Sliding Peninsula Road to Be Closed, Moved

Palos Verdes Drive South through the Portuguese Bend landslide area will be closed to all traffic except emergency vehicles for at least five days beginning Monday at 7 a.m. while a section of the road--constantly moving because of the slide--is shifted north to more stable ground.

Kevin Smith, assistant public works director in Rancho Palos Verdes, said the city hopes to grade, pave and stripe the road and reopen it to traffic by the close of work on Friday. He said the work could carry over into Saturday, however.

Only Through Road

Palos Verdes Drive South, which Smith said carries about 6,500 cars a day, is the only through road along the Palos Verdes Peninsula coastline.

Alternate through routes during the closure are Palos Verdes Drive North, which runs along the north side of the Peninsula, and Pacific Coast Highway farther north, according to Deputy Eugene Peterson, traffic investigator at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lomita station. Trucks weighing more than 6,000 pounds, however, are prohibited on Palos Verdes Drive North.

Peterson said the closure will make commuting “cumbersome” for people who regularly use the road.

“If someone lives in Palos Verdes Estates and works in San Pedro, the fastest route is Palos Verdes Drive South,” he said. “He will have to come across the top (of the Peninsula) in a lot more traffic and congestion.”

Palos Verdes Drive South will be closed at Narcissa Drive on the west and at Schooner Drive on the east. Smith said that access to homes in Portugese Bend--including those normally reached by Peppertree Drive in the slide area--will not be affected by the closure because they are accessible by way of Narcissa.

As part of the city’s $2-million program to slow or stop the landslide, which began in 1956, a section of road eight-tenths of a mile long that has shifted seaward with the landslide will be rebuilt at its original right of way.

The news section of road also will have a drainage system to carry runoff to the ocean so it will not seep down and interfere with land movement.

Officials said movement on the original right of way has slowed to seven-hundredths of an inch a day, and it is hoped that maintenance costs--which have run to $250,000 a year--may be reduced to less than $30,000.

Smith said land movement on the road has created sharp curves because of different rates of movement. The rebuilt road “will be one big bell curve as opposed to being back and forth as it is now,” Smith said.

Too Hazardous to Keep Open

He said the city originally was going to keep the road open during construction and escort cars through, but officials decided that it was too hazardous and that the work could be done more quickly if there was no traffic to work around.

Signs announcing the closure are posted at nine locations, as far away as Hawthorne Boulevard and Crest Road in Rancho Palos Verdes and Western Avenue and 25th Street (the Los Angeles extension of Palos Verdes Drive South) in San Pedro.