Solutions Incoming for West Channel Traffic Woes

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

The campaign for safer streets in Pacific Palisades has a new target this month: the dreaded right-turn lane from West Channel Road onto Chautauqua Boulevard.

Palisadian traffic crusader Lou Kamer is collaborating with community groups and city engineers to thwart a build-up that affects traffic from the Palisades’ canyon communities all the way to The Village.

It’s been a problem spot for years: Drivers on West Channel Road approach PCH from the street’s furthest right lane, which can only be used to make a sharp right up Chautauqua, not a right onto northbound PCH.

Uninformed—or simply selfish—drivers often fail to make that turn, waiting instead for the light to turn green so they can dodge back into the lanes of traffic turning legally onto the highway.

All the while, traffic clogs behind the driver as they wait out a prolonged light cycle to a chorus of beeps and jeers.

Kamer, a member of the Pacific Palisades Community Council who’s spearheaded other traffic projects, is now pitching a simple solution: wall in the far-right lane with traffic bollards, so drivers have no choice but to turn up Chautauqua once they’ve reached the intersection.

The flexible, brightly colored traffic posts retail for under $100—a price that’s likely even lower for LA Department of Transportation projects. The city would also have to agree to slightly re-adjust West Channel’s lanes to make room for the barriers.

After a sit-down with LA DOT engineers, Councilmember Mike Bonin representative Lisa Cahill and members of the Santa Monica Canyon Community Council, Kamer emerged optimistic about that possibility.

West LA department engineers agreed with the proposal’s intent and are now putting the design through their standard review process.

Kamer believes that if they implement the bollards, the traffic solution would reverberate throughout the Palisades.

As things currently stand, the cars waiting behind an offending motorist are released up Chautauqua in a sudden burst when that driver finally clears the lane.

“At rush hour, instead of having a steady flow of cars flowing up, you have a spike, and that hits Sunset [Boulevard] all at once,” Kamer said.

That spike combines with a wave of cars turning up the hill from PCH, and the already clogged thoroughfare through The Village comes to a standstill.

Now a simple row of traffic barriers could potentially ease that aggravating gridlock.

Kamer is also working with editors of the Waze navigation app to make it clear to drivers using the tool that the far right lane can’t be used for PCH.

He hopes both efforts will combine for a few less Palisadian headaches on the endless crawl from A to B.