LanternDistrict_AS

City staff has been placing humorous messages in with traffic and construction alerts to lighten a sometimes frustrating situation for drivers. Photo: Andrea Swayne

By Barbara Merriman, Dana Point

Dear Citizens of Dana Point,

If you have not already driven along the new two-way Pacific Coast Highway through our city’s newly christened “Lantern District,” you should. Then you should decide how to avoid this part of town in the future for your driving, bicycling and walking safety and sanity. Lanes are ridiculously narrow, the unrelenting rows of palm trees (which will surely drop fronds on unsuspecting drivers and pedestrians) dwarf the new sidewalks. It is obvious that four constricted lanes of two-way traffic will never hold up to any holiday or seasonal traffic demands. It’s bad enough right now in the middle of the week day.

The natural bypass for this contrived traffic bottleneck—one-way Del Prado Avenue—has virtually disappeared overnight. No one will be fooled by the new signs directing drivers down Del Prado to reach the Ocean Institute, Dana Point Harbor and Doheny State Beach. All of these popular destinations are far more accessible using alternate routes and we can see that new traffic patterns are already emerging. With traffic vanishing along one-way Del Prado, can a steep decline in business volume along that corridor be far behind? As if that isn’t bad enough, the Del Prado traffic situation should worsen considerably in the coming months as the city begins to tear up that street to install even more pricey sidewalks, palm trees and traffic medians on this formerly bustling arterial.

I understand that the city has already spent roughly $10 million on the Pacific Coast Highway improvements and now plans to spend almost $8 million more to build similar amenities on Del Prado. This costly construction was supposed to attract new development projects for the Lantern District, but at this point, there seems to be little evidence to inspire much hope that such projects will be built anytime soon, if ever.

Hats off to the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce and the Town Center Committee, two of the loudest proponents of this disaster, and their staunch supporters on the Dana Point City Council: Steven Weinberg, Bill Brough and Carlos Olvera. They will surely reap what they have sown.