Santa Monica: Not gonna take it anymore

On LA Now, The Times Steve Hymon reports on 10,000 signatures vs. "out of control" traffic:

This just in from the Republic of Santa Monica: A group calling themselves the Residents' Initiative to Fight Traffic said today that they turned in 10,295 signatures to the city to qualify a November ballot measure that would limit commercial development in the city for the next 15 years. "Out of control" is how one member of the group described development in the city-by-the-sea. Signatures still have to be counted -- and verified. The magic number: about 5,800.

More from Steve:

The effects of Earth Day keep trickling down. Our traffic guru, Steve Hymon, took time out from stop-and-go traffic to watch city officials squirt fizzy wine (Barefoot Bubbly, bought by Metrolink honcho Keith Millhouse) at a train. He explains why:

Metrolink, the Southland's commuter rail service, celebrated the first of its new 'green' locomotives at its Taylor Yard facilities. Although this $1.9-million, 3,600-horsepower bad boy (or girl) only gets one half-mile to the gallon, its emissions of various ingredients that contribute to smog are 40% to 70% less than current engines, Metrolink officials said. They who challenged freight haulers to clean up their notoriously dirty choo-choos.

Comments

[patricia thomas]

I Have lived on the westside for 58 years, and in Santa Monica for 15 years. It seems the commercial over-building doesn't impact the severe traffic problem as much as the constant erections of condos. I believe the estimate of vehicles for each condo is 1-1/2. Multiply that by the number of new multi-story condos and those in the process of being built, and we have a traffic increase not only during rush hours, but seven days a week. Santa Monica reached the saturation point several years ago, but the building permits continue to be issued.
Patricia Thomas

[Cathy]

The transportation system needs to come FIRST, before more development. Los Angeles is already a sprawl. More development just makes it a denser sprawl. More housing, if it is truly affordable for the workers, will help somewhat, but inevitably the partners or spouses of many of those workers will be employed in different areas of the city, or jobs will change and parents will be
reluctant to pull their kids out of school, etc. People inland will want to visit the beach, people on Ventura will want to visit the city on the other side of the hill.
The government is bankrupt, corrupt and irrelevant. The only thing our elected officials are good for is rolling over for and taking money from the developers. The unfunded transit systems being promised aren't going to happen soon, if at all. The Metro web site is a Potemkin village.
It's time to get some results. Maybe we need to tap Bill Gates and Brangelina. After all, we are in a world hunger crisis, brought on partially by the promotion of biofuels. End hunger, build transit should be the motto.
If government had any backbone at all, they would declare an emergency and ban all SUV's on city
streets. They would immediately designate some streets as bicycle and pedestrian only. The speed
limit on freeways should be cut back to 55 again. Take the unemployed auto workers and put them
to work building transit lines. Dig up the parking lots and plant vegetables.
Or, maybe we can have something world-class after all. A world class disaster area with millions of people without food or water or the means to get it. Maybe gangs of hungry people armed with barbeque sauce dragging fat SUV drivers out of their fueless vehicles. That would be worth watching.

[Dan W.]

Santa Monica is the end of the line for both the Expo and eventual Purple Line "subway to the sea", which means it will be last to see it constructed and enjoy its benefits. However, Santa Monica is very transit friendly, hence the city planning for the arrival of Expo and the superb Big Blue Bus. What SM wants is smart growth.

There are, of course, lots of delusional NIMBYs out there who think they can drag the clock back to 1965. The atypical, suburban-within-urban, "car culture" has long since seen its best days behind it. Motoring will never again be at its former quality.

With 3 million more people due to migrate to Los Angeles County over the next three decades, and with the economic and environmental limits of sprawl and congestion, that means only one thing -- density. Density will happen whether we like it or want it or not. The ONLY question on offer is whether we will responsibly plan for that density be developing along major transit corridors and actually funding and constructing a public mass transit system.

The car culture is unraveling. Sixty years of social engineering in favor of the automobile is running into a wall of ever-increasing congestion and ever-increasing gas prices. That Southern California's "DNA" will change is not up for argument. How it will change is the only thing that we can discuss.

Reduced "traffic" requires more affordable housing in Santa Monica to catch up with the development already taking place.

We had a rail system until the 1950's which helped build up Los Angeles. Then we had sixty years of social engineering in favor of the car culture. We need to invest as heavily in our mass transit system over the next six decades as we invested in roads and freeways over the last five.

Slowing down development to responsibly plan for this density along major transit corridors is understandable. Dragging the clock back to the glory days of car culture yore is a wasteful exercise in futility.

People's lifestyles are going to change whether they want them too, not out of force, but out of economic necessity. Those who pine for the 1965 low-density, suburban-within-urban, high quality, automobile-based lifestyle are welcome to that, but they will have to live that lifestyle in the actual suburbs like Woodland Hills or Rancho Cucamonga or the South Bay -- and Santa Monica is not a suburb. It is its own mini-hub.