Lane closures cause South Bay commuter gridlock on Vista Del Mar, Culver Boulevard
Traffic was gridlocked along Vista Del Mar on Wednesday morning. Photo by Dave Davis
Manhattan Beach resident Dave Davis has been commuting for 15 months to his job with 20th Century Fox in Century City. Unlike many more reluctant commuters, Davis has enjoyed his daily drive, in part because a good chunk of it has an ocean view along Vista Del Mar.
“I’ve had a lovely commute,” Davis said.
Things became considerably less lovely in the last week. Without warning, Davis and hundreds of other local commuters found themselves commuting on a single lane, both north and south, because Vista Del Mar and parts of Culver and Jefferson boulevards were put on a “road diet” as part of the Safe Streets for Playa del Rey Initiative implemented by Los Angeles District 11 City Councilman Mike Bonin.
Davis, whose commute was 45 minutes, spent an additional 15 minutes on Tuesday in bumper-to-bumper gridlock that stretched from Culver Boulevard about a mile south to the Imperial Highway intersection on Vista Del Mar.
Signs announcing the project have since gone up. But local city officials, who likewise received no notice that the project was occurring, have received dozens of complaints.
Manhattan Beach City Councilman Richard Montgomery was shocked at the lack of communication in the implementation of the initiative, which is intended to reduce pedestrian-car accidents, neighborhood cut-through traffic, and eventually make way for bike lanes. Normally, Montgomery said, neighboring municipalities are engaged to anticipate possible impacts before such a project is undertaken.
“Instead, we have this shotgun approach, and it’s been done without any input,” Montgomery said. “All of a sudden it’s, ‘Well, let’s see what happens.’ And the commuters north had no idea. Where is the traffic supposed to go?”
Montgomery worries that among the unintended consequences will be increases in cut-through traffic up Grand Avenue in El Segundo and Rosecrans in Manhattan Beach, as well as more congestion on Pacific Coast Highway. His concerns are echoed by Mayor David Lesser, who said he likewise received no notice until residents started contacting him. Lesser said he’s trying to better understand both the reasoning behind the road diet and ways that elected officials and residents can provide input. The initiative has been described by Bonin as a pilot project. Lesser said he understands that the project is under the jurisdiction of the City of LA and that its larger intent is to eliminate pedestrian fatalities that have plagued the impacted areas. It is part of larger, LA-wide program called Vision Zero.
“I respect the aims of the Vision Zero campaign, but lane reductions in key traffic arteries have regional impact,” Lesser said. “So reducing a lane on Vista Del Mar, and on Pershing, Jefferson, and Culver boulevards — the effect of reduced lanes on these key arteries that don’t even necessarily go through residential are going to put more traffic on Pacific Coast Highway. We are interrelated as a region.”
“We, as nearby cities, need more information as to how we are able to comment,” Lesser added. “And we need to know if the best practices have been explored for residential traffic calming measures. Are there less severe measures that could be explored? For example, lanes could be reduced on weekends, but on weekdays — when there are fewer pedestrians — could be allowed to continue being two lane traffic in both directions.”
Bonin did not respond to an inquiry by press time. But he sent an email to constituents on May 19 which explained the project’s aims.
“On Monday, crews will begin working on Vista Del Mar, which has been the scene of a series of horrible collisions, with pedestrians being killed by speeding cars,” Bonin wrote. “The city will restripe the street, moving all of the parking to the west side of the street, creating U-turn pockets, and narrowing the road to one lane in each direction. This will make the street safer, create more parking inventory, reduce speeding, and curb the use of Playa del Rey streets as a shortcut from the South Bay to points north.”
South Bay Council of Governments (COG) executive director Jacki Bacharach has been attempting to mediate the dispute but had yet to reach Bonin. She said she’s exploring whether the project is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and what kind of public noticing was given.
“Clearly we have streets, like PCH, which are throughways from one city to another,” Bacharach said. “Cities serve a lot of different functions, and before you make a change, I think you have to realize what all these functions are and try to understand some unintended consequences.”
According to City of Manhattan Beach traffic engineer Erik Zandvliet, over 30,000 vehicles per day travel through North Manhattan Beach. “The average daily traffic on Highland Avenue in Manhattan Beach (south of 45th Street) is 32,052 vehicles per day, of which 12,983 is northbound, and 19,069 is southbound,” Zandvliet said via email. “The peak northbound traffic in the morning is approximately 2,100 vehicles per hour, and the peak southbound traffic in the evening is also 2,100 vehicles per hour. Traffic on Vista del Mar is highly directional with significantly higher northbound traffic in the morning and higher southbound traffic in the evening peak hours.”
Davis is concerned that this is only the beginning of traffic impacts. His commute Tuesday occurred post-holiday weekend and thus was less congested than normal, like most the summer months. In September Davis thinks the commute north could turn into a very long slog.
“So what I’m worried about, if it’s 15 minutes both ways, 30 more minutes a day for me personally sucks, but multiply that by thousands of people and, number one, it’s not productive for the Southern California region, and number two, it probably adds pollution,” Davis said. “And there are a number of commuters who will leave Vista Del Mar and go to Sepulveda and the 405.”
But Davis, who plans on keeping his same commute, did see some upside.
“I guess I’ll be seeing a little bit more of the ocean,” he said.