Topanga Locals Try to Slow the Flow of Fast Commuters

For a year now I have been a mountain person. At least, I’ve come to think of myself as one when I travel through Topanga Canyon between home in Woodland Hills and work on the Westside.

It’s a refreshing 11-mile trip between Mulholland Drive and Pacific Coast Highway.

The canyon air is clear and clean. The dew-moistened chaparral glistens when the first shafts of sunlight sweep across hillsides and into deep, dark ravines.

On summer days, I drive with the windows down and the car radio off--you can’t pick up many stations inside the canyon anyway.

The winter is even better. After a rain, low-lying clouds hug the corners of the canyon. The creeks come to life and little waterfalls tumble over cliffs near the bottom of the S-curves.

Ah, the curves. The S-curves, a mile or so up from the ocean, are the most dramatic. But they’re not the only ones. There are 85 curves in all along the canyon’s boulevard.

I know because I’ve counted them. There’s plenty of time to count curves and contemplate nature while traveling through Topanga on its two-lane boulevard.

The posted speed limit is 45 mph, except for about a mile-long stretch in the Topanga town area. There, it’s 35.

But I rarely reach the speed limit in the canyon. I seem to get caught in a convoy of slowpokes each day on my way to work.

That’s because Topanga Canyon has become an increasingly popular alternate route for Valley commuters like me, who have given up on the Ventura and San Diego freeways. Officials say as many as 30,000 drivers now use the road daily. And the narrow boulevard, with its 85 curves, is intimidating to plenty of flatlanders.

Sometimes when I’m stuck behind someone who is crawling along at 25 or 30 mph, I daydream that I’m a cop with the authority to issue tickets for impeding traffic. Real police are rarely seen in Topanga.

So, imagine my surprise and--dare I say it?--my delight when I spied a California Highway Patrol car parked near the top of the canyon on Wednesday morning. The officer didn’t seem to notice the snail’s pace being set for the line of cars I was in, however. Neither did a second CHP unit we encountered a few miles farther.

Finally, as the brake-riding leader of my caravan of commuters crept through the Topanga village area, I saw the third CHP car.

He was parked next to Cafe Mimosa. And it looked like he had his radar gun aimed at us--looking for . . . speeders.

*

The commuter rush was long over that afternoon, when I drove back to the canyon to hunt for the highway patrol. Over at Cafe Mimosa, the officer was nowhere in sight.

A half-dozen cars and SUVs were parked in front of the cafe, however. Two bore bright yellow bumper stickers that read, “I Slow Down Thru Town, Don’t Bother Honkin.’ ”

Woodsy and warm, Cafe Mimosa is a uniquely Topanga place. It’s actually a coffeehouse with a comfortable, homey look. Locals love it, gathering around its mismatched tables each morning to chat with neighbors over espressos and lattes.

Presiding over the room, from behind a display counter filled with pastries and topped with a stack of the “Slow Down” bumper strips, was Arlette Parker.

French-born and friendly, Parker has lived in Topanga 12 years. She’s operated her cafe for six of those years, and now she is a leader of the crackdown on speeders.

That campaign is trying to stop state Department of Transportation engineers from imposing new traffic safety measures in Topanga that Parker and others feel would be detrimental to canyon residents.

In a proposal floated this spring, Caltrans officials suggested a prohibition on some left turns, along with a ban on parking next to the boulevard--which since 1933 has been designated a state highway.

“If that were to happen, it would put us all out of business here,” Parker said of the engineers’ suggestions.

So Parker and other merchants last month launched the “Slow Down” campaign. They have thus far collected 2,300 signatures on a petition they hope will prod the state into lowering the village-area speed limit from 35 mph to 25.

“This is the last place in Los Angeles with a simple life, and the traffic is putting it in danger,” Parker said.

Listening in as he sipped a double decaf latte was canyon resident Philip D’Arbanville, a health directory publisher. He said commuters blasting through Topanga seem to view the boulevard more as a freeway than as a town’s main street.

“The increase in traffic here has been phenomenal,” D’Arbanville said. “You used to have to wait for one or two cars to pass before you could pull onto the boulevard. Now, there’s a line of 30 cars, and you take your chances when you turn.”

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Late this week, Caltrans engineers said they have backed away from restricting left turns and parking in Topanga. “Everything is very much up in the air. The previous draft proposal is no longer valid,” Caltrans spokeswoman Ivy Estrada said.

Instead, they are waiting for a Topanga traffic task force--to be formed by canyon-area representatives, Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky--to come up with alternate ideas.

The task force suggestion came during a community meeting conducted last month by Kuehl that drew several hundred canyon residents and nearly a dozen Caltrans officials and Highway Patrol officers to Topanga Elementary School.

Curious about the traffic issue, I stopped in on the way home from work to listen. This being Topanga, a helpful member of the canyon’s volunteer emergency response team directed me to park on the school playground between a new Lexus SUV and a battered Toyota pickup truck.

The crowd nibbled on fresh-cut vegetable snacks from a table at the rear of the auditorium and studied Caltrans traffic-speed survey graphs, while waiting for the meeting to start. Once it did, many didn’t like what they heard.

Caltrans engineer Sheik Moinduddin revealed that the Topanga village speed limit cannot be lowered beyond 35 mph unless state law is changed. That’s because the state is required to set speed limits that are linked to the actual average non-peak-hour speed of roadways.

The speed survey for Topanga village showed that the average midday speed is 42 mph. The speed limit is calculated by lowering the average speed to the next zero down, or 40 mph. Because of curves in the village area, another 5 miles was deducted, making the official speed limit 35 mph, Moinduddin explained.

During the rest of the meeting, residents talked of speed bumps, turnouts for slow traffic, more traffic signals and stepped-up traffic enforcement.

Several suggested canyon residents take traffic control into their own hands by purposefully driving slowly and snarling commuters’ daily treks through Topanga.

The only dissent came from a man who stood up to shake his head. “Topanga Canyon Boulevard is a state highway, paid for and maintained by all of the people of the state” and not just canyon residents, he said.

As the meeting broke up, one woman shrugged off the man’s comment. “He’s from the Valley,” she whispered.

As we headed for our cars, it was clear there would be no fast end to this debate.

My own ride back to the Valley that night was smooth. It was late now and the air was brisk, and stars were visible through the branches of oak and sycamore trees. Traffic on the road out of the canyon was so sparse that I kept my high-beams on practically all the way.

I was home in no time at all.