Getting around in Santa Monica: Recommendations from the Transportation Workshop

As promised: The details of the city's presentations from Santa Monica's Moving Forward: Transportation Workshop from Saturday. These're the draft recommendations for the transportation-related update to Santa Monica’s “General Plan” -- LUCE (Land Use and Circulation Element) -- that'll guide the city for the next 20 years.

Sidenote: The presentation slide about encouraging carshare programs used my Flexcar photos! (here and here) So indirectly, I helped the City of Santa Monica put its presentation together --

Car Traffic
1. Freeway traffic, including the 1st intersection near the 10 and spillover into local streets. The city can't do much about this type of congestion because most of it is not local traffic. Recommendation: To make sure this congestion happens in areas of the city that'll be least annoying for residents.

2. Employment and shopping traffic. Recommendations: Put new employment around public transit; fortunately, a lot of the current commute traffic's happening exactly where Expo line's to come.

For new development, create transportation demand management programs for new development; the Water Garden's plan, for example, resulted in 50% less traffic than comparable offices. Options include requiring parking cash-outs to those who don't drive to work, giving all employees transit passes, and providing personalized transit info.

While traffic-related mandates are more difficult to require for existing employers, the city can provide tax incentives or city services to encourage de-car-ing. The city can also identify new sources to fund transit programs, such as a Development Impact Fee, Parking Impact Fee on new development, or a simple parking tax.

3. School traffic. Schools traffic creates up to 25% of AM congestion and contributes to childhood obesity and other health issues. Recommendations: Include transit education in classroom activities, develop Safe Routes to School Programs (sort of like a walking school bus, where a parent "picks up" students along a walking route to safely bring them to school), and implement a Universal Transit Pass program (giving free transit passes to all students), starting at the college level.

4. Beach traffic. Create changeable message signs that'll direct traffic to the nearest parking lot with space, allow for variable pricing at the beach (higher parking fees at peak seasons; low fees or even free parking at other times), and provide better access management at parking lots so cars aren't making weird maneuvers or circling so much.

5. Traffic created by Santa Monica residents. As discussed in the previous post, Santa Monicans generally drive less and own fewer cars than the rest of LA. Recommendations to encourage this trend: Unbundle residential parking costs, which're currently hidden within housing rental costs. This'll not only encourage residents to think about getting rid of cars, but will also promote housing affordability, hopefully allowing more people who work in Santa Monica to live in Santa Monica. Other suggestions included supporting mixed, locally serving unique retail, focusing change around transit, and encouraging residential carshare programs like Flexcar.

Walking. We already have some very walkable 'hoods in Santa Monica, but recommendations to encourage a more robust pedestrian culture include developing pedestrian-specific Quality of Service standards and map, completing missing sidewalk sections and widening some streets, creating a clear program of remediation for street repairs, and prioritizing major streescape improvement projects.

Bicycling. While Santa Monica has some great bike paths and routes, recommendations included completing the bike network (it currently has gaps in areas), slow motor vehicles down in certain areas to create "complete streets" that give all modes of transportation equal access, and creating a bike station at the Expo line terminus, when that comes.

Mass Transit. The light rail had broad support among the workshop attendees, who burst out with applause at the first mention of the Expo line. Planned stops are at Bergamot, SMC, and downtown. Recommendations for mass transit included supporting the Expo line and improving the bus system by providing realtime information to passengers waiting at stations and finding ways to prevent the buses from being stuck in the same gridlock cars are in.

Measuring success. The workshop ended with a quick presentation on finding ways to better measure how well the city's traffic system is working. For example, instead of simply measuring vehicle delay (each car's weighted equally), the city could measure person delay (a bus with 40 people would be weighted more heavily than a single-passenger car). To begin this process, Santa Monica could start with new street typologies, taking into account land use context and priority for each mode of transportation. For example, on an arterial road like Lincoln, traffic should move more quickly, while on a shopping street like Main, traffic should move more slowly to entice shoppers and to create a safe space for pedestrians. After setting street typologies, the city could set quality of service standards for each mode, with measures varying according to context.

The next LUCE meeting should be coming up in a few weeks; check the site for details, if you want to get involved. And don't forget to go to the Westside transit meetings to discuss bringing the subway to the westside!

Comments

[Cathy]

Is there any way to get Santa Monica to take over Hollywood? Love your blog!!

[James]

Just a suggestion re Expo line.

Woouldn't it be a lot cheaper, faster, and less intrusive, to build a transit way like the Orange Line in NoHo? Don't get me wrong, I love rail. I'm just thinking dollars and sense.

[Dan W.]

Woouldn't it be a lot cheaper, faster, and less intrusive, to build a transit way like the Orange Line in NoHo? Don't get me wrong, I love rail. I'm just thinking dollars and sense.

------------------------

No, it wouldn't be any of those things in the long run, certainly not faster. And, it wouldn't carry as many people or encourage as much economic development, so it wouldn't be more efficient.

Rail can carry more people more efficiently than any rapid bus or busway ever could. Busways are stop gap measures at best. Eventually the Orange Line will no doubt be turned into a rail line as it should have been to begin with.

We do need bus only lanes on Wilshire, Santa Monica, Lincoln, Ventura, Vermont, Western and other major thoroughfares, but as supplements to a comprehensive rail network, not as substitute.

We cannot build the transit infrastructure we need on the cheap. It was a disaster to dismantle the red car system in the 1950's, but there is no shortcut to bringing back needed heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, elevated rail, ground level rail, subways..

Rail is an investment in our future. They will pay a return on economic investment for decades and decades to come. Sometimes we get what we pay for, and going "cheap" is absolutely the wrong way to go.

Don't be fooled by the misguided nuts of the BRU. Buses, bus lanes and busways are not, nor will they ever be in themselves, the solution to Southern California's transportation needs. An Exposition busway would be a tragic missed opportunity.

[Adam Rakunas]

Argh. I missed this workshop due to a long bike ride. I'm sure there's a little irony there. Thanks for the report!

[Siel]

Thanks Cathy :) Where Santa Monica goes, LA will follow? Maybe Angelenos'll see how nice a de-car'd 'hood is on their way to the beaches, and do likewise --

Dan W. -- Totally agree. I use the rapid lines on Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvds. all the time -- took the BBB 10 to get to the LAT office today, in fact -- but we still really, really need rail --

Adam -- See you next time! And hope you enjoyed the ride --

[James]

"Don't be fooled by the misguided nuts of the BRU."

Actually, I wasn't getting that from them. It's just an observation. When I said fast I should have been more specific. The Orange Line was operational in a very small amount of time.

I don't know if you lived here when they were digging the Red Line through Hollywood, but it was one god awful mess, cost over runs were ridiculous, and I found it very hard to believe that there wasn't one goelogist in this town that could tell them that trying to tunnel through sand is a bad idea. The compensation paid out because of the damage done from subsidence probably could have paid for two Red Lines.

JMO If they're going to do rail they should do it like the Green Line and use freeway right of ways.

BTW I still admire the BRU even if I don't agree with them 100%. They've been regulars at the peace marches, and regulars every year at the protest actions at L.A. Auto show. Last year some even got kicked out of the convention center with us for putting gas guzzler tickets on the SUVs that were on display.