Residents say high speeds on the road must be resolved first before the city council goes about removing illegal encroachments such as mailboxes, fences and other objects.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
A contentious meeting with residents of Busch Drive and City of Malibu staff took place last Thursday at the Malibu High School library over how to make the road safer.
The original intention of the meeting was to get the opinions of the residents on how to go about removing illegally encroachments that have been built by residents on the road’s public right of way. However, it turned out to be an excoriation of the dangerous driving conditions that, the residents say, exist on the road and the city’s lack of action to prevent them.
The Malibu City Council is working to reclaim eight feet of the public right of way on either side of the road, where trees, mailboxes and fences that have accumulated over time and have severely reduced visibility on turns. The council hopes the cleared area will allow for the construction of a trail in the future, as well as make the road safer and possibly prevent liability lawsuits against the city.
But the overwhelming reason cited by residents for the dangerous conditions on the road is that motorists drive too fast. They say they want to explore ways of reducing the speed.
“I’ve personally lost many animals to the speeders,” Busch Drive resident Carol Bretonne said.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” resident James Halverson said.
Several suggested installing a stop sign at one of the intersections where Busch meets Merritt Drive or Rainsford Place.
But Director of Public Works Bob Brager said that, though it seems counterintuitive, the city’s traffic engineer had told him “there’s no real warrant that justifies putting a stop sign there.”
Residents disagreed.
“[Three years ago,] a girl drove around Merritt right there and took out all of our mailboxes,” one man said.
Other residents advocated putting in speed bumps on the road. Brager said staff was not averse to considering speed bumps, but the city could face serious liability lawsuits if a motorist had an accident after hitting city-installed speed bumps too fast. Resident Larry Drapkin countered that he had seen people driving as fast as 60 mph on Busch Drive, which, he said “is probably more likely to result in something serious, than maybe somebody going over a properly engineered speed bump too fast.”
Others feared that clearing the road would only encourage motorists to drive faster.
“If you widen that road, it’s going to be faster yet,” resident Hans Vagel said.
Brager agreed that it is a concern.
One option discussed at the meeting was to paint the lane lines in such a way as to make the road look smaller, which could slow motorists.
Residents also questioned who would pay for the relocation of current illegal obstructions like gates and retaining walls.
“I’m not for it if the city isn’t going to help,” one resident said, “because this is something that’s been happening for a long time, and the city should have looked at it before they allowed the building to take place.”
City Engineer Richard Calvin reminded the residents that the public owns the Busch Drive right of way. He said the city is not obligated to consult residents about removing the illegally placed encroachments, but that the city council had asked staff to conduct a meeting to try and fashion a solution that worked for everyone.
“We’re trying our best to help you get something done. Nobody’s going to be completely happy,” Calvin said. “Some of you are going to lose a tree, some of you are going to lose a sidewalk, [and] some of you are going to lose perhaps a mailbox.”
Calvin added that some of the blame rested with residents themselves.
“I would venture to say that half of you in here are speeding down that road, maybe more.”
City Councilmember Jefferson Wagner explained that the council wanted to address the Busch Drive encroachments to prevent future lawsuits from motorists, as well as reclaiming the right of way so that property owners would not sue the city under the assumption that the right of way property was theirs. He added that the city’s plan at this point is to simply clear the area, and that the construction of a future trail alongside Busch had not been finalized yet.
“Without dialogue, we don’t have a direction, so we’re trying to find a direction [here tonight].”