The path planned for the east side of Dume Drive is the cause of the largest disagreement with city’s proposal for the project.
By Ward Lauren / Special to The Malibu Times
Residents’ concerns about safety, parking, drainage, encroachment and specific locations of walkways in the city’s proposed Point Dume Safe Routes to School program were mixed with general approval of the project at a meeting that took place last week at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School.
Approximately 30 Point Dume residents attended the mostly orderly meeting to hear and view the Public Works Department’s recommendations on walkways, and then express their comments, criticisms or suggestions.
City officials showed a powerpoint presentation regarding the proposal to build a pathway along Dume Drive, Grayfox Street, Fernhill Drive and Wildlife Road so that children can use them for walking to school.
In addition to the screened presentation, architectural drawings showing routes, plus plan and cross-section views of the construction details of the walkways were displayed around the walls of the meeting room. Attendees were requested to look them over before the meeting and then sign a speaker’s form if they wished to make a statement or ask questions after the presentation.
Sixteen residents did so, each taking an allotted three minutes to make their case, some of which were prepared in advance, others given spontaneously.
The most consistent objection, expressed by a numerical majority of the speakers, was to the placement of the walkway on Dume Drive on the east side of the street rather than the west. Nine of the speakers lived on Dume Drive, seven on the east side and two on the west, according to the signup sheets turned in to Saied.
“Heathercliff and Dume Drive at 8 o’clock or 8:30—it’s dangerous there,” said Dick Gorman. “Now on Dume Drive, God love you, you did put a stop sign in, but crossing Heathercliff there are hundreds of kids, and they’re already on the west side. So let’s leave them on the west side.”
Citing many accidents on the east side of Dume Drive, Dusty Peak said, “I don’t want this project delayed any longer. However, I feel that the west side is the proper side. The second reason would be clean water and drainage; there’s a lot of water runoff on the east side out of people’s driveways… so if it goes on that side, I’d like to see some sort of water filtering.”
Echoing Peak’s concern about drainage, Susan Flanigan said, “The people on the east side of Dume Drive are on a downward slope. A blocked drain is so serious that your home could be flooded. So for those of us who live on the east side, the drainage issue is a real consideration.”
Richard Gibbs, reading a statement signed by several property owners, said, “We… support the Safe Routes to School program as it is with one exception: We believe the pathway on Dume Drive to be on the wrong side of the street. Installing the path on the east side… is not creating the safest or most convenient route for kids walking to school. If one only considers the demographics of the northern end of Dume Drive, there are more school-age children on the west side than the east.”
Also stressing the safety issue, Janet Sidera reminded the officials that “The traffic study recommended back in 2002 that [the walkway] should be on the west side, not the east side, and we were told that is was going to be on the east side because there wasn’t a stop sign. Well, now, gratefully, we have a stop sign… and I don’t see a barrier to putting it on the east side.”
Toward the end of the meeting, Interim Public Works Director Granville “Bow” Bowman said that safety was the biggest reason for the indicated location of all the walkways, the east side of Dume Drive included, but that there was plenty of time for changes.
“As for the other recommendations from previous studies, I didn’t agree with the fact that they were going to be on one side or the other,” he said. “Quite frankly, I think we ought to have more walkways out here, period. The city does have plans to put in more in the future, but being in the real world we have to prioritize things just like you have to for household expenses. And we have a limited amount of money at this time.
“Thank goodness we have a good grant writer because she’s writing for more grants, and we hope to get more money later on for more projects.”
The City Council is scheduled to be presented with the project for final approval in late July and construction could begin in August.