HOW MANY VEHICLES RELY ON KANAN ROAD FOR EVACUATION?

On May 13, 2026, the Agoura Hills City Council held a public hearing to consider approval of the City’s 2026 Evacuation Analysis, which affects not only Agoura Hills but also neighboring Oak Park and the unincorporated Santa Monica Mountains communities south of the city. Residents were invited to submit written comments and provide three minutes of oral testimony. The information below was emailed to the Council before the hearing and summarized during oral testimony. Nevertheless, the Council disregarded these concerns and approved the 2026 Evacuation Analysis.

The City has acknowledged that approximately 2,000 vehicles evacuated from the Santa Monica Mountains during the Woolsey Fire. See statements by City representative Denice Thomas at 29:20 and Kimley-Horn representative Matt Stewart at 23:40 in the City’s YouTube presentation. Watch the presentation on YouTube

The City’s 2022 Evacuation Capacity Report also documents Kimley-Horn’s testing, which found that during the Woolsey Fire, Santa Monica Mountains evacuees took as long as 80 minutes to travel the final mile north on Kanan Road to the U.S. 101 Freeway on-ramps.

Despite this documented history, the “Nighttime Population Development” section of the City’s 2026 Evacuation Analysis—page 18 of the Analysis and page 107 of the PDF packet https://bit.ly/3R77IM3 —assigns Santa Monica Mountains evacuees only 740 vehicles in Scenarios 2 and 3. Applying the Analysis’s assumption of two vehicles per household, this represents only 370 households—significantly understating the number of residences that depend on Kanan Road as their evacuation route.

U.S. Postal Service carrier-route records identify at least 1,200 Santa Monica Mountains residences that rely on Kanan Road, as opposed to Cornell Road, to evacuate. Supporting documentation is provided below.

Shown below is the northern portion of the unincorporated community of Cornell (Agoura), where residents evacuate via Kanan and Cornell Roads. U.S. Postal Service records show 915 residences between the two roads.

The three U.S. Postal Service carrier routes serving this area are listed below.

Postal Service data distinguishes between residential and business deliveries. Because many business addresses may be home-based, we did not assign additional vehicles to every listed business. Conversely, some commercial properties—particularly agricultural and livestock operations—may generate multiple evacuation vehicles. Because these vehicles cannot be reliably quantified, we excluded them. Our estimates are therefore conservative.

Postal Route 91301-C022 serves 461 residences and 113 businesses. One hundred percent of the residences within this route are dependent upon Kanan Road for evacuation.

Postal Route 91301-C004 includes 454 residences and 88 businesses. Residences on the western portion of the route—approximately 30%—primarily evacuate via Kanan Road. Those in Malibou Lake, Lakeside, and along Cornell Road generally evacuate via Cornell Road.

Postal Route 90265-R203 serves northern Malibu and includes 339 deliveries. Perhaps 10% of residents, particularly those living along Kanan and those evacuating with livestock—must evacuate north on Kanan Road, since trailers are prohibited from using the steep Kanan/Pacific Coast Highway intersection.

This is Section Mal C-113 in Malibu. In a wildfire or other emergency, residents may evacuate east or west on Pacific Coast Highway or north on Kanan Road. According to the City of Malibu, Mal C-113 contains 5,685 residences. At two vehicles per household, that’s 11,370 vehicles. If just 10% of these residents evacuate north on Kanan Road, approximately 1,137 additional vehicles would pass through the Kanan Road and Agoura Road intersection to reach the US 101 on-ramps.

Livestock Credit - The analysis assigns 2.5 vehicles to 10% of Old Agoura households to account for livestock trailers. Yet the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby Malibu contain substantially more private and commercial livestock than the City of Agoura Hills. Because trailers are prohibited at the steep Kanan Road/Pacific Coast Highway intersection, many Malibu properties near Kanan must evacuate north on Kanan Road. Despite this, the analysis applies no comparable 2.5-vehicle allowance to Santa Monica Mountain or Malibu households, materially understating evacuation demand on Kanan Road.

SUMMARY

The foregoing information is detailed above.

The information presented above was emailed to the Council before the hearing and summarized during oral testimony.

When a city council acts in a quasi-judicial capacity—such as when deciding certain land-use, planning, or conditional-use matters—its decision must be supported by substantial evidence in the administrative record. Whether this standard applies directly to approval of an evacuation analysis depends on the nature of the proceeding. In proceedings subject to administrative-mandamus review, written submissions and public testimony become part of the record considered by the court. (Code Civ. Proc. § 1094.5.)

Here, substantial factual evidence was submitted:

The City’s testing showed that during the Woolsey Fire, Santa Monica Mountains evacuees spent up to 80 minutes traveling the final mile north on Kanan Road to the U.S. 101 Freeway on-ramps—stuck at the same intersection where Agoura Village West is proposed for development.
The City and its consultant acknowledged that approximately 2,000 vehicles evacuated northbound on Kanan Road from the Santa Monica Mountains during the Woolsey Fire. Yet the 2026 Evacuation Analysis assigns only 740 vehicles to that population.
When questioned about this discrepancy, the City’s consultant explained that the new analysis assumes that, in future wildfires, more than half of the 2,000 vehicles that previously evacuated northbound on Kanan Road would instead evacuate by way of Mulholland. That assumption was unsupported by documented evacuation behavior and difficult to reconcile with actual conditions. The consultant’s explanation appears in the May 13 City Council meeting video from approximately 3:10:20 to 3:14:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haZy4JsuaL0&t=11654s The entire audience reacted strongly to this suggestion and was firmly shushed by the mayor.
The Analysis’s vehicle estimate reflects approximately 370 Santa Monica Mountains households relying on Kanan Road. By comparison, U.S. Postal Service carrier-route data identifies at least 1,137 residences dependent on Kanan Road rather than Cornell Road or Mulholland Drive, excluding Malibu. Applying the City’s assumption of two vehicles per household produces at least 2,274 vehicles before other adjustments.
The Analysis applied a 2.5-vehicle adjustment to 10 percent of Old Agoura households to account for livestock trailers, but did not apply the same adjustment to Santa Monica Mountains households—even though the Santa Monica Mountains contain a substantially larger livestock population.
Despite these documented discrepancies and the factual evidence submitted into the official hearing record, the City Council approved the 2026 Evacuation Analysis without addressing them.