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Crosswalks, roundabout,
trees proposed to slow
Pacific Palisades traffic

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

For years, Pacific Palisades residents have worked to slow down traffic near Palisades Elementary School.

The work is still going on.

In 1997, the city reduced the once-four-lane Auhuhu Street to two lanes, wide medians were painted, parking places were created, additional traffic signs were installed.

About 50 residents of the upper Pearl City community at a follow-up traffic-calming workshop at the school last week favored curb extensions and marked crosswalks at the intersection of nearby Akepa and Auhuhu streets and a roundabout to slow traffic on Auhuhu Street near Aalii Place at the entry to the school.

In 1996, a 6-year-old girl was struck on Auhuhu Street and killed.

Auhuhu Street residents asked later for their reaction generally approved of proposed changes.

Angel Jardiolin said Pacific Palisades is hilly and motorists pick up speed coming down a hill. "They pick up speed, and they're probably not really aware of it."

Speeding vehicles create the hazard, and slowing them will help, he said.

Gary Yasui, principal of Palisades Elementary, said one danger is students often don't use existing crosswalks because these crosswalks are not near the school entrance. "The crosswalks are not in close proximity to the school," he said. Students tend to cross in the middle of the block, away from crosswalks, he said. Proposed plans will provide crosswalks near the school entrance.

During the traffic-calming workshop, Dan Burden, a consultant to the city, explained that median islands and other innovations to narrow streets and the presence of green trees and grass likely will slow motorists at Akepa and Auhuhu streets, where schoolchildren cross.

"Eighty-five percent of motorists' behavior can be corrected by engineering," he said. "That last 15 percent of the public that doesn't get it, once they have a ticket or two they begin to understand."

Greenery added at the Auhuhu-Aalii roundabout also would cause motorists to slow down, he said. Landscaping of traffic medians and roadsides has a psychological effect and causes motorists to cut back speed, he said.

A diagonal crosswalk angled so that pedestrians must look at oncoming traffic also enhances safety, he said.

Painting stripes along each edge of Komo Mai Drive above Aumakua Street to make it appear to narrow to two 10-foot lanes and slow up oncoming motorists came in as a third neighborhood priority at last week's meeting.

A fourth was a raised speed table crosswalk on Auhuhu Street at the school sidewalk entrance. Once these traffic-slowing measures are in place, similar devices to moderate traffic on other neighborhood streets may gradually follow, Burden said.

All residential communities want low-speed traffic and a low noise level, Burden said. He gave several examples how traffic-calming measures -- including greenery with trees, shrubs and grass -- slowed traffic as determined by actual speed checks.

"It's almost universal," he said. "The nicer your treatment looks the more it adds value to the neighborhood."

Homes on streets with attractive landscaped medians and other plantings have been known to sell for $10,000 more than identical homes without these aesthetic amenities, Burden said.