A few years ago, the city of Laguna Beach proclaimed through its marketing group, Visit Laguna, that the city gets 6 million visitors a year.
Most residents probably shrugged, but we said, “hogwash” (or something more R-rated).
The point is the numbers just do not add up. But it’s important for a variety of planning and funding purposes.
For comparison, the Grand Canyon — in all its legendary glory — doesn’t even get 5 million. The Eiffel Tower … less than 7 million. All of these places get less than 6 million visitors: Acropolis of Athens, Stonehenge, Oahu, Napa Valley, Universal Studios and Graceland.
Oh, and this is our favorite: Do you know how many people visit Israel every year? The country, every year, ancient religious stuff? About 4.5 million.
But somehow Laguna Beach gets 6 million.
Visit Laguna says that out of the 6 million annual visitors, 94% of them are “day-trippers,” meaning they drive in and stay only for the day. Here are the stats based on a pivotal consultant report:
• Total number of visitors: 6.13 million
• Day visitors: 5.76 million
• Hotel visitors: 261,489
• Private residence visitors: 85,010
It’s important to note that Laguna has only about 1,300 total hotel rooms, which is why during the summer its hotels are at capacity (and able to charge the rates they do, by the way).
So the 6 million-plus visitors equals an average of 16,794 people per day. We know, however, that most people visit during the summer. So if we spread the average accordingly and assign 75% of the visitors to May through September, we’re up to nearly 30,000 visitors a day.
Add the roughly 22,000 people who live here, and you have the usual summer gridlock.
In fact, the city’s Transportation, Circulation and Mobility Element says the summer daily counts are much higher.
“On a summer day, beach attendance can approach 70,000 individuals,” the city says, citing the Laguna Beach Marine Safety Department.
But here’s where it gets even more complicated — and suspicious.
Let’s continue to do the new math. If on any given summer day we have roughly 70,000 people, where are they parking? We only have 1,970 total parking spots downtown and in the canyon.
Even if we only count visitors and are generous with the extended parking, that’s about 20 people per car. Apparently, most people who drive to Laguna arrive in party buses.
Furthermore, the actual traffic counts do not support these 5.76 million “day-tripper” numbers. Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon carry about 36,000 to 40,000 daily trips. The trip totals are consistent, meaning people are either passing through, or they are actual residents commuting to their jobs.
The bottom line is that no one is denying Laguna Beach is crowded, especially during the summer. Most of its key intersections are at a level of service known as “F” in traffic terms, which means exactly how it sounds.
But we could help ourselves start to solve these fantasies by coming up with better core statistics to define the real scope of the problems. In other words, give us a number — a real number.
Only then can we turn a number into a value with meaning, context and vision.
