Kamer’s Study Highlights Traffic/Pedestrian Dangers in Will Rogers Beach Area

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Resident Lou Kamer shared a preliminary traffic study he conducted in the Will Rogers State Beach Area, where Councilman Mike Bonin is proposing to house the homeless.

“I am putting out a call to residents, businesses, etc., to gather more of this kind of data to pass to the CAO office, so we can come up with other types of meaningful solutions that would satisfy the city, county, Judge Carter and the homeless’ needs,” Kamer told Circling the News in a May 26 email.

He shared a pedestrian death summary on Pacific Coast Highway, and said there are also plans to compile fire occurrences (and expenses), environmental and cluster mobility issues and threat assessments.

“My Company set out to quantify many of these safety concerns using publicly available data from National, State and Local Repositories,” Kamer wrote. “Below are two preliminary, unbiased views.”

TRANSPORTATION SAFETY:

At the proposed location, Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) is a crucial part of the State Highway system with an average of 160,000 vehicles per day passing through the corridor. (2020 Caltrans Annual Average Daily Traffic) as well as a major evacuation route for numerous cities and neighborhoods, including LA City and County, Malibu Route 5 and Topanga Evacuation Route.

The section of PCH which includes Will Rogers State Beach is also part of LA City and LA County’s Vision Zero High Injury Network (HIN). (A High Injury Network roadway is one with a high concentration of traffic collisions that result in severe injuries and deaths, with an emphasis on those involving people walking and bicycling.)

Vision Zero aims to reduce crashes by making sure that safety is priority #1 in all planning and implementations. The “PCH” HIN consists of 1.35 miles between mileposts 36.89-38.24 (Entrada to SeaView) and is the only such HIN in all of LA City located next to a beach parking lot.

This lot is not protected or isolated by ANY pedestrian impenetrable fencing or barriers. Crosswalks or tunnel crossings to commercial services are not located nearby.

Between 2010-2020, there were a total of 205 reported fatal or injury collisions with 14 pedestrian deaths or significant injuries within this area.

Collisions often disrupt or close the aforementioned evacuation roadways and overwhelm local and regional routes both upstream and downstream from the event, while increasing exhaust emissions, stress, and additional collisions on detour routes.

Any study of this location should include pedestrian safety evaluations and cost of improvements within the HIN across PCH, even for temporary solutions.

An additional analysis of pedestrian and bicycle injuries and fatalities of homeless individuals should also be studied.

FLOOD AND TSUNAMI:

At 15 feet above sea level, the proposed location is the lowest elevation in this area of LA City and adjoining Santa Monica, making it more susceptible than any other location to High Tide, Storm Surge, and Wind Driven Events, as well as any mudslide or runoff issues from the nearby, unmapped and untested, George Wolfberg Park Area (Potrero Canyon). Also, during normal, non-extreme wind events, sand from the beach is dispersed onto the adjoining bike/pedestrian path and into the subterranean tunnels, thus increasing illegal, cross-highway pedestrian crossings.

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