By Steven Keats Santa Monica
I’m wondering what criteria former mayor Denny Zane used when he made his latest claim that Santa Monica was the greenest city in America. We have been in the “sustainable city” mode for about a decade and yet Santa Monica has become ever less pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
While Pico, Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards have become safer for walkers because the medians offer a respite from traffic, cyclists have been dangerously squeezed against parked cars. Two elderly women were killed while in a crosswalk by a woman talking on a cell phone while driving, and yet the city refuses to deal with this issue. In fact, I’ve seen many city employees, including police doing this very same thing. Numerous studies have shown that this practice is equivalent to driving while drunk in its effect on reaction time. This shouldn’t be any surprise given that Santa Monicans For Renters Rights has been driving the city while dangerously self intoxicated for more than two decades. Speaking of dangerous, those picturesque curb extensions on 23rd Street in combination with the medians have made cycling there so downright hazardous that I have been forced to violate the law by riding on the sidewalk. Has anyone measured the greenhouse gasses generated by the vast increase in traffic that City Hall has embraced because of the revenues it generates? Yes, they have embraced all this traffic to the tune of nearly $100 million for downtown parking. Despite all these and many more contradictions, Denny has managed to turn his political clout into a thriving consultancy. Isn’t that how the Republicans operate? Green my butt.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 4, 2004. Read the original PDF.