Residents fight Vista Del Mar lane closures
Traffic backed up on Vista Del Mar at 9:20 a.m. Wednesday morning. Photo courtesy Keep Vista Del Mar Open On the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend, Pat Mendelson arrived home from work later than usual. His wife, Karla, knew immediately something was wrong by the mournful look on his face. “What happened?” she asked. “Who died?” “They closed lanes on Vista Del Mar,” he replied. Mendelson has commuted for 20 years to Colorado Plaza in Santa Monica. His commute was already among the slowest 16 mile drives on Earth — it had steadily creeped up over the years to 45 minutes heading north in the morning and 90 minutes returning in the early evening. The look on Mendelson’s face was the realization that hours of his family life in Manhattan Beach had just been taken from him. Now he was looking at spending more than four hours a day going to work and back. “I love my job, but I dread going to work,” Mendelson said. “It just doesn’t seem possible that they could do something this crazy.” The Los Angeles Department of Transportation had closed two of the four lanes on Vista Del Mar, one going south and one going north, which had long been a key commuter route for Manhattan Beach and other…
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