CHP takes renewed interest in stretch
HMB Review: By Greg Thomas: Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010
On a gloomy February evening, Debbe Kennedy stood in her cozy living room, staring through a picture window to a spot on Highway 1 about 20 feet from her Montara home.
Chains of fast-moving cars periodically pierce the tranquility outside, and to the uninitiated eye the traffic scene is one of everyday life on the coast. But for Kennedy, each car that zooms past conjures 17 years of memories of twisted metal and fatalities.
“There has become what I would characterize as a lethal cocktail of conditions that have created a tragedy waiting to happen at a number of places on the coast,” she said.
That “cocktail” is a mixture of speeding cars, scattered and misplaced road signage and a complete lack of pedestrian pathways across a three-and-a-half-mile stretch of highway through Montara and Moss Beach. The tragedy Kennedy speaks of has come home in the form of a number of life-altering and deadly car accidents over the years.
A 12-year-old boy pedaling across the Moss Beach roadway one night in December was left in critical condition after being hit by a passing car. Last spring, a Half Moon Bay High School student was killed crossing the highway near Dunes Beach.
“We are in the firing line,” Kennedy said. “We watch near-misses happen all the time.”
Kennedy and other concerned Midcoast residents point to the lack of crosswalks and ineffective deterrents for speeders as contributors to accidents and close calls alike. For two years, Kennedy has been working to improve the situation, and two weeks ago she won a small victory: a new speed sign and a new stop sign where 14th Street intersects with Highway 1 in Montara.
The signs, however, were supposed to be there all along. Caltrans erroneously moved the “Speed Limit 45” sign south after it fell down in 2008, and failed to replace the stop sign after it was knocked down earlier. A third sign leading up to 14th Street, which will read something like “45 zone ahead,” is supposed to be installed soon.
The speed through Moss Beach is 50 miles per hour. It slows down to 45 miles per hour further north through Montara.
San Mateo County Sheriff’s deputies have handed out tickets to 18 speeders on the stretch of highway between Miramar and Devil’s Slide in the past six months. Kennedy hopes more signage will curb speeding more than an occasional ticket. But she doesn’t plan to let up just yet. “Helping to get the speed limit lowered, if we can,” is next on Kennedy’s agenda.
That’s not as easy as it may sound.
Speed limits are calculated through state traffic surveys conducted, at the most, every five years. The 85th percentile of speeds taken during a given survey is rounded to the nearest five miles per hour and posted as law.
A traffic field investigator for Caltrans, who asked not to be identified, said community campaigns to lower the speed limit on state roads are simply “not effective.”
The Midcoast Community Council is attempting to circumvent that roadblock. Tossing around ideas for stoplights, medians, flashing crosswalks and even roundabouts on Highway 1, some Midcoasters seem ready to go the distance for a resolution.
Traffic, safety and mobility through the area have been hot topics at council meetings this past year and will be addressed at a meeting tonight as well. The council intends to issue a request with the county Board of Supervisors to nudge Caltrans into reviewing speeds between Half Moon Bay Airport and Montara. Additionally, the council supports the idea of expanding the scope of a traffic study conducted last year in Miramar and El Granada into Moss Beach and Montara.
Council members and Kennedy have stated they want to set policies ahead of the anticipated 2012 opening of the Devil’s Slide tunnels, a change expected to foster faster driving and more visits to the Coastside.
In her two-year undertaking, Kennedy got the ear of California Highway Patrol Sgt. Paul McCarthy. In a Jan. 12 e-mail to Kennedy, McCarthy pledges to make “every effort to have officers in the area” from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, and periodic patrols each night. He also says a CHP radar trailer will be rolled out on a regular basis.
McCarthy believes “reduced speed is absolutely appropriate” through Moss Beach and Montara, but offered cautions about the idea of crosswalks, saying they “give a false sense of security.”
The Midcoast’s unique geography and residential layout makes it a unique puzzle for traffic engineering, McCarthy said.
“It’s novel,” McCarthy said. “It’s not like most of Highway 1.”
For traffic-related issues and concerns, contact Sgt. McCarthy at (650) 369-6261 ext. 225 or e-mail him at pgmccarthy@chp.ca.gov.
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