DANA POINT : City to Mull Effects of Fast Traffic

A strange thing happened on Del Prado recently. A convenience store closed.

But the boarded-up Stop N Go Market, normally one of the most resilient of businesses, is testimony not so much to the recession as it is to the triangular downtown island called the Couplet, say local business owners.

When Caltrans rearranged downtown in the mid-1970s, it succeeded in speeding up traffic through the city. At the same time, however, it wrote a death warrant for many businesses on the streets, city officials say.

“We created this wonderful Couplet area, but we put a racetrack on both sides,” Mayor Mike Eggers said.

Jim Hayton, owner of the Dana Point Car Wash on Pacific Coast Highway, agrees. The speed limit may be 40 m.p.h., but “drivers are doing 40 in first gear,” Hayton said. “It’s a freeway through here. Given a chance, people will drive as fast as they can. . . . What happens is no one notices the businesses and services along the way.”

Circulation in downtown Dana Point will head the agenda at a special meeting of the City Council and the city’s Traffic Improvement Commission tonight. Because Pacific Coast Highway is under the jurisdiction of Caltrans, one of its representatives will also attend.

Problems of jurisdiction are a few of the snags for planners redesigning the Couplet area, said Addison H. DeBoi, one of the city’s five traffic commissioners. When Caltrans redesigned the area, it formed a triangular island by turning a busy Pacific Coast Highway into two three-lane, one-way roads with Del Prado going south and Pacific Coast Highway going north.

“Del Prado is totally under the control of the city. We have the right to determine what goes on there,” DeBoi said. “But PCH is a state highway controlled by Caltrans. So if we solve problems on Del Prado without equal action on PCH, that can make matters worse.”

Among the proposed solutions are signals at Street of the Amber Lantern and Street of the Violet Lantern. Both should be installed on Del Prado within a year, said Dennis H. Jue, Dana Point’s city engineer.

Another way to slow traffic is “chokers,” which are “like an extension of the sidewalk into the street to narrow the roadway,” Jue said. They can eliminate a traffic lane and create parking opportunities.

Before the Couplet’s problems are solved, the city will perform a special study, called a specific plan, which is required by the city’s General Plan, said Lance Schulte, the city’s senior planner. Traffic and circulation are only two of the ingredients of a “very complex problem,” he said.

“There are a lot of factors causing the problems there and we plan to address them,” Schulte said. “Basically, what has happened is that the circulation was changed when the Couplet was formed, but the land use did not. For a while businesses went along OK, but that’s no longer true.”