Dear Jon: Lighthouse Avenue Monterey still a head scratcher

Depending on when you’re trying to get off the Monterey peninsula, traffic can be a nightmare. The City of Monterey says up to 45,000 vehicles travel through the Lighthouse Avenue corridor in a day. That’s an incredibly huge number of vehicles in a relatively small area. It’s a testament to just how much of a destination the Monterey Peninsula is.

Are there improvements we can look forward too? Yes there are, but the stakeholders have to come together and agree what’s best for the community of Monterey in this mecca of tourism.

Planners with the City of Monterey have been working on this issue for over 10 years. 9-11 was the beginning of the mega traffic issues after access across the Presidio was cut off. That left Lighthouse Avenue and the Holman Highway as the only funnel points off the peninsula.

Progress is slow on the Lighthouse avenue corridor. Since 2010, planners have been presenting ideas in workshops to make Lighthouse Avenue one way and Foam Street one way in the opposite direction. Planners have also proposed more plans for mass transit, bicycles and pedestrians and down played vehicles.

Monterey Planner Elizabeth Caraker has been working with stakeholders in the area for years to try to solve the Lighthouse Avenue traffic jams. She says the merchants, Cannery Row and new Monterey residents have all heard and seen the planner’s ideas to keep the traffic flowing, but at this point movement is as fast as a traffic jam, “We can continue to study it, if the stake holders are interested in coming together and discussing it once again, we have some scenarios worked out. It’s just a matter of politics at this point.”

So is there hope for a speedy resolution to moving traffic on Lighthouse Avenue? “Everybody has different interests, as you know, and the different scenarios favored one or the other,” says Caraker. “So we couldn’t come to full agreement.”

For now, huge events like the Pro-Am or Car Week and daily commuter traffic will continue to bog down Lighthouse Avenue where left turns are prohibited at intersections. But you can turn left over a double yellow line into and out of a driveway.

There is some good news to report at the other exit point off the peninsula. Todd Muck with the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, says a roundabout is coming to the Holman Highway at Highway One. “Roundabouts tend to distribute traffic verses being a choke point for traffic.” Says Muck, “So instead of people backing up at least a mile in the peak period trying to get through that intersection, they’ll flow right through with very little delay.”

So there’s the silver lining in all of this, construction on the roundabout at Holman Highway and Highway One is set to begin this fall. Right now they’re in the ‘stage planning’ to minimize disruptions to traffic during construction.

As to Lighthouse Avenue, I’m told in the short term there’s grant funding coming to buy equipment to control the lights on Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey to keep traffic flowing in high peak times.

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