Point Reyes Light - November 6, 2003
Muir & Stinson decry park transit plans
By Ian Fein
Muir and Stinson Beach residents voiced their concerns about transportation alternatives presented by the county and National Park Service at two public meetings this past week. Residents of both towns also expressed outrage over how little they’d been included in the planning process thus far.
The county’s Department of Public Works, together with the parks, California State Parks and Caltrans, are developing a Comprehensive Transportation Management Plan for parklands in "Southwestern" Marin.
The plan aims to reduce traffic congestion by increasing almost nonexistent shuttle services and redesigning parking distribution.
Last week Public Works sent out thousands of newsletters to announce the upcoming public meetings and explain the project’s four preliminary alternatives.
Packed community center
However, at the Muir Beach Community Services District meeting last Wednesday, about half of the 100 residents that poured into the packed community center said that they had not received the newsletter.
Many only learned about the meeting earlier that day, including The Light, which received the newsletter and notice of the meeting just hours before it was set to begin.
Muir Beach Community services District Director Debra Kamradt said park service representatives called her at 5 p.m., only two hours before the meeting’s start, and asked her to make a presentation.
"We received a commitment that the district would be included in the planning process," Kamradt said at the meeting. "I see three tenets of joint planning: inclusion, goodwill, and sharing of information. Right now I really feel that all three of those have been seriously neglected."
Six "public scoping" meetings were held throughout the Bay Area in October 2002, but residents who attended last year’s meetings said this week that they felt their suggestions were ignored in the current plans.
Muir Beach residents vehemently opposed the proposals to close Upper and Lower Muir Woods roads, saying that such action would pose an emergency-access nightmare. Closing the roads would redirect national-monument traffic through their community, residents said, thereby increasing congestion rather than reducing it.
Road danger
"I’m worried about the dangers of the roads as is," said Ed Hyman, a Muir Beach resident of 27 years whose son just received his driver’s license. "Eliminating Muir Woods Road is, in no other words, insane.... That you’ve gotten this far without our input shows a complete lack of respect and a deficiency in your process. I think this whole thing is built in quicksand, and you ought to go back to ground zero and work with the people we’ve elected to represent us."
In response to Public Work’s bypassing of the community’s elected officials, the Muir Beach Residents Association was founded over scones and coffee on the morning of the meeting.
The association "will be freer to pursue legal and other means [against public works]" co-founder Kristen Shannon told The Light.
Residents were also suspicious of the transportation plan’s ambiguous relationship with the parks’ Big Lagoon project, set to alter the Muir Beach parking arrangement in the next couple of years as part of the Redwood Creek Watershed restoration.
"One of the things that’s important for you to understand is that the history of the park out here has led to a deep mistrust of bureaucracy," resident Yvonne Rand told public works representatives. "That you went to the expense to publish this [newsletter] without mention of Big Lagoon ‘smells bad.’"
Two of public works’ alternatives propose building an additional Muir Woods parking lot at Santos Meadow, where the Muir Beach residents’ drinking water well is located.
Longtime resident Walter Postle interrupted the park service’s presentation at one point and declared, "You will not build anything at Santos Meadow."
Meeting at Stinson
While the Muir Beach residents were caught off guard and outraged by such short notice of their meeting last Wednesday, Stinson residents, who had more time to review the alternatives and prepare for Monday night’s Village Association meeting, were just as adamant in opposing the plan.
Stinson residents also expressed concern that their previous input had not been incorporated into the alternatives, and that the public work’s stated "goals and objectives" include "improving the quality of the visitor experience" but not preserving local communities.
"It’s clear that you took into no account all the businesses along Highway 1 that rely on the influx of tourism," said Stinson resident Sam Temer, owner of the Sand Dollar restaurant.
About four dozen Stinson residents were in attendance at Monday’s meeting, as well as a few from Muir Beach and Supervisor Steve Kinsey.
The Stinson residents unanimously opposed all three of public works’ proposed changes to the Stinson Beach parking lot. They said a new southern entrance (either through Arenal Avenue or across from the Panoramic Highway junction) would "condemn" that neighborhood.
They also felt as a group that any reduction in size or institution of fees to the current parking lot would send hundreds of visitors searching for free parking into the rest of the community.
Residents said they want better signs marking the lot, enforcement of parking regulations and someone to direct traffic at the main intersection downtown.
"About 15 years ago we had a traffic committee that spent many months looking at these exact issues," said resident Doug Bartholomew, who lives near the proposed southern entrance. "We found that a single traffic person at the stop sign in town would the best, most cost-effective way to handle the congestion."
"For 30 years we’ve always said that all we want is to have traffic control monitored once it’s busy," said Village Association coordinator Roger Hurt, "and that certainly would have been cheaper than coming up with all these different alternatives."
More public input
Stinson Beach resident Scott Tye, who worked for the park service after Stinson Beach’s transfer from state to federal land, noted Caltrans’ failure to appear at either meeting.
"They are a glaring absence," Tye said. "If they’re going to be included as a player, they need to participate in the public meetings."
Another public meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Golden Gate National Recreation Area headquarters in San Francisco’s Fort Mason.
Residents can also contact the plan’s project manager Art Brook, a traffic engineer with the public works at 499-6752.
In coming months, the county and parks say they will narrow the plan into one revised proposal that should reflect the public input from recent meetings. The revised alternative will then be presented at more public meetings, tentatively set for this spring, before the environmental review process can begin.