Adriana Lemus glances at her phone to check the status of her 12-year-old son’s school bus. It’s a dot on the map inching along a freeway detour to avoid a closure on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Today it shows he’ll arrive home from the school he attends in the Palisades – which got out around 3:30 p.m. — close to 6 p.m.
One time the ride to the canyon took four hours.
He gets up at 5:30 a.m. to catch a 6:30 a.m. bus to school every morning.
“He was exhausted,” says Lemus. “I don’t like traffic so I can’t imagine dealing with that.”
The detour is necessary because a March 9 landslide closed a southern section of State Route 27, also known as Topanga Canyon Boulevard, cutting the community off from its main exit to Pacific Coast Highway. The road is estimated to reopen in the fall after extensive work, according to Caltrans.
Locals are increasingly frustrated over the timeline as children are stuck on school buses for hours, and small businesses are losing customers. Even worse — with so few roads in and out of the canyon, they are also asking if they will really be without their primary evacuation route at the start of fall fire season.
“We are getting so many concerns and complaints,” says Topanga Town Council Board Member Carrie Carrier, who’s been in daily conversations with state and local officials over the road closure.
The daily commute of kids traveling to Paul Revere Charter Middle School by school bus. The school is one of the closest options for sixth to eighth grade, since Topanga Canyon only has an elementary school in town. Graphic by Gabby Quarante/KCRW.
Topanga Canyon Boulevard is the town’s rugged main street. Drive south from the San Fernando Valley, and the suburban sprawl ends and drivers are met with steep hills and scrubby vegetation.
“It's a beautiful windy road that goes through a beautiful canyon that outlets into the beautiful Pacific,” says Koren Bertolli, a 13-year resident.
After a winter of historic rainfall, a chunk of hillside fell onto the road. State geologists say they need to remove approximately 80,000 cubic yards — or 5500 dump trucks worth — of dirt and rock to stabilize the area. That work can’t begin until the hill stops moving.
“We don't want to put anybody in the path of danger. That is Caltrans’ top concern not only for the public, but for our workers,” says Caltrans Spokesperson Jim Medina.
Meanwhile the road closure is a big cause of stress for the many middle and high schoolers who depend on its southern exit to get to school. The canyon has its own elementary school, but beyond the fifth grade, many students attend school in Pacific Palisades at Paul Revere Charter Middle School and Palisades Charter High School.
Both campuses are up to a 45-minute drive south on Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway. With that route closed, some families use Tuna Canyon Road. Locals say it’s narrow, windy, and in need of repairs, and parents told KCRW they don’t like their teenage drivers using it. It’s too narrow for school buses, so those use the 101 and 405 freeways both ways to school.
Because the road probably won’t be open when next school year starts, Lemus is considering moving her son to a school in the Valley for seventh grade, but she’s reluctant to break up his social life.
“For his emotional support,” she says, “I think it will be a good idea to keep him there because he already has all his Topanga friends.”
Other parents of middle schoolers are finding ways to avoid the bus ride. Koren Bertolli’s son stays at a friend’s house in Santa Monica a few nights a week to be closer to school, and then Bertolli takes their kids on the weekends. She jokingly describes the arrangement as “outsourcing her parenting.”
“It’s probably not sustainable in the long term,” she says, “but it's been very helpful for the short term.”
The road closure is not just a problem for school-aged kids. The thing weighing heaviest on Bertolli’s mind is fire season.
Topanga Canyon’s geography and limited exits make it a high-risk area for a catastrophic wind-driven wildfire. Now the community could be without a major evacuation route once peak fire season arrives in September.
According to a local nonprofit called Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, it can take six hours to evacuate the canyon when all the roads are open.
Carrier says locals like herself are drawn to the canyon’s rugged beauty, rough terrain, and unpredictability.
“When you come into an environment like that, you make a pact with it and take a certain responsibility,” she says. Yet the road closure is a situation where Topangans can’t do it all on their own.
Carrier led a recent community Zoom meeting with Caltrans, state representatives, and LA County where the topic of fire season was a point of tension. “This concern is enormous in this community, it's not an excuse,” Carrier told officials on the call.
Nina Choy, chief of geotechnical services for Caltrans, says she is taking the feedback seriously, and looking for ways to speed up a reopening.
LA County Fire also offered their assurances during the call that fire risk is currently low, and they’re working on plans for the coming fire season.
If the boulevard is still closed and a red flag day arrives, Megan Currier of LA County Fire suggested residents not wait to evacuate until a blaze begins. “Leave the canyon and stay somewhere else,” she said.
Besides the grave concerns about the future, there are challenges every day for local businesses. Topanga Canyon doesn’t have any chain stores, and the local gift shops, restaurants, and yoga studios rely on tourists and commuters. When the road is fully open, there is a daily total of around 30,000 cars on the road, according to Caltrans.
At Cafe Mimosa, a roadside spot with coffee, sandwiches and a tree-covered patio, business is down at least 30%. Owner Claire Denis says she was shocked to learn the closure could last as long as six months.
“You have to change everything,” says Denis.
Claire Denis’s coffee shop Cafe Mimosa is seeing significantly fewer customers since the road closure. Photo by Megan Jamerson/KCRW.
While locals are offering their support, Denis still needed to cut her employees’ hours. She’s also trying a crepe night to bring in business.
“When everything works, yes we take [the road] for granted,” says Denis. “And suddenly nature hits and you're like, ‘Oh, okay!’ [It’s] a big reminder.”
LA County Board of Supervisor Lindsey Horvath says her office is working on a small business fund and marketing campaign to highlight and promote the area. Business owners are also working on their own social media campaign called Visit Topanga Canyon.
One of the organizers, Matthew Morgan, is the owner of Endless Color, a pizza, natural wine, and record shop. He says the idea is to encourage more visitors to use the northern canyon entrance in order to enjoy everything the community has to offer.
“It’s to remind people that Topanga is beautiful and magical,” says Morgan.
**Correction 4/29/24: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect amount for how many cubic yards needed to be removed to stabilize the landslide.