamayo tried to answer that one:
NEWSCART A73460 EAST END JANE YU within these limits
“Yeah, um … so… um… typically … um … from what I’m aware of … maybe Corridor Management might be able to hello with that?
“Our current project… the project limits …. are from Serra Road to the Ventura County line…
“So that’s do you know where the scope… our limits … begin and end.
“And for the limits beyond that I would have to check within our organization to see if we are doing anything about those limits.”
OK.
So let’s look at what the actual plan might be.
The Caltrans engineers last night showed a chart with various chunks of PCH – 16 miles of PCH that are tentatively scheduled for road repaving and possible installation of bike lanes.
They are talking about removing 120 free parking spaces at Surfrider Beach and Legacy Park.
But … the state plan apparently would not touch the roadside PCH parking places along PCH at Corral Beach … and Latigo Beach.
How the bike lanes would be wedged in there … that was not specified.
All of the on-street parking near Paradise Cove and Winding Way would disappear … become bike lanes.
That’s 216 on-street parking places to be eliminated … near Malibu’s most heavily-used beaches and trailheads.
Not hard to predict … Coastal is going to have a cow.
They were not at the meeting last night.
We emailed questions about whether Caltrans has asked the other state agency … the Coastal commission … if it’s okay to eliminate 2,171 parking laces on PCH.
No reply.
The Caltrans plan appears to have been drawn ignoring existing parking rules.
For example … they plan to remove 24 parking places next to the lawn at Pepperdine … an area that is already marked no parking.
And the engineers presented graphics that laughingly misspelled Malibu street names.
The Caltrans meeting last night was a technical disaster … but when people could get through … the answers did not make sense either.
We will try to get comprehensible answer from Caltrans today.
