By Allison Jarrell, Special to the Independent
Laguna Beach residents and community leaders came armed with plenty of questions at this past Wednesday’s hearing over Caltrans’ plans to improve traffic safety and reduce flooding along Laguna Canyon Road.
City leaders and local environmental experts have concerns that the project will have negative impacts on the canyon’s open space and habitat.
Caltrans released its initial environmental assessment of the $39.3 million project earlier this month, which proposes safety improvements along Laguna Canyon Road near the El Toro Road intersection. Funding for the project is coming from the county, state and federal government.
Laguna Canyon Road saw 572 accidents between Forest Avenue and El Toro from June 2007 to January 2015, according to a 2015 report. That includes two pedestrian fatalities in 2010 and 2014, and vehicle collision fatalities in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Fifty-six percent of those accidents involved rear-end collisions, largely cause by inattentive drivers or drivers stopping suddenly for pedestrians or cars turning into Anneliese’s School.
The project includes extending the second lane northbound from El Toro by 1,200 feet and southbound by 900 feet, which will taper back to one lane. Caltrans says eliminating the bottleneck on either side of the intersection will give drivers more time and room to merge.
The project also includes drainage improvements, such as a concrete check dam within Laguna Canyon Creek, and the addition of eight-foot shoulders and bike lanes from El Toro to SR-73. The county is funding the undergrounding of 19 utility poles north of El Toro. About 13 or 14 poles south of El Toro will be relocated rather than buried.
Caltrans officials estimate that project design will begin later this year, with construction potentially starting in early 2021 and completed by mid 2023.
This week’s hearing drew a large crowd to the Laguna Beach High School library, who provided feedback about the project’s environmental assessment verbally or on comment cards. Caltrans officials said each would receive a response over the next couple months.
Earlier in the week, city officials voiced several concerns about the project. Assistant City Manager Shohreh Dupuis said Caltrans needs to analyze how lengthening the merge lane south of the El Toro intersection will impact access to a parking lot for the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. Dupuis also listed concerns over potential impacts from construction and placing utility poles outside of paved shoulders as well as mitigation to replace the loss of riparian habitat on-site rather than off-site as Caltrans has proposed.
City Manager John Pietig said the city suggested Caltrans hold off on the project until the outcome is known of a November ballot measure over undergrounding utility wiring elsewhere on Laguna Canyon Road, which would require coordination with the city’s master plan.
Pietig also clarified that the county is paying about $30 million for the undergrounding of the 19 poles north of El Toro, and said their obligation to do so goes back 10 years.
Dupuis said the city shares environmental and safety concerns with organizations such as the Laguna Canyon Foundation and the Canyon Alliance of Neighborhoods Defense Organization (CANDO).
In a June 18 Laguna Canyon Foundation newsletter, executive director Hallie Jones echoed the city’s concerns.
“Laguna Canyon Foundation cannot support a proposal that drastically impacts park land, has substantial monetary costs, and increases the danger and difficulty of exiting and entering Willow parking lot, with no clear benefit to traffic or safety,” Jones said.
Penelope Milne, CANDO president, listed many issues at the hearing, including that the last traffic study of the project area was done in 2014. “Traffic to the park has increased about five times since then,” Milne said.
She also mentioned the need for on-site mitigation of riparian habitat loss due to the check dam and concrete channel.
“They’re going to put an articulated concrete block channel where there is now natural earthen channel, destroying about a third of an acre of irreplaceable riparian habitat,” Milne said. “They may say there’s 7,000 acres of habitat and we’re only taking two, but asphalt is everywhere. Pristine coastal canyons? There’s only one of those.”
When asked about the community’s concerns over open space impacts, Chris Flynn, deputy district director of environmental analysis for Caltrans and Orange County, said Caltrans has “studied that extensively to make sure [they’re] considering the biological resources out there.”
Flynn said Caltrans has been working with Orange County Parks over the last year and made some alterations based on their concerns, such as replacing a planned retaining wall with slope grading on the west side of the highway from Willow Creek up toward the toll road.
Comments on the project’s can be submitted via email to [email protected], or sent to Caltrans District 12, Division of Environmental Analysis, 1750 E. 4th St,, Suite 100, Santa Ana, CA 92705 Attn. Edward Dolan. All comments must be received by July 10.
To view the environmental assessment in its entirety, visit www.dot.ca.gov/d12/DEA/133/0P94U, or the Laguna Beach Library.
This really smells like fish. “City Manager John Pietig said the city suggested Caltrans hold off on the project until the outcome is known on a November ballot measure to tax residents to under-grounding utility wiring elsewhere on Laguna Canyon Road, which would require coordination with the city’s master plan”? Why? The city wants to shove a 12% (they like to call it a one cent increase) sales tax increase down taxpayer throats because the city wants to control all that money, and pass a revenue bond without voter approval if the tax ballot passes in November. This is nothing less than City Manager, and current city council members looking a $39 Million dollar gift horse in the face. That’s what Cal Trans is willing to spend to underground a mile of Laguna Canyon Road and give us a bike path too. It’s foolish and reckless and a complete waste of this $39 million dollar gift to the city to reject this undergrounding plan. For months the city has been bombarding households with its urgent life and death “fire and fear” campaign, and now Cal Trans is willing to underground a mile and the city now says “Oh no, let’s wait”? The Cal Trans project has been years in the making, like 8-10 years.
Why would the City want to stop it? Why does the city want this tax increase so badly? Think people, don’t be sheep and fall for it – the city does not have your best interests are heart, it has only its own interest in mind, and CM Pietig can’t wait to get his hands on all that taxpayer money. Smells fishy to me. Something stinks… Why does the City want you and me to foot the undergrounding, and not Caltrans. I didn’t see any “environmentalist” show up at the past City Council meetings discussing the under-grounding of utilities in the canyon that the city wants to tax us for….hypocrites? Do they believe there will be no environmental impact if we are hooked into paying for it instead? I find the whole issue disturbing and we need all new city council members, ones who will be transparent, fair and honest, and ones who will look out for the taxpaying residents, not their special interests. Vote the insiders OUT come November.
Caltrans holds a record of road re-alignments for Laguna Canyon Road each time to “mitigate congestion and improve safety and facility operations”. In 1993 ten alternative routes were considered between the 405 and 73 toll road, one was chosen the two-lane divided highway we use now. As Caltrans puts it that alternative did not preclude the “opportunity” to expand the highway to six-lanes later on. (https://lagunastreets.blogspot.com/2014/02/alternative-mobility-for-route-185-old.html)
The SR-133 Improvement Project is another Caltrans re-alignment to mitigate congestion and improve safety for the remainder of Laguna Canyon Road, from the 73 to El Toro and the city limits. According to Caltrans adding 2100 feet of additional lane does not add roadway capacity, it merely adds another queue for standing traffic. Think of it as adding another ticket queue at Disneyand for $39 million.
Caltran’s mission is moving lots of cars fast as safely possible, like from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with the shortest possible trip delay. The trouble is the roadway design for Las Vegas is used for Laguna Beach and inappropriate for a road ending in the Pacific Ocean. The good news is Caltrans is under mandate to build a different kind of road, one that moves passengers not just their cars. If Caltrans were to revisit the SR-133 Improvement Project and apply their mandate, the new design could satisfy the LB Greenbelt, the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, CANDO and actually reduce vehicle congestion. All of that and the underground utilities are possible without expansion to four or six lanes, when capped at $39.3 million that would be real traffic congestion mitigation.