Widening the Canyon Road

Recent accidents on Laguna Canyon Road have engendered a flurry of newspaper articles regarding the widening of that road from two to four lanes between the art festival area and El Toro Road. Your readers should be aware that the Laguna Beach City Council supports the widening of the roadway in that area to enhance safety.

In order to ensure that the widening actually improves the safety of Laguna Canyon Road, the City Council has proposed two changes to the plan that has been advanced by Caltrans:

1. The project should include a non-traversable median to reduce the likelihood of crossover accidents.

2. The existing road alignment at Big Bend should be retained with modifications to the radius to improve safety; the Council opposes the Caltrans plan to slice an entirely new roadway through the hillside at Big Bend because that ill-advised scheme would foster increased driving speeds, thereby creating extreme safety problems near the arts festivals.

We urge Caltrans to modify its original plan to incorporate our city’s concerns so that the road-widening project can proceed expeditiously and result in the highest degree of automobile and pedestrian safety along that stretch of Laguna Canyon Road.

NEIL FITZPATRICK

Mayor, Laguna Beach

DAN KENNEY, Mayor Pro Tem

MARTHA COLLISON,

ROBERT GENTRY,

LIDA LENNEY,

Council members