PCH About To Scrunch In New Turn Lane
Written by 991KBU on May 14, 2018
A 12-year fight over commercial growth in central Malibu … and increased traffic on Pacific Coast Highway … is about to come to an official end … with some road paint.
Caltrans crews are gertting ready to restripe Pacific Coast Highway at Malibu Creek bridge ….over to past Cross Creek Road.
This will make room for a right turn lane on westbound P C H at Cross Creek.
Traffic engineers say that will eliminate a major beach day traffic bottleneck …
This will allow traffic turning up Cross Creek to stop for pedestrians at the signal ….without blocking one of the two straight-ahead lanes on westbound P C H.
That interseciton can back up traffic all the way to Topanga … now straight ahead traffic will have two through lanes … a definite improvement.
The survey lines for the new lane stripes were marked on the P C H pavement last week.
Crews will soon sandblast off the old lane stripes.
But the squeezed-in turn lane will mean an end to the shoulder lanes …. putting bicycles in traffic lanes between Cross Creek and the bridge over the lagoon.
Shopping center land owners are paying for this.
They needed two things to build on those vacant lots in downtown Malibu …
They needed the turn lane for traffic … and they needed the sewer plant to acocmodate their loads.
Now they’ll have both.
But what they won’t have is that giant … historic sycamore tree next to the road cut down.
The shopping center developers originally planned to widen P C H into the adjacent state park… and take out that tree.
A community uproar ensued … the city councilk finally asserted itself … and the tree was spared.
