Malibu council rejects PCH roundabouts near Broad Beach Play

Malibu has shot down the idea of traffic roundabouts at the city's western end to slow down traffic on PCH.

It was a unanimous vote last night. City council members said they are not against traffic circles — they are against traffic circles in the wrong place.

A better place, city staff suggests, is at the Busch Drive and Westward Beach intersections on PCH. There is dangerous traffic loads now that the city has lost use of the Zuma Beach access road underpass.

Those Zuma Creek roundabouts will come up for a city council vote later this fall, just before the city elections in November.

But last March, the city council voted 4 to 1 to spend about a half million dollars to design the two roundabouts at two locations west of Broad Beach. Back then, council members said they wanted to see the final designs and see whether the roundabouts would delay fire evacuation.

Even supporters of roundabouts last night walked away from this design. Michel Shane, a longtime advocate for roundabouts and other traffic safety measures, spoke last night.

"As you all know, I am the big proponent of roundabouts," Shane said. "But tonight I withdraw that feeling for these two roundabouts. We have to figure out where we can put roundabouts in correctly. So with disappointment, knowing that the city is struggling, I have to withdraw my support for these roundabouts, which is really disappointing."

Councilman Doug Stewart was a supporter last March. But not last night.

"The problem I'm having is that this is the wrong place to stick this thing, try it out," Stewart said. "I didn't realize that until I visited the site. And I'll be very honest. I was blinded by the idea of let's make this a trial and 'let's see how well we can do with the concept of a roundabout.' And that was the whole idea. It was a test."

But Metro then told Malibu it does not fund tests. County transportation money can only be used for permanent installations.

Metro funded the design process, which has cost about $125,000. Metro might want that money back, since the city bailed out on a plan that it had requested.

Now that the city council has rejected the plans, the city can only ask Metro if the county agency will reimburse Malibu for planning the rejected roundabouts.