By Michel Shane, Columnist
It has been a devastating week. I met with several businesses who explained how they’ve suffered these last five-plus months — some will not make it. Just like businesses, our foundation is suffering too. My initiative, Malibu Rising, could not find its draw, we will pivot — the community needs this. So many have stepped up like The Malibu Project, a concerned group of locals who care, raising funds, making donations, shopping at local stores, and donating purchases. Why? Because they care and can. That’s how you save a community.
The issues of PCH have not gone away. Yes, there were no deaths because the road was closed, but now it’s open with two lanes, and tragedy is just standing in the wings — plus now, with danger created by the fires, it’s just a matter of time.
The deadly truth we’re living with
Someone reminded me this week that with a strong voice comes responsibility. So let me use that voice to tell you the brutal truth: PCH’s reopening was rushed, and we all know it. But what was the alternative? Watch our community die economically while we wait for perfect conditions that might never come?
Here’s what infuriates me: we didn’t have to choose between economic survival and rolling the dice with lives. But that’s precisely what we did.
Currently, PCH serves full public traffic while environmental remediation remains incomplete — many properties have until June 30th to remove hazardous materials. During the rush to reopen, nearly 1,300 truckloads of toxic fire debris traveled this route daily, and cleanup operations continue alongside families going to soccer practice. Ocean contamination persists from chemicals with no established safety standards. When fire ash mixes with seawater, it creates caustic lye that fundamentally alters our marine ecosystem.
Yes, we have two lanes now. But we’re still driving a highway that has claimed 61 lives in 15 years, including four beautiful Pepperdine students whose deaths should have shattered our complacency forever. The infrastructure improvements everyone celebrates? Band-aids on a system that treats our community’s main street like a highway built for speed, not safety. The proposed bike lane for PCH — remember the word “highway” is in the name — that’s a painted line on a highway. Are you kidding me? We’re asking cyclists to trust their lives to paint while cars barrel past at highway speeds on a road that’s already proven deadly.
We deserve better
Here’s what fills me with rage and hope: we don’t have to accept this choice between safety and survival. While we navigate today’s compromised reality, we can build tomorrow’s solution.
The Malibu Coastal Waterway Transit System — The Blue Highway — represents everything PCH cannot be: safe, reliable, environmentally conscious, and operational during emergencies. Zero-emission vessels carry passengers between coastal stops in 15 minutes, often faster than current road speeds and infinitely safer than toxic debris zones.
During the Palisades Fire, while PCH sat closed for months and our community bled economically, The Blue Highway would have remained operational, transporting thousands daily, providing emergency evacuation routes, maintaining the economic lifeline our businesses desperately needed. The ocean doesn’t experience mudslides, doesn’t close during fires, and doesn’t expose passengers to carcinogenic runoff.
This is about who we are
This isn’t just about transportation — it’s about refusing to accept that preventable tragedies are the price of living in paradise. Groups like The Malibu Project prove that when we care, we act. When we see a problem, we don’t wait for someone else — we step up, raise funds, and make change happen.
We can’t control Caltrans’ timeline for PCH improvements— that’s state-controlled infrastructure. But we can demand innovation and refuse to accept that our children will face the same deadly gamble.
The call that matters
Every day we delay the Blue Highway feasibility study is another day we’re gambling with our lives. Contact your state representatives. Reach out to Caltrans directly. Demand they fast-track The Blue Highway environmental and feasibility studies. Push for Olympic transportation funding that creates permanent safety infrastructure.
We have the technology. We have the ocean. We have successful models. What we need is collective will to choose innovation over resignation.
If I can do this, what can you do?
Let me tell you something that should shake everyone: I’ve already done the work. I’ve sat down, figured out how to fund The Blue Highway, and created a three-year timeline for operation. The comprehensive plan is prepared and ready to share with anyone serious about making this happen.
If I, one person driven by grief and determination, can map out the path from concept to reality, what can people with power, resources, and understanding accomplish? If I can identify the funding sources, implementation phases, and partnerships needed, what stops those with actual authority from acting?
This isn’t about capability — it’s about will. It’s about whether we’re going to keep accepting preventable deaths as the cost of bureaucratic inertia, or whether we’re finally going to match our outrage with action.
I’ve done my part. The blueprint exists, the timeline is ready, and the funding strategy is mapped out. Now, it’s time for everyone else to do theirs.
This is our Emily Shane moment
The next tragedy on PCH isn’t a question of if — it’s when. We can accept that reality, or we can change it. This is our chance to transform grief into innovation, necessity into action, and Malibu into a forward-thinking community that refuses to accept tragic normalcy.
The Blue Highway isn’t just an alternative to PCH — it’s proof that Malibu refuses to accept preventable death as the cost of paradise.
The ocean has always been our greatest asset. It’s time to make it our pathway to safety.