Point Reyes Light - September 23, 2004
Freeway to get warnings on coast traffic situation
By Jim Kravets
Caltrans will soon install electronic signs at the Highway 101 turnoffs to Stinson Beach so that motorists will know when the route to the coast is too congested for normal travel.
As first described in the 1970s by Paul Kayfetz, then a director of Bolinas Public Utility District, one problem is that Highway 101 motorists not familiar with West Marin often don’t realize how far away the coast is when they see turnoff signs (with no mileage given) for Stinson Beach.
Assuming the town is nearby, too many motorists have impulsively followed the signs off the freeway only to find themselves caught for hours in unbelievably long lines of traffic.
Along the entire Marin County coast, there are stop signs on Highway 1 in only two locations, downtown Olema and downtown Stinson Beach. In good weather, lines of northbound traffic have occasionally backed up so far behind the sign in Stinson that they snaked 12 miles over Mount Tamalpais and onto the Highway 101 freeway, where they stopped traffic. Three years ago, one line was backed up from the Stinson Beach stop sign all the way into Sausalito where it stopped traffic on Bridgeway.
BPUD’s Kayfetz in 1970s first aired sign proposal
Kayfetz almost 30 years ago began calling for signs to let freeway motorists know what traffic conditions lay ahead when they come to the Stinson Beach turnoff.
Because the town of Muir Beach is on Highway 1 between the freeway and Stinson Beach (and is just downhill from popular Muir Woods National Monument), it too becomes strangled by cars on such days.
Paul Bignardi, a transportation planner for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, has now told directors of Muir Beach Community Services District traffic-advisory signs will be delivered in about three weeks and they should be in operation by the end of the year.
Agencies such as the Park Service, State Parks and Recreation, Caltrans, the Highway Patrol, and local fire departments will be able to have warning messages posted. These agencies will need training, Bignardi said. "Part of the process will be to determine which messages take priorities over others," he noted.
GGNRA to control signs
For the time being, said Bignardi, the GGNRA will administrate the signs from their Presidio offices. The two new electronic roadside signs (one for northbound traffic and one for southbound) will give information on traffic and parking conditions, the Park Service said.
Bignardi told Muir Beach Community Service District directors that two "changeable message signs" are part of an effort to reduce congestion across Mount Tamalpais, at Muir Woods, in Muir Beach, and at Stinson Beach.
The specific locations for the signs are still being worked out, Bignardi told The Light. He said the sign for northbound traffic will be somewhere between the Stinson Beach exit and Marin City. The southbound sign will be posted between Corte Madera and the Seminary Drive exit.
Signs will also report parking conditions
"When a warm day or some other special event occurs, we’ll be able to give visitors advance notice that roadways are congested or that parking lots are full or are expected to be full," Bignardi said. "Then they can adjust their plans accordingly."
The electronic signs cost $25,000 apiece with the funding coming from Caltrans and a federal parks program for "Intelligent Transportation Systems." The program is also responsible for the "Highway Advisory Radio" messages motorists can receive near state and federal parklands.
Because of heavy congestion coupled with limited parking in southwestern Marin County, several agencies, headed by the Park Service, began drafting a Comprehensive Transportation Management Plan four years ago.
"The electronic signs," said Bignardi, "are a ‘soft element’ [of the plan] that can be done relatively easily." During a fourth public workshop on the plan, which was held two weeks ago, government representatives met with members of the public to review "concepts" for improving southwestern Marin’s transportation problems.
Transportation planning
Based on this discussion of concepts, the planners on Nov. 16 will make public a preliminary range of "alternatives."
"Concepts are like looking at the range of solutions from an altitude of 10,000 feet," Bignardi said, "and ‘alternatives’ are like looking at the solutions from 500 feet." In November, the public will be invited to comment on the alternatives.
Environmental impact studies are planned for 2005 and 2006, and final plan implementation should start in 2007, according to planning staff.
John Roberto, a private planning and environmental consultant hired to represent the county government, told The Light that the public has said it wants to first try less-drastic, and lower-impact solutions than those envisioned in earlier proposals. (That proposal included reducing public parking, closing Muir Woods Road to through traffic, and coercing tourists to use shuttlebuses between Highway 101 and the coast.)
Reservations for parking
Roberto said "softer" solutions could include additional signs, websites with information about traffic conditions, or perhaps an advance-reservation system for spaces in public parking lots.
Residents of Muir Beach and Stinson Beach (who already experience problems with parked cars jamming residential streets when tourists are in town) have previously been vociferous in opposing attempts to limit public parking.
Roberto said there will be no proposal to reduce parking spaces at Stinson’s federal beach. Nor will there be a proposal to create a southern entrance to the Stinson parking lot.
Muir Beach quits transportation advisory panel
County supervisors have created a Marin Citizens Advisory Committee to represent towns that will be affected by transportation planning. Last month, directors of the Muir Beach Community Service District voted to withdraw from the committee.
"The Marin Citizens Advisory Committee has taken on a difficult tone," said Leighton Hills, president of the district’s board of directors.
"Their motivation is increasingly political, and they are acting to delay the [Comprehensive Transportation Management Plan] process. I feel that the Muir Beach Community Services District is better off not being part of it."
"The district should withdraw from the [advisory committee] based on their inability to represent our views," Director Deborah Kamradt agreed. "The district will let Supervisor Steve Kinsey know that we will continue to be involved with the [transportation-management plan] through direct communication and consultation with him."
Withdrawal debated
Muir Beach resident Karla Andersdatter opposed Muir Beach’s withdrawal from the advisory committee. "I’m not the kind of person who wants to withdraw from something to make a statement," she told Community Service District directors. "You need to stay with something to make things change."
Director Hills replied, "We’re not withdrawing from the [transportation-management plan] topic, but we are withdrawing from the [advisory committee]. If I had a crystal ball, it would say that the Board of Supervisors will be strongly discounting the [committee] as an organization in the future. I recommend distancing ourselves from the [committee].
"It will be disbanded in the not-too-distant future," he predicted, "and will not be taken seriously."