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# Chamber contributes to gridlock
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/chamber-contributes-to-gridlock-editor/
- Published: 2008-05-05T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:28:35.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Elizabeth Riel Chair of the North of Montana Neighborhood Association*

I’d like to respond to your article “Chamber opposes potential initiative” (page 1, March 29, 2008) in which you reported on the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to the Residents Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT).

It appears as though the Chamber does not fundamentally understand or is choosing to ignore the overwhelming benefits of RIFT to Santa Monica residents, visitors, customers and small businesses.

RIFT is a local ballot measure that would cut the annual rate of traffic-generating commercial development roughly in half.

For those of us who live, visit, shop or work here, that means a drastic slow-down in the amount of additional traffic, more and more of which comes into our city every year.

Commercial developments cause three to four times the amount of traffic on Santa Monica streets than residential buildings. Over the past 25 years, more than 9 million square feet of commercial development have been added to our beach city.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that this adds up to unbearable gridlock on our streets. (Not to mention a daily battle to find parking.) RIFT does not in any way impact existing Santa Monica businesses. In fact, RIFT will likely protect small business owners who increasingly face unaffordable rent hikes, displacement or eviction.

Do you think developers care about saving our small, locally-owned businesses when faced with an opportunity to redevelop their buildings and charge sky-high rents to chain stores?

It’s nice of the Chamber to say that they’re concerned about protecting Santa Monica’s tax base. However, they ignore the strain that commercial development places on our city’s precious public resources by requiring new services such as police, firefighters, traffic engineers and infrastructure.

According to the city, commercial growth since 1995 is consuming an increasing share of “energy use, water use, and waste generation \[increased\] largely as a result of new office construction and larger daytime populations resulting from higher occupancy rates in hotels and office buildings and the regionalization of the city’s commercial districts” (OC Report, Feb. 25).

RIFT will enable City Hall to approve only those new commercial developments that substantially increase our tax base. With the passage of RIFT, Santa Monica can deny those developments that consume our services and bring in more traffic.

Let’s see a quick show of hands from the Chamber Board: Who is in favor of more traffic and more government to service new developments?

If the Chamber has a better plan for reducing Santa Monica’s traffic and controlling the commercial development that has run rampant for the past 25 years, then I’d like to see it.

I bet all five of Santa Monica’s neighborhood organizations who endorsed RIFT, and the 10,000 residents who signed RIFT’s petition would, too.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 5, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/050508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)