Washout Divides Canyon -- and Local Opinion

When it’s open, it unites the Valley with the sea. When it’s closed, it splits Topanga Canyon right down the middle.

That’s the effect that partially severed Topanga Canyon Boulevard is having on residents of the mountain hamlet between the San Fernando Valley and Malibu.

An 80-foot washout has forced the off-again, on-again closure of the heavily used route since Jan. 10. And now state highway officials say a 17-hour-per-day shutdown will likely continue through the end of March.

That’s good news to longtime locals who complain that the twisty, two-lane road that is their community’s main street has been turned into a dangerous raceway by the 18,000 daily commuters who normally use it.

“This is the most wonderful thing in the world,” said Dan Vickers, a 45-year canyon resident who recalled with fondness the area’s funky hippie past.

But it’s terrible news to other residents, many of whom say the closure has turned their own 20-minute commutes to work or school into two-hour ordeals.

“This is a complete disaster,” said Daniela Morris, who has lived there 15 years.

The washout undermined the boulevard’s northbound lane three miles above the canyon’s ocean mouth. Repairs are expected to cost $1.27 million and take another seven weeks for crews working around the clock to finish.

Caltrans officials this week opened the southbound lane to alternating traffic. But the flagmen-controlled flow is allowed only from 6 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m.

During midday and nighttime hours, the roadway between Topanga’s village area and Pacific Coast Highway is closed by California Highway Patrol roadblocks so repair equipment can be used at the washout site.

During closure periods, Topanga’s main drag is virtually empty. It resembles a quainter and quieter era when flower-painted VW vans -- not luxury SUVs -- cruised the canyon.

“It’s heaven. This is like it was in the ‘60s,” said Vickers, who works in the canyon as a tree trimmer. “This may be inconvenient for some, but the trade-off is beyond anything you can imagine. Without all the cars, it’s like we’re living in the foothills of the Sierra.”

Morris, a homemaker, said the road closure’s effect on canyon residents was worse than anyone could imagine.

“They have to give us more time to use the road,” she said. “They have to give us a life.”

Morris was among 100 canyon dwellers who crowded a Caltrans community meeting Thursday night to complain about the shutdown. She explained that the closure has put at risk her son’s job as a Westside YMCA lifeguard and his status as a Santa Monica College student.

“He’s getting home at 10 or 11 o’clock at night. He’s exhausted. His old car is falling apart. These roads are dangerous -- he’s going to get killed,” she said worriedly of Sean, 20.

Caltrans and Los Angeles County road maintenance officials -- who successfully used a similar roadblock schedule during a 1995 canyon boulevard washout -- took notes as the town hall unfolded in a uniquely Topanga way.

Besides asking for an extended evening travel period, residents offered their own ideas for detour schemes, illustrating them with a large, hand-drawn map of mountain roads. They talked briefly of using ID cards to allow locals past roadblocks -- until one man reminded his neighbors that turning the canyon into something of a private, gate-guarded community was not the Topanga way.

The meeting turned emotional when 38-year canyon resident Kathleen Hernandez related how the road shutdown cost the life of her dog.

She described a nighttime confrontation with a CHP officer who refused to let her through as she tried to rush her sick dog to a Westside veterinary clinic. As she frantically took a detour on another mountain road, Zeke, her 9-year-old part-wolf, part-shepherd mix, died.

“Why didn’t you at least look at my dog?” Hernandez demanded of the officer, who was seated in the back of the Topanga Elementary School auditorium.

“I’m not a vet, ma’am,” Officer John Mueller responded.

Those on less urgent trips were also sweating out the roadblocks, Mareka Cole proved Thursday. The Sacramento computer security specialist was headed from a Woodland Hills business meeting to Los Angeles International Airport when she found herself stuck for 80 minutes waiting for the canyon road’s scheduled 3 p.m. opening.

There were 106 cars behind her when the barricades finally came down about 3:10 p.m. She ended up missing her 3:50 p.m. flight.

“I missed my plane by 10 minutes. I had to pay a late-return charge on my rental car and pay extra for a new return-flight ticket. I finally got home four hours late,” she said Friday from Sacramento.

Topanga merchants are also feeling the roadblocks’ effects. Though it’s starting to rebound, patronage at the Inn of the Seventh Ray restaurant initially dropped 75% after the road closure, according to owner Lucile Yaney. She said she had cashed in $125,000 in certificate-of-deposit retirement savings to avoid laying off staff during the washout repair.

Mike Jung, owner of the Fernwood Market, a Quonset hut turned grocery store, said his business was down by a third. He said he had taken out a loan to cover expenses during the shutdown.

But he grins and bears it when longtime customers comment on how easy it is now to drive in and out of his store’s boulevard parking lot.

“The locals love it,” he said.

On the empty street out front, market shopper Sterling Buell certainly did.

“It’s wonderful, it really is,” said Buell, a solar energy system designer who lives “off the power grid” on a nearby mountainside.

“I’m not looking forward to the removal of the roadblocks.”