Bluebird Canyon Drive Speed Hump I’m writing to highlight an example of our city being bogged down in bureaucratic red tape as it relates to an issue many residents can agree upon—dangerous speeding. I am a concerned citizen and father who helped spearhead a proposed 25-mile-per-hour rated speed hump on Bluebird Canyon Drive—a street fraught with some of the most dangerous speeding in Laguna. The City recently declined our proposal for the hump, which is certainly at odds with what seems like common sense.
First a little history should be noted, based on the documents I have reviewed residents have been, at a minimum, pushing for a speed hump on Bluebird Canyon Drive every couple years since 2009, although older residents on the street have told me there were multiple proposals prior to 2009. Recent proposals have gathered over 75 signatures from Bluebird Canyon residents. And yet the Parking and Traffic Commission (PTC) just declined us yet again—citing two primary factors. No. 1: a lack of egregious speeding as measured by two traffic measuring devices. No. 2 the Fire Department’s position as it relates to slowing the ingress and egress of its firetrucks.
The PTC noted that the permanent electronic speed measuring sign found only 78 of 22,233 vehicles were traveling over 40 miles per hour. The PTC failed to note this sign is located nowhere near where the most problematic speeding occurs—the 800 block. I downloaded an app named SpeedClock. I found about 33% of vehicles traveling over 40 miles per hour. Would residents really be pushing for a speed hump for a minimum of 13 years if only .0035% of vehicles were traveling over 40 miles per hour? This defies logic. The PTC did set up a temporary electric sign to measure speeds on a different section of Bluebird Canyon. This sign was placed very near to the Oriole stop sign measuring speeds going uphill. Despite residents complaining that it was not measuring speeds in the right portion of the street the sign never moved.
This brings me to the Fire Department’s position. We the residents who support the speed hump obviously understand that a firetruck will have to slow down for two to three seconds in the event of a catastrophic fire to navigate a speed hump as they would do on Temple Hills or Glenneyre. It should seem obvious there is an asymmetric risk profile at play. The associated risk of slowing down for a few seconds in the event of a fire that requires speeding over 50 miles per hour and the daily danger to pedestrians—especially children given the vicinity to Bluebird Park. One would think dramatically lowering the latter’s risk would warrant accepting the tradeoff of the former. It should also be noted that fire officials stated they were against a “speed bump” which is not what we proposed (a 25 mile per hour speed hump).
In terms of procedural errors we were told explicitly that we would be notified of the PTC meeting so that we could present our case. We were not notified and thus the meeting was held without resident participation.
So what are we left with? The police telling us they cannot enforce speeds due to a technicality (25 mile per hour signage on a 30 mile per hour rated road) and a minimum two year wait to try again. In other words, no solutions.
Jack Robbins, Laguna Beach
