LA Summer Gas Prices Surge

Union Station downtown Los Angeles 7/13/2015

Immune to Gas-Wars

Festival Season Transportation Alternatives

Slow and Go   Rush Hour   Heavy   Bumper to Bumper   Rage Level 1  Stuck in Traffic   Light    Traffic Jams Road Rage  Bottle Neck Hit-and-Run  Beat Traffic Rage Level 2 Slog  Traffic Fine  Snarl  Stuck

As Laguna's festival season begins so does the heaviest traffic congestion and consequences of a saturated car-centric mobility system. Normal weekly traffic alerts now occur daily.

Laguna Canyon Rd now has 1 lane open in each direction. Expect heavy traffic.Expect heavy traffic SB (inbound) Laguna Canyon Rd before the 73 fwy due to summer like conditions.Laguna Canyon Rd remains closed in both directions between El Toro & Canyon Acres until further noticeLaguna Canyon Rd is closed in both directions due to a brush fire in the 1900 block until further notice. Expect heavy traffic SB (inbound)Laguna Canyon Rd before the 73 fwy due to summer like conditions. 

Starting this festival season consider using alternatives to the automobile for arriving in and getting around Laguna Beach.

Trolley

During Festival Season a FREE summer trolley services 3 routes from 9:30am to 11:30pm June 26 to August 30. See a route map here. See the route descriptions here. Trolley Tracker mobile App here.

Municipal Bus 

(No service July 4) The blue and white bus, Monday through Friday 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM, Saturday 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM. Route map here. Click for route maps:  Gray route service, Blue route service,  Red route service. Bus schedule here.

For more information visit the city transit page here.

OCTA Bus

Route 1 Long Beach to San Clemente, route map.

Route 55 Santa Ana to Newport, route map.

Route 85 Mission Viejo to Dana Point, route map.

Route 89 Mission Viejo to Laguna, route map.

Taxis

Sally's Fund - local ride scheduling 949 499-4100

Age Well Senior Services - local ride 949 855-9766

LB Transit Plus Taxi Voucher Program - Suzi-Q Community Center front desk 9am-3pm 497-0504

Yellow Cab OC Company - 714 999-9999 pick-up schedule here.

Silver Streak Tranport Services - 949 435 3460

Uber - Ride on demand signup page here.

See more senior transportation details here.

Bike

Door to door service, alternate routes, easy parking. 

See the historical bike-route map (2004) here. 

See the bike-route map (2012) here.

See the latest city bike-route map (2015) TBD.

Walk

Get some exercise, meet a neighbor, experience old Laguna like you never have before. Paak-da-Ka if you dare here, and walk to your destination. Can't find parking?  Leave the car in the garage and experience Laguna's vistas, walk to your destination anyway.

"Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines" -David Letterman

-LS 

Traffic Conditions Around Laguna

For car traffic alerts like these in your Inbox, provide your email address at the Laguna Beach City website sign-up page here. Note that walking, biking and bus alerts are not available.

San Diego City Adopts VISION ZERO

Today the city of San Diego adopted Vision Zero (video), a zero tolerance plan to reduce the number of traffic related fatalities to zero by 2025.  Like New York, San Francisco and Seattle before it, San Diego is taking steps to reduce traffic fatalities caused by collisions between motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to zero in 10 years. 

The zero tolerance measure was requested as a budget measure in a memo to the mayor and Council members in January.  In a state of the city address Mayor Kevin Faulconer said "We are going to fix our streets".

Credit: Circulate San Diego

Steps to meet zero tolerance include road improvements costing $15 million to get started. A challenge to $120 million more in bond financing was defeated preserving the additional financing.UPDATE:  Latest story here from City of San Diego.

These graphs show the number of fatalities from auto collisions for 10 years 2002 - 2012 for PCH (San Diego City Hwy 5) for San Diego compared to Laguna Beach.

San Diego 153 Fatalities

Laguna 15 Fatalities

French Asparagus

Like kids and Asparagus, pedestrian zones are hard to swallow in LB.

 "Road reserved for cyclists and pedestrians 

10am - 7:30pm"  - City Hall

Asparagus and Les Trolleys

Fuchsia

Rouge

These silent all-electric trolleys  serve French cities from the suburbs and peripheral parking lots to the city center. Les Trolleys were demanded by city residents for their aesthetically pleasing design and convenience. In the city of Reims local residents realize too many cars increase noise and air pollution, make outdoor eating very unpleasant and ruin the feeling of their town. French aesthetics demand a better visiting experience hence the trolleys.

Unlike Laguna, Reims is essentially void of automobiles or running engines. Like Laguna, Reims is a tourist destination town yet their streets are completely empty of  cars. Residents and tourists walk. There are some cars parked at curbs but everyone uses trolleys. Locals say it is so much easier to use trolleys for transportation, they run from 8:00am until 9:00...some until midnight.

Think outside the gear-box

 

What if, just what if Laguna was served by Les Trolleys from the Barranca Irvine station to The Festival of Arts? Even if you've never tried Asparagus you'll love the trolley.

Jaune

Bleu

Les trolleys are powered by overhead electric power or alternatively a ground level low-voltage supply safe to pedestrians and animals so overhead wires are not necessary. Wireless les trolleys are used exclusively in Reims serving a six-mile route from suberbs to the city center.

At the moment Laguna resident Jahn Levitt is visiting Reims and has this to say about her experience.
"The Cathedral with Chagall stained glass and les grand marques (champagne houses) like Mumms, Taittinger, Veuv Cliquot....have headquarters in Reims, all give daily tours and tastes. So why do these visiting tourists and residents use public transportation in Reims and don't drive around the city? Why don't they drive cars to the champagne chateaus? Because the city hall demands that these vineyards provide some type of public transportation to get outside the city. The majority go on tours and are driven in buses. Here's the issue... You can take the train from Paris to Reims for $50 round trip, it takes 45 minutes. How can you get to Laguna from LA? Or Irvine? You drive. I thought it was really interesting because there are also no car dealerships, no car washes, or gas stations, as there are in Laguna. The superb public transport from Paris make daily trips to Reims possible, j'adore les trolleys fuschia et jaune. "     -Jahn Levitt

OCTA Regional Bikeways South OC

(Update) On June 4 2015  The Orange County Transportation Authority held another roundtable meeting to review plans for 10 regional bikeway corridors in South Orange County, 6 corridors serve beach cities including Laguna. A discussion followed the presentation where city planning personnel and the public again contributed ideas to the planning process. Laguna Beach City planning personnel did not attend.

These are the current bikeway corridors planned to serve Laguna Beach and Aliso Canyon. View high-resolution maps of all 10 bikeway corridors here.











The corridors are designed to increase the cycling mode-share and improve cycling safety as measured data show from other installations.





 
To understand the level of cycling competence  among the participants the spectrum of abilities was measured in this chart. The audience measured from average (green) to expert (black).

 

Update: To show the corridor preferred greatest some meeting attendees selected their preferred route from Corridors A-J. Laguna Canyon Road is I, most preferred is Regional Parks Corridor A.

To identify routes to be completed first, priority is assigned according to weights given in this table. There are more projects to be completed than there are resources available so a weighting criteria is necessary.






The OCTA planning process to increase the mode-share of rail, transit and cycling continues. Local city planning departments are encouraged to PARTICIPATE. The next opportunity for public collaboration on the Bikeways Strateby appears here.

The OCTA meeting agenda appears here.
The OCTA Round Table summary and follow-up appears here. 
The OCTA Round Table meeting presentation appears here.

-LS

LA Planning Commission Reviews Mobility Plan

The city of Los Angeles is poised to approve and adopt their Complete Streets Policy Mobility Plan, a component of the GENERAL PLAN for LA. The plan will be reviewed by the LA Planning Commission 28 May 2015. The city of Laguna Beach is also working on a mobility plan, here is how Los Angeles and Laguna Beach compare.

Planning Document (click)	Los Angeles	Laguna Beach
Mobility Plan 2035 May 2015	complete
Complete Streets Design Guide	complete
Final Environmental Impact Report	complete
Availability Notice Environment Impact Report	complete
Mobility Plan Staff Report Summary	complete
Mobility Plan Staff Reports A-F	complete
City Planning Commission 5-year Strategy	complete
Mobility Plan Network	complete
Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan	complete
More Planning Documents	complete
Enhanced Mobility and Complete Streets Transition Plan ***		complete

Unlike the Los Angeles plan, the Laguna version is not a component of the city General Plan and legally non-binding.


*** The LB plan includes this disclaimer :

The latest update to the Laguna Beach Enhanced Mobility and Transition Plan appears here.    

 

UPDATE:  The Transition Plan is not available from the

LB city Document Repository and removed from the location appearing above. The new location is under Land Use Planning.

 

-LS

DecoBike Bikeshare

San Diego got DecoBike

• Annual Membership $99 
• Or hourly rental
• Unlimited 30-minute rides
• Find a bike (use the App)
• Visit bike station
• Go

Laguna's First Ride of Silence 2015

LA Times Coastline Pilot Photo

The Ride of Silence is an international event to recognize those killed and injured in bicycle collisions with motorists around the world, and to draw awareness for all roadway users to Share-the-Road.  This year the event was held in 335 locations in 20 countries on 6 continents and the first participation in Laguna.

Where were these guys?

See the International Ride of Silence Organizers here.

See the Route through Laguna Beach here.

Read full coverage at the LB Coastline Pilot here.