The proposed Trails Map update that goes before City Council next week is a continuation of 15 years of complete, abject failure by Malibu to obey its own General Plan, which requires a pedestrian trail along PCH. The LCP, state law and even the California Constitution also require a bike route on all of PCH.
The city’s map fails to provide an alignment for the California Coastal Trail, which both law and the Constitution say must be laid out “along” the coast. The city puts it in the wet sand and white water. It does not address bicycle recreation in any way, a violation of the city’s General Plan and LCP. It puts trails on Point Dume off limits. Connections between inland trails and the beaches are not delineated. Most importantly, the city feels it inappropriate to include a trail alignment along PCH due to “safety concerns.” The decision to place a trail along PCH has already been made by the people of California, and it is Malibu’s undone job to make PCH safer.
The hardworking volunteers who wrote the plan had their hands tied by an earlier city council. The end result is a map that deals with the thousands who hike the hills, and ignores the millions, and the majority of Malibu residents, who need to get to and along our beaches safely.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has already voted 18-0 that the city’s attempt to avoid its responsibilities for safe, reasonable coastal access is impossible to support. If the city council approves this Trails Map next week, it will be waving a red flag in front of Joe Edmiston and Sara Wan by proclaiming “Malibu cannot abide by state laws, please come in and do it for us.”
Hans Laetz