Editor,
According to City Manager John Peitig, “it’s going to get worse.”
The Laguna Canyon Road Task Force was assembled to identify the best options and reach consensus on how to calm traffic, balancing citizens’ desires to maintain the canyon’s character including its unique neighborhoods, preservation of finite open space and indigenous habitats.
The process continues. This week traffic simulation results were presented by RBF consultants, contracted by the city to improve traffic flow and safety. I sat in as an appointed representative listening to RBF offer five possible solutions to deal with congestion, including creating a three- or four-lane highway, replacing traffic signals with roundabouts at Canyon Acres Drive and El Toro Road, undergrounding utilities and creating a set-aside bike lane and walking path.
I reviewed the study comparing separate but equally important scenarios and how such changes could affect traffic circulation. Traffic was tracked by an employee rather than using the more complete and accurate data collected from automatic license plate readers, which is held for two years by the National ANPR Data Center. This is accurate and important information that should have been made available for these traffic studies to ascertain the exact origin and destination of traffic patterns affecting Laguna Beach.
Use of such data is not an infringement on privacy (already gathered and used by LBPD), but identifies vehicles coming and going when entering and leaving Laguna Beach.
It is obvious in spite of increased traffic during weekdays, weekends, not including summer traffic, that vehicles are moving through Laguna not as shoppers but for an alternative route, perhaps to avoid freeways and toll roads. The APNR data could confirm when vehicles are stopping or passing through and how many residents and tourists are driving through. Instead, we are paying to stand and count vehicles when complete and accurate data is readily available.
Equally important issues of safe ingress and egress for residents and businesses along LCR, referenced as “to and from” rather than in and out, were virtually overlooked in this study.
We can only hope before any recommendations are finalized that habitat data showing road kills with a curious spike in 2009-2010 will be carefully studied as will the greater experience of Laguna Canyon’s natural beauty as the identifying feature and passage into our village.
Leah Vasquez, Laguna Beach
