Photo courtesy of City of LA BOE
By LILY TINOCO | Assistant Editor
Pacific Palisades Community Council met on Thursday, June 26, to discuss updates on the Pacific Palisades Pedestrian Trail, with project representatives outlining its current status.
When complete, the trail—formerly known as the Lateral Trail—will extend from the bottom of George Wolfberg Park at Potrero Canyon to the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Temescal Canyon, in order to provide safe passage from the park to the beach, as required by the California Coastal Commission.
City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering Project Manager Kristen Ly and Project Consultant Goodwin Wharton of Geosyntec Consultants previously joined PPCC in 2024 to discuss the project, and heeded community feedback and concerns regarding the trail.
Ly and Wharton returned on June 26 to provide an updated presentation. Wharton explained that this project is “not high on anybody’s priority list right now,” but is a component of the rebuilding process after the Palisades fire. Construction of the project would continue at a later, more “appropriate time,” Wharton said.
“Right now, we are completing the Feasibility Study,” Wharton explained. “The purpose of this meeting is to present the preliminary recommendations that are going to go into our report … and also to solicit some feedback on that recommended alignment.”
At the start of the meeting, Wharton reviewed key points and takeaways from the August 2024 Community Meeting. During the 2024 meeting, three hypothetical examples of trail alignments were presented, and attendees were invited to offer verbal or written feedback. Concerns over potential safety issues were identified as the strongest sentiment, while trail maintenance and construction considerations were considered the lowest.
“Those concerns are well founded, so we did take that into consideration as we were developing our final feasibility criteria,” he said.
Wharton presented the Final Feasibility Criteria list, which included accessibility, separation from PCH and separation from Via de Las Olas, user experience, pedestrian safety, slope stability, neighborhood privacy, hours of use enforcement or security, and more.
Wharton also presented a map with proposed trail options that was divided into four regions: a Trail Region, a West Region, a Central Region and an East Region.
“Within those four main regions, we have evaluated two or three alternatives for how the trail might be aligned,” Wharton said. “Then they’re connected by lateral trails, such that you could mix and match, or combine any permutation of these that you want to come up with a final trail alignment.”
Wharton walked meeting attendees through the feasibility rankings of each region, as well as the lateral trails, explaining that all three lateral trails are feasible. The recommended trail route, based on the evaluation, was listed as Trailhead B, along Lateral-1 up to the West-A route, using the Lateral-2 route down to Central B—and a final recommendation for East-A or East-B is to be determined.
Wharton concluded his presentation by answering questions from PPCC board members and meeting attendees. The team is expected to return in the future with updates.
According to PPCC, next steps for the project include discussions between involved stakeholders, including the city of Los Angeles, Caltrans and the Coastal Commission.
“Geosyntec has a recommendation for trail alignment (based on the ratings), but it’s unclear at this point which route will eventually be decided on, whether any might be altered, and/or when construction may actually begin,” PPCC said.
A recording of the presentation is available at pacpalicc.org.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
