Jim Wagner and Mark
Stechbart
(The Hawaiian Shirt Twins.)
(The Hawaiian Shirt Twins.)
How many times have we all been stuck in the Highway 1 traffic jam that
extends to Linda Mar beach or up past the golf course? Miss a plane
flight, a business appointment or are your kids late for school? We all
have lost a lot of time stuck on Rt. 1.
Fixing this bottleneck will save everyone in Linda Mar, Pedro Point and Rockaway 10-15 minutes each day, 78 hours a year. Almost two full weeks.
Could you use those two weeks you waste sitting on Highway 1 doing something else? We think a Rt. 1 solution makes good sense.
The major cause of the traffic delay are cars turning off Rt. 1 into Vallemar and turning off Fassler onto Highway 1. That stops the north-south traffic flow.
These unacceptable delays block emergency vehicles and increases the commute hassle factor.
The solution is common sense: widen the road appropriately and double the turning lanes, particularly into Vallemar, so twice the number of cars can turn per signal.
We must remember, we are the traffic! Every single one of us in a single occupant car is the traffic. Add to this mix Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Montara, Moss Beach and the expected increase when the tunnel is finished in two years.
The funding is set up to pay for this because Pacifica voters increased the sales tax we all pay 1/2 cent in 2004.
You might remember the Nov. 2004 Measure A one-half cent sales tax campaign.
Then-Mayor Jim Vreeland was featured on the campaign mailer as well as 100 percent of the Council (Vreeland, Lancelle, Digre, DeJarnatt, Hinton) endorsing infrastructure improvements that included highway improvements.
In Pacifica, Measure A passed overwhelmingly 11,767 vs. 3,831 (75 percent majority) indicating the voters really expect progress to be made.
The rest of the funding comes from gas taxes (which we all pay for) and federal dollars.
The Pacifica School District (elementary district) passed a resolution supporting a Rt. 1 fix.
If Pacifica does not use this money, it will be given to some other town. Pacifica voters' expectations of traffic improvements will be ignored.
Some opponents to fixing Rt. 1 have decided we should all ride buses. Or change the start time for Vallemar and Cabrillo schools. Or make parents pay for school buses for those schools. We think that is unfair and unreasonable.
We have the Measure A money. We all pay the 1/2 cent sales tax add-on. We use it, or we lose it. The traffic is coming anyway. We're not going to stop the completion of the tunnels.
The same cooperative problem solving that enabled the Devil's Slide tunnels to be built can be applied to Rt. 1.
Fixing Rt. 1 will offer us the same traffic and safety improvements as did the tunnel. As a community we cannot allow any more delay to a reasonable Rt. 1 solution.
This not the time to throw up our hands. We must reach an agreement because the entire southern part of Pacifica plus South Coast residents are counting on us.
Without a Rt. 1 solution, we all will remain stuck in traffic, creating pollution, delays and missed appointments. Emergency vehicles will remain delayed. Nerves frazzled. A bad situation all around.
Do you want to save those 78 hours currently spent sitting in traffic? Reduce the hassle factor? Support the Rt 1 traffic solution today.
Posted by Steve Sinai
24 comments:
Having two left turn lanes (instead of just one) to get into Vallemar might sound like a good idea - but then where do they go? There's no room to have two lanes on Reina Del Mar after they turn!
You could make the two lanes at the last 40 yards of the the exit from Vallemar into just one lane to accommodate them -- but then everyone coming out of Vallemar, whether they're turning right, turning left or going straight ahead, would be in a single lane! All that does is move the nightmare around.
I agree that the highway needs to be fixed (and with many other parts of your argument), but some parts of what you say just don't hold up! Sorry!
Those of you who are apologists for the Pacifica School District continue to be in denial. When school is on holiday, no traffic problem. When school is in session, huge traffic problem. Don't believe me? I've got a novel idea. Let's pick an arbitrary date and we'll let the students stay home and protest something under the guise of “enhancing their educational experience” (say smaller class sizes and more money for the teachers - that’s a new one!). Alternatively, we could have the children protest having to carry the DNA of parents who cannot solve a simple traffic problem.
Next we can test the children to see if their academic scores are higher with or without Pacifica school attendance. If my hypothesis is correct, we could solve the traffic and low test scores issues with the one solution…
Cal Trans would have to figure out a way to help the city reconfigure Reina Del Mar. I don't know if you can make 2 lanes up to the school or not. Need to notice the next time I am up there.
I brought up on Riptide maybe they can start school at different times. Maybe start part of the kids at 7:45, some at 8:00 and the rest at 8:20. I don't even know what time school starts cause I work from home and rarely am out during either of the commutes.
In all the accomplishments that Cal Trans has done realigning our Highway 1 should be pretty easy considering they bridged the bay 5 times and built the highways over the Sierra's.
The widening of the Highway One has been in the works for over 40 years. My Grandfather passed away in 1983 and he always used to tell me that some day the Union 76 and B & L Auto Body will be purchased by the State for the new highway.
And when the slide is closed, there's no traffic problem then, either!
Maybe we could just close the city borders and only let Pacificans in or out, and see how that works out for us? Maybe we could solve the city's financial problem by charging a toll for all who want to drive through?
Back to reality: To widen Reina Del Mar would require demolishing at least one business and several houses, or several businesses, depending on which side of the street you choose to expand. Even then, I doubt that it would have much impact on the commute traffic problem, because the mixing/crossing of local and through traffic would still be there.
CalTrans (with others) did a big study on changing the school hours a few years ago. They concluded that unless the schools started at about 6:30 a.m. or after about 10:30 (and the latter would make getting out of school have a big impact on the evening commute!) you'd just shift the timing of the problem - not solve it; that local vs. through traffic problem is still there.
Who's in denial? If you're new here (and you didn't put your name so we don't know), then you get a pass (for now) on offering up obvious (if cynical) band-aids that have been oft-analyzed and rejected, but don't be reluctant to accept that the solution (yes, there actually is one that will work!) is to separate the through-traffic from the local traffic. You may not want that to be the solution, but until we can all agree that that's the problem, we'll keep going round in circles. (Ever more slowly, probably!)
Has a car pool program at the school been discussed?
Starting near the golf course, there's often a traffic backup headed southbound around 5:30-6 PM that the school has nothing to do with.
The more I think about it, the more I'm coming around to the county's original solution of 3 lanes each way. Separating through-traffic from local traffic, at 2-3 times the cost of the proposed solution, strikes me as too expensive.
(I suppose if Vallemar School served haggis every day for lunch, the enrollment would drop drastically, and that might help the traffic problem a little.)
Jim: Car-pooling is an ongoing thing. A lot of families already do it, and there's almost always a push on to have more do it.
Sinai: Haggis every day? Sign me up!!!
Ye're just a wee sassenach! What good are less expensive solutions if they don't work? (Or only work a little and/or for a short time?) It's time to bite the bullet!
"What good are less expensive solutions if they don't work?"
Hey, if you don't have the moolah...
Damn Commie/Marxist/Cross-dressing Englishman.
Being damned as a Commie/Marxist/Cross-dresser I can handle, but Englishman? That's a low blow!!
We don't have the moolah for any of the real solutions being offered, so maybe it's all academic anyway? I hope not! Maybe we can use what we're going to save on health care?
>>>Jim Wagner and Mark Stechbart
>>>(The Hawaiian Shirt Twins.)
"The Hawaiian Shirt Twins?" I already know this is going to be a hard-hitting piece.
>>>How many times have we all been stuck in the Highway 1 traffic jam that extends to Linda Mar beach or up past the golf course?
Exactly zero times in the last two months, probably longer.
>>>Miss a plane flight, a business appointment or are your kids late for school?
Nope, never.
>>>We all have lost a lot of time stuck on Rt. 1.
No. No we haven't.
>>>That's going to change after years of talk. CalTrans and the City of Pacifica are moving forward on fixing the Rt. 1 traffic jam that exists between Fassler Avenue and Vallemar.
What traffic jam?
>>>Fixing this bottleneck will save everyone in Linda Mar, Pedro Point and Rockaway 10-15 minutes each day, 78 hours a year. Almost two full weeks.
See above
>>>Could you use those two weeks you waste sitting on Highway 1 doing something else?
I'd like the minute back I wasted on reading this article.
>>>The major cause of the traffic delay are cars turning off Rt. 1 into Vallemar and turning off Fassler onto Highway 1.
No, the major cause of the problem, if it existed, would be too many cars on the road at any one time.
>>>These unacceptable delays block emergency vehicles and increases the commute hassle factor.
Americans are such entitled cry babies that a perceived five minute delay in their lives necessitates a $45+ million solution which would disrupt tens of thousands of lives for several years and permanantly alter the landscape of Pacifica in ways that go beyond this short strectch of highway.
Oh wise hippy ye who has all the vast knowledge. Oh wise hippy please tell me what your solution is? Oh wise hippy please lead the city out of looming bankruptcy..
Oh hail to the wise hippy
Listen, I know it's your capitalist fever dream to bulldoze and level Pacifica's coastline from end to end, then pave it over and stripe it for the massive Ikeya parking lot so that the untapped sea of foaming-at-the-mouth consumers could rush to throw their fistfulls of money at us.
But. It's just a dream.
You should get on the horn and let America's civic leaders know that the solution to their fiscal problems is simply to increase the width of their highways. Who knew?!
You're gonna have to make a lot of calls though -- 88% of all reporting cities in the latest National League of Cities report indicated that expenditures exceeded revenue in 2009 (and this gap is forecast to increase into 2010).
Get to dialing!!!
What a bonus that Pacifica was in a rolling recession before the recession..thanks Anonymous hiker. Next question with 60% open space (50% already permanent), how would it be possible to complete what you present as the capitalist dream in Pacifica?
Program GOODBYE PACIFICA LAND TRUST
Ol' wise one tell us how "our environment is our economy"...oops, it is: Failing or omitted city infrastructure, city council solution more taxes or "nothing" for us. That's your idea of a balanced economic solution?
Oh believe me, when I'm out by the golf course, gagging on the fresh air, nothing enrages me more than seeing acre upon acre of ugly, yucky open space.
I stare at Mori Point and in my mind, I see row upon row of boxy, co-joined houses stretching as far as the eye can see. I ascend the hill (ewww, more yucky dirt!) and peer down upon the quarry space. I envision a Ranch 99, A Dollar Store, perhaps a Payday Advance, another 7-11, a couple of fast-food joints and it's... it's... BEAUTIFUL.
Pacfica could be so much more. We should be striving to be like Daly City every day, in every way. After all, they've got a golf course too, a multi-lane interstate running through it, a large tax base, tons of bland shopping and very little of that disgusting open space (what were they thinking, lol!). And look at how Daly City's finances are-- well... *cough* let's forget about THEIR deficit for now.
"Pacifica: Gateway to Daly City"
PEOPLE, WE CAN DO THIS!
Anonymous, we couldn't be like Daly City if we tried, different land geography, plus remember 60% open space here.
We have highway 1 running through (our) San Francisco golf course. Daly City doesn't have the extent of debt and infrastructure neglect, failure, and omission we have here. Plus services, jobs, improvement, advantages? Oh, we have volunteers which try to make-up some of the gaps.
Love this 3rd world economic ideology for "all the people" while solutions can't happen (spiral of no money) while you concentrate on hitting the ball.
">>>That's going to change after years of talk. CalTrans and the City of Pacifica are moving forward on fixing the Rt. 1 traffic jam that exists between Fassler Avenue and Vallemar.
What traffic jam?"
The one that the no-growthers always scream and yell about whenever the issue of development in or south of the quarry is discussed. Existing traffic jams on Highway 1 was a major talking point for opponents of both Measure L in 2006 and Measure E in 2002.
It's guaranteed that Anonymous was one of those people who complained about the traffic 3 1/2 years ago, and will complain about traffic the next time a serious proposal for developing the quarry crops up.
Whelp folks, you heard it here first: preservation of open space is a "3rd world economic ideology."
Teddy Roosevelt, 3rd world economic ideologist.
Why in god's name would you want another Daly City here? Think about why you chose to live in Pacifica rather than Daly City and why are you working against those very reasons?
You know, you *could* think outside of the "Help me, Obi-Walmart, you're my only hope!" box and consider Pacifica's open spaces as resources rather than liabilities.
Both a 2002 UC Berkeley research study and a 2009 Sacramento State University report concluded that California's parks generated more revenue than it cost to run them. Now, you may rightly point out that Pacifica's open spaces cost very little to run, but the point is that open spaces attract people to the communities they're located in, where people SPEND THEIR MONEY. Open spaces also raise property values, thus increasing property tax revenue.
Why do you want Pacifica to become another Daly City?
I drove northbound on Highway 1 through Crespi and Vallemar at 7:45 am this morning.
I neither had to stop nor slow down through this stretch.
The tired, panicky whining about how people want to turn Pacifica into Daly City reminds me of the wackos who insist that those supporting the recent health care bill want to destroy America. As has been pointed out, Pacifica morphing into Daly City can't happen since 50% of Pacifica is already off-limits to development.
I'm rather pro-economic development, but even then, quarry development and commercial revitalization of run-down areas like Pedro Point, Palmetto and Pacific Manor are as far as I'd be willing to take it.
I believe the bigger danger is the "no-development" attitude among a small, yet very vocal, minority of Pacificans. These are the same people I saw at the Highway 1 scoping meeting, who came in determined to oppose any work being done on the highway before they even knew what the proposal was.
Pacifica has only managed to provide skeletal services in the past because it was good at getting grants and handouts from the county, state and federal government. When this last glob of stimulus money runs out, those days are over. Even to provide minimal services from now on, Pacifica needs to increase its tax-revenue producing commercial base.
"Anonymous 3rd world",your quote Parks in 2002 produce "More revenue than it cost" (except recently), guess that plan would work if we were "Smoky the Bear", but its not such a balance economic, structural city program when you're people.
By "Paving over Pacifica" to you seems to included developing our only city redevelopment zone, which is empty, and filling the OWWTP Property which is an empty hole. Meantime, millions of needed dollars, jobs, services are lost to this city.
Ever take an economics class, balance a check book, pay your own bills? Maintain your house before it falls down. Make improvements for the benefit or your family. Plan for the future. Care about your shared community (the good of the people)? Well, you're probably not alone-- don't think our 8 year city council which has blocked these realistic "balance economy" tax revenue, service, job improvements to maintain this city has either.
Kathy, you've convinced this grass-eating, rain-water-drinking hippie about the error of her ways with regards to the treatment plant and quarry properties. I hope that in a few short years people will come flocking from the Bay Area to visit Pacifica's crown jewels: TGIFridays and Kohls.
Let's see if I get this right... Because people want to be able to pay for silly things like schools and roads by developing an area already designated for development they must all want to turn Pacifica into Daly City?!? This one just might be nuttier than Kathleen when she gets going on healthcare.
The Highway 1 fix talk has been ongoing for 40+ years.
Considering Hoover Dam was built in 5 years, you can say City Councils past and present have failed.
The Highway 1 fix should have been done and finished before the tunnel project.
The End!!
http://ow.ly/16StcW
Obama Transportation Secretary: ‘This Is the End of Favoring Motorized Transportation at the Expense of Non-Motorized’
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
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