Campus Life Project
Traffic FAQs
Q. How would the Campus Life Project affect traffic in the project area?
A. The CLP aims to enhance the quality of campus life by providing additional student housing and amenities that improve upon the supportive learning environment of the campus without increasing student enrollment. The CLP will add 468 additional student beds to the campus. Every bed added to the campus would equal one less commuter student driving to and from the University each day.
We anticipate that the CLP would eliminate up to 468 daily commutes to and from the campus, resulting in a net traffic benefit. Removing commuters from the road would ease rush-hour congestion along the Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu Canyon Road, and John Tyler Drive. Currently, these roadways and the intersections adjacent to the campus experience their most intense usage during morning and afternoon rush-hour periods.
Q. Will the new campus residents produce additional traffic?
A. While on-campus students would leave campus to shop at local stores and dine at local restaurants, many of these trips are likely to occur at night and on weekends and thus outside of the traditional morning and afternoon rush hour periods. Furthermore, in addition to the public transportation services offered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Pepperdine University provides both on- and off-campus shuttles. Pepperdine's popular off-campus shuttle services effectively reduce the personal vehicle trips to and from campus by giving students and faculty transportation to numerous destinations throughout Malibu. The CLP would also provide new amenities on campus (e.g., recreational and athletic facilities), which would reduce the need for students to seek similar amenities off campus.
Q. How would functions held at the Athletics/Events Center affect traffic?
A. For nearly all events associated with the CLP, traffic levels would not significantly differ from the existing traffic associated with current events. The primary goal of the Athletics/Events Center is to better serve existing uses, not to attract thousands of additional visitors to campus. The obsolete Firestone Fieldhouse is no longer capable of providing a satisfactory experience for students and campus guests. Occasionally, a sold-out event at the new Athletics/Events Center could increase traffic over existing levels. However, larger functions that are held at the Athletics/Events Center would generally occur outside of rush-hour traffic times. The University will also implement a comprehensive event management plan in order to effectively and efficiently facilitate circulation before and after these large-scale events.
Q. How would the traffic and parking lots associated with the proposed CLP components impact neighbors or surrounding communities?
A. Pepperdine University is committed to developing positive relations with adjacent neighbors and designing a project that is compatible with the surrounding community and tailored to Malibu's unique character. The CLP components have been designed with these goals in mind. For example, the proposed Athletics/Events Center relocates event facilities to an interior campus location that is farther away from adjacent residential neighbors than the existing Firestone Fieldhouse venue.
All Campus Life components will be located in the interior and northern reaches of campus away from neighboring residential uses. This includes the parking lots which will result in less traffic adjacent to neighboring uses.
The CLP also proposes to provide additional parking spaces in close proximity to core campus functions in order to continue to ensure that Pepperdine students, employees, and visitors do not park in the surrounding neighborhoods.
