With all due respect to the few who wrote in to your paper in favor of the Civic Center Way road closure citing school safety-we disagree with their reasoning. Not only do we disagree with them, but so do hundreds of other people who have sent in e-mails to us and who have signed petitions -and their number is growing daily.
Closing a main road adjacent to a street where a school is located to enhance school safety is ludicrous. Today, I spoke with Webster’s principal, Phil Cott, and he said that in the 13 years that he has been at the school, there has not been any accident involving a child at the school. This is a fact and an extremely valid reason why school safety should not be used as an issue where this road closure is concerned. This is not a valid platform to use either to initiate or defend the road closure.
If there is traffic on the road, which inconveniences parents going to or coming from the school, in cars, driving their children, this is a completely separate issue and one which can be dealt with and solved without closing the road. There is the potential of a three-way stop sign or a traffic signal or a school traffic officer to direct cars at peak arrival and departure times for the school. We also wholeheartedly disagree with Rick Wallace in his challenging the “claims of extra driving distances” -the distance isn’t the problem. The protracted time sitting in traffic to drive that extra distance is the complaint. And this is not just normal summer traffic, this is traffic created by the road closure.
Nor is this an exaggerated claim, and if Mr. Wallace only encountered an additional “three to four minutes to get home,” he is very fortunate. Scores of other people we’ve heard from have encountered delays of up to 30 minutes or more, for the normal five- to 10-minute trip around the closure. Not exaggerated. Fact. This all brings us back to the only viable, sensible, logical and equitable solution to this matter-reopen Civic Center Way. Reopen the road for all the drivers-residents of Malibu who use the road as an alternate route to avoid PCH; fire, paramedic and sheriff vehicles who use the route to shorten the distance in an emergency and, yes, even commuters who use the route to access Malibu Canyon. Roads are for everyone, not just people living on them and those attending a church or school nearby.
Lynda Stark
Citizens to Re-Open Civic Center Way