I urge everyone to attend Public Safety Commission meetings the first Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
I have been working on the Malibu census, leading a crew of locals, and could not make the latest Public Safety Commission meeting. I was going to ask the Public Safety commissioners to please make the city staff and city council aware of my experience in getting to every nook and cranny in Malibu. I can sum it up in one word: dangerous!
I can sum up in one word one easy solution: shoulders. We need wider, safer shoulders. A plea to everyone in Malibu: where your property meets a road, please clear it. That means you, too, Caltrans. Shoulders make a big difference. What else can you do to make your roads safer? Is there a tree that needs trimming? Please be fire-wise. That makes us safer, too.
PCH, the canyons, the beach access roads, Kanan and Malibu Canyon are a mess. Driving all over western Malibu, including all Memorial Day weekend, I saw shocking displays of speed and stupidity. The canyon roads into and out of our neighborhoods are not raceways. The canyon roads are vitally important emergency evacuation routes and often the only way in or out of our homes. The motorcycles racing through the canyons have got to go. I saw no enforcement in the canyons. None.
Our elected representatives in Sacramento who could bring the California Highway Patrol back to PCH, who could make laws stick against motorcycle noise, our Sheriffs who are not doing enough about enforcement, and our city staff who could be monitoring noise and prioritizing public safety in Malibu must hear that we want CHP back on PCH, motorcycles are too loud, and there must be more officers directing traffic and enforcing the speed limit.
Highways are not for joy rides. It’s a public safety menace to allow packs of motorcycles to roar down PCH. It’s a public safety menace to encourage packs of bicyclists to ride narrow, unsafe shoulders, swerving around parked cars. What will it take for our elected representatives and the staff they direct to fix these public safety menaces? Legal action? More deaths of bicyclists, motorcyclists and seniors? More children dying?
We who live here and the millions who visit us should not fear for our lives just to cross a street in Malibu. It’s time the city council and the city staff made Public Safety a priority and got more enforcement and safer roads done.
Cindy Vandor