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Temecula council approves Pava Road rehabilitation, stops short of immediate lane reduction and asks staff to study alternative striping
Summary
After extensive public comment and council debate, Temecula's council approved a $3.1 million pavement rehabilitation and authorized bidding while rejecting staff's immediate road-diet striping plan; the council directed staff to return with additional cross-section options, including keeping four lanes with narrower lane widths and wider bike buffers.
Temecula City Council members voted on March 24 to move forward with pavement rehabilitation on Pava Road but declined to adopt staff's recommended lane-reduction striping today, opting instead to send the striping question back to staff for more analysis.
The council approved advertising bids and associated CEQA determinations for the Phase PW25-05 pavement rehab (a project staff estimated at about $3.1 million) but, after hours of testimony and council debate, rejected a motion to implement the road-diet striping that would have reduced the corridor from four travel lanes to two with a center two-way left-turn lane and buffered bike lanes.
Why it matters: Pava Road runs past several schools, the Temecula library and other youth-oriented destinations. Supporters of the staff proposal said the striping would calm traffic and make the corridor safer for people walking and bicycling. Opponents warned that cutting lanes could create congestion at peak periods and harm emergency response or business access.
"Speeds along Pava Road remain dangerously high for an area which contains the highest concentration of youth oriented land uses in our entire valley," said David Maddox during public comment, urging the council to prioritize safety. Opposition speakers, including Mark Winkler, argued the staff study failed to account for peak-hour directionality and emergency access. "We strongly oppose the road diet," Winkler said.
Staff presentation and data: Principal traffic engineer Nick Minichilli described the proposal and compared it to previous local road diets in La Serena, Red Hawk Parkway and Old Town Front Street, saying those conversions produced measurable reductions in collisions and speed. He told council the data were drawn from the sheriff's Crossroads collision database and a before/after comparison of multi-year periods.
Mayoral alternative and the council's decision: Mayor Jessica Alexander suggested an alternate, interim approach: keep four lanes but narrow each lane from 13 feet to 11 feet and reallocate the recovered width to create wider bike lanes or buffers. "What if we can keep all 4 lanes and we can widen the bike lane?" she asked the council and staff. Several council members expressed support for asking staff to evaluate that and other cross-sections rather than implementing the full lane reduction immediately.
Outcome: A motion to adopt the staff-recommended road diet failed. Council then voted unanimously to advertise the asphalt rehabilitation contract and associated environmental findings. Finally the council voted 4-1 to direct staff to restudy the corridor and return with alternatives — including the mayor's 11-foot-lane proposal and other cross-sections — for the fall restriping timeframe.
What comes next: Staff said the pavement work would proceed and that final striping could be completed in the fall of 2026 after the rehabilitation and after the council has had a chance to review the additional analyses. The city's traffic team committed to return with specific cross-sections, updated collision causation data (including whether crashes involved pedestrians or bicyclists), and peak-hour patterns to inform the final restriping decision.
