Peninsula Cities Urged to Cooperate on Heavy Trucks

Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager Dennis McDuffie has called for a regional approach to controlling trucks on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in an effort to resolve a squabble that erupted when two cities there initiated ordinances banning heavy trucks on some major streets.

In letters presented last week at a meeting of staff members from the four peninsula cities, McDuffie suggested that heavy trucks be confined to designated truck routes and that Hawthorne Boulevard be declared a truck route serving the peninsula. He also proposed that the minimum weight limit in truck ban ordinances passed by Palos Verdes Estates and Rolling Hills Estates be increased from 6,000 pounds to at least 10,000 pounds. That would ensure that the ordinances apply to large trucks, not “standard contractors’ work vehicles,” he said.

Rolling Hills Estates City Manager Ray Taylor said traffic engineers from the four cities will analyze McDuffie’s suggestions from “a traffic safety and engineering point of view” and identify routes that could handle heavy trucks. The engineers will report Sept. 12 to the city staff group, which has met twice since the truck fracas erupted. Besides Rancho Palos Verdes and the two cities that have initiated truck bans, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County are participating in the group.

Earlier this month, Rancho Palos Verdes protested Palos Verdes Estates’ ban on trucks exceeding 6,000 pounds, contending that motorists could be cited for operating vehicles such as pickup trucks, motor homes and limousines that exceed that weight.

Palos Verdes Estates officials responded that the ban, which is already in effect, was aimed at large dirt-hauling trucks, not private vehicles.

Torrance Mayor Critical

A similar ban, applying to portions of Palos Verdes Drive North and three other streets, was enacted later by Rolling Hills Estates and takes effect Sept. 5. In imposing the bans, both cities contended that heavy trucks posed safety hazards and could damage fragile streets.

Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert has criticized both truck bans because they will route more traffic onto Torrance streets.

Other suggestions by McDuffie include:

* Joint maintenance of Hawthorne Boulevard by the peninsula cities and the county if it is designated a truck route.

* Requiring all large construction projects to specify and maintain a transportation route to and from building sites.

* Permitting trucks to use Palos Verdes Drive North in Rolling Hills Estates for trips to and from Chandler’s Palos Verdes Sand & Gravel, which operates a dump and a ready-mix concrete plant on the east side of Rolling Hills Estates.

Criticizing the truck ban on Palos Verdes Drive North, McDuffie said Rolling Hills Estates failed to consider the difficulty trucks have in turning right onto Pacific Coast Highway from Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance because of the acute angle of the intersection. “This will make a trip from Rancho Palos Verdes to Chandler’s very difficult,” he said.

(The Rolling Hills Estates truck ban exempts heavy trucks using Palos Verdes Drive North within the city, but only until June 30. The exemption was granted to permit Chandler to complete work pouring concrete for the new Peninsula Center Post Office. The company and the post office site are within the city.)

McDuffie also said that within Palos Verdes Estates, Palos Verdes Drive West and Palos Verdes Drive North “can easily handle” truck traffic without a safety problem. Reacting to contentions of Palos Verdes Estates officials that much of their truck traffic comes from Rancho Palos Verdes, McDuffie said traffic counts by his staff have shown that truckers use Rancho Palos Verdes streets to get to the southeastern portion of Palos Verdes Estates.

Richard Malcolm, Palos Verdes Estates’ interim city manager, said he is not contesting McDuffie’s statement. “Our concern is about safety in our community and constant damage that major heavy trucks make on the roads, wherever they come from,” he said.

Although Palos Verdes Drive West and North through Palos Verdes Estates and Rolling Hills Estates are major peninsula roads, both cities say they are essentially residential streets that were not built to withstand heavy loads.

In addition to McDuffie’s proposals, the peninsula cities staff group is considering several other suggestions made by Rolling Hills Estates. They include a program to alert the trucking industry about restricted routes, cooperative truck enforcement on the peninsula that would include standardized signs, and construction of truck escape routes to improve safety on the Crenshaw Boulevard hill.