City Council to reconsider $260,000 Malibu Seafood pedestrian tunnel study Play

In public session later Monday night, the city council will consider a proposal to spend $260,000 in city money to fund a study of a pedestrian underpass right next to the beach at Malibu Seafood. This appears to be another case of the city of Malibu heading in one direction on a Caltrans PCH project, then switching gears and going a different way.

Back in 2019, Caltrans proposed putting a pedestrian traffic signal crossing the highway at Corral Beach next to Malibu Seafood, where large numbers of people cross the highway in traffic. But self-appointed traffic experts from Malibu filled city hall with vociferous objections. They said placing a traffic light near the bottom of a hill would create dangerous rear-enders, and they feared a constellation of traffic lights would ruin Malibu's rural character. So in 2019, the city council shifted gears and thought it would be better to build a pedestrian tunnel there.

But then came the deaths in 2023 of four Pepperdine students, and all of a sudden Malibu wanted traffic slowed down on PCH. City staff was plugging along on proposals for the tunnel, which would be right in the Pacific Ocean's slosh zone from waves. Sunday, the area planned for the pedestrian tunnel's entrance on the beach was covered with high tide wave water.

There are also problems with the tunnel entrance on the other side of PCH. It would have to be relocated several hundred feet up Corral Canyon at the north end of the Malibu Seafood parking lot in order to build a handicap ramp.

There are indications from the new city council members that they're not happy with the proposed tunnel, and they may say never mind to Caltrans. Just like the proposed roundabouts west of Broad Beach, the city council may back out of tentative plans that it had proposed to the state. The city council will revisit plans for the tunnel Monday night.