Caltrans Rethinks Notorious Intersection

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Driving anywhere around Pacific Palisades can be fraught with tension—and even danger—but few intersections pump the heart as when Chautauqua Boulevard meets Pacific Coast Highway.

Combining the poor surface condition of the steep and often water-logged boulevard, a complaint that appeared in this newspaper in the 1920s, and the volume of PCH traffic, a maneuver intensified by lane-jumping scofflaws feigning sudden ignorance of driving decorum, have long made this painful array of potholes a favorite of 2 Cents commentators.

There may be relief on the horizon.

Over the next two years Caltrans, the state agency responsible for PCH, will be “reviewing options” for the intersection that could include completely rethinking the safety cushion wall that funnels Santa Monica-bound traffic out of the Palisades.

The changes will start appearing over the next few weeks with new signage and a “ladder” crossing for pedestrians, Caltrans confirmed this week.

This will be followed by a wide-ranging review, the agency said, working out how many millions of dollars it will cost to make the intersection both safer and more efficient for drivers.

One possibility is “realigning” the crash wall: It has only just been revamped, with sand buckets replacing an accident-prone metal wall that tore up and gouged passing cars, but bolder changes, maybe cutting it in two islands, could squeeze more vehicles through the intersection.

Engineers say although the intersection itself only merges four roads—PCH, Chautauqua, Entrada and West Channel—car flows on at least another 10 roads up to a mile away would have to be fed into computer modeling to smooth out the turbulence in the system.

It can be done: A 2012 Caltrans study into the PCH/Temescal intersection resulted in fresh algorithms applied to signals that notably improved traffic flow.

CCTV cameras could be added to prevent drivers who “forget” that the left lane is only for turning left onto West Channel Road and try to push into slower right-hand lane traffic feeding onto PCH, a cause of much tension and horn honking.

Palisades representative George Wolfberg, who returned from the latest PCH Task Force to the Pacific Palisades Community Council with glad tidings of the changes, said he was “interested” but would wait to see what else followed.

Two conundrums remain: One can make it safer, more civilized, but at a cost of mobility. The fierce debate about “road diets” elsewhere on the Westside has made that painfully clear.

And no one knows exactly what needs to be done at the intersection until more money is spent working it out—public money that Caltrans is wary about spending.

And by that time, a rapid take-up of driverless cars may have changed the nature of automotive behavior anyway, even at this venerable old black spot.