On November 25th, residents from across the Santa Clarita Valley gathered at City Hall to raise their concerns about the upcoming closure of the intersection of Bouquet Canyon Road and David Way.
“There was a statement that there’s going to be a K-Rail placed at Ben’s Road and Bouquet Canyon. Are you familiar with that? Okay…with that being said, your traffic study does not include that,” said Scott Reynolds, another SCV resident.
The project, approved in 2020, includes the construction of 371 new homes and a new alignment of Bouquet Canyon Road.
Residents believe this will make their neighborhood an unsafe detour, though the city disagrees.
“If you improve the traffic flow in and you make sure that it’s faster to go through these major roadways, rather than these neighborhoods, that’s where people are gonna go,” said Joel Bareng, a city traffic engineer.
“That’s the reason why we try to implement and increase capacity on heavy lanes, and modify signal timing to make sure that that does happen,” said Bareng.
For some residents, the projected changes took a backseat to the issues that drove them to speak out at the city council meeting.
“Currently, drive time for fire station 128 on Whites Canyon and Skyline Ranch Road to Shadow Valley Lane is six minutes,” said Leo Bauer, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy who spoke at the meeting.
“With the proposed detour, it will take a minimum of 13 minutes. Drive time to fire station 111 is at least five minutes; with a detour, it’s a minimum of ten minutes.”
The city did not take action on the project and will meet with the developer to address resident concerns.
More information about the project is available at bouquetcanyonroad.com.
