DANA POINT : New U-Turn Lane Assailed as Perilous

A new U-turn lane installed recently along one of the busiest stretches of Coast Highway has drawn fire from city officials who say it is unsafe and was put in place without consulting them.

In a tersely worded letter to Caltrans, Mayor Mike Eggers and Dennis Vlach, the city’s traffic-improvement commission chairman, suggested that the turn pocket now on the westbound portion of the highway between Del Obispo Street and San Juan Creek was installed “to benefit the Dana Point Hilton Hotel.”

The multistory hotel, which has been criticized by city officials because of a potential increase in traffic, is under construction nearby, just across the highway from Doheny Beach State Park.

The letter indicates that the U-turn lane has added congestion to an already-crowded stretch and “has brought traffic closer to pedestrians on both sides of Pacific Coast Highway,” an area already considered hazardous to people on foot. A sign at the intersection says that U-turns there are limited to cars only, not trucks.

Because of these safety hazards, Eggers and Vlach said they wanted to go on record as opposing the project. They said any future litigation concerning the U-turn lane should be the sole responsibility of Caltrans, which has jurisdiction over Coast Highway because it’s a state highway.

Steve Seville, a Caltrans spokesman, said a permit for the U-turn lane was issued Feb. 4 and that city officials should have been notified before that time.

“Obviously, there has been some sort of breakdown in communication,” Seville said. “Although Caltrans is responsible for improvements to the highway system, it is not our intent to force-feed any project to any city jurisdiction. It’s a natural practice for us to get input from the city and work as closely as possible with them to ensure that is what they want.”

Eggers, however, said the appearance of the lane caught him by surprise.

“All of a sudden I’m driving over the bridge and see a U-turn lane,” Eggers said.