TRAFFIC CONGESTION HAS PEOPLE IN a dither. It’ll take creative thinking and a lot of money to deal with it, long term. The sooner we start, the better.
Leave it to our legislature to jam the wheels of progress. Once again, they’ve diverted transit funds to everything but transit. Last week, the Sacramento Bee reported, “The state Assembly adopted a $103 billion state spending plan after Democrats agreed to shift more than $1 billion from local transit agencies for other purposes...”
I e-mailed Julia Brownley, and asked our 41st Assembly person why she voted to divert funding from transit. She responded, “One of my biggest disappointments this year was this shift of critical transportation dollars to balance the General Fund. This shift allowed us to fully fund K-12, higher education, and public safety; to protect SSI/SSP and CalWorks recipients; to maintain foster care transitional housing; and to fund programs for the homeless mentally ill. Given the hard choices before us, I reluctantly agreed with my colleagues that this shift was the fiscally right thing to do.”
I disagree. If we’re ever going to improve traffic after decades of neglect, we’ve got to stop robbing gasoline sales tax monies to pay for welfare, foster care and homeless programs. This looting delays projects like the Expo Line, freeway enhancements (including car pool lanes) and other transit improvements — and increases their construction costs.
Local politicians, planners and misguided “enviros” must stop backing schemes that reduce street capacity. It’ll be a long time before mass transit (light rail, monorail, busses and subways) serves a sizable percentage of the public. In the meantime, streets should be configured to move traffic efficiently, safely and expediently — not impede it.
Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa opted to fight congestion with a plan that’s simple, low cost and immediate: Prohibit parking on curb lanes during rush hour and use them for traffic. Villaraigosa has turned his “Tiger Teams” loose on major Los Angeles thoroughfares where parking enforcement officers write citations and tow parking violators. Guess what? It works and fine revenues go into city coffers. In Santa Monica, we should do the same. But, instead of using parking lanes on Lincoln Boulevard to ease congestion, City Council declared them exclusive "bus and bike only” lanes for the eight hourly busses and handful of bicyclists using the street.
Gridlocked Lincoln Boulevard substantially contributes to congestion throughout Sunset and Ocean Parks (SMPD, July 16, Page 1, “Road danger in Sunset Park”) Not relieving it now is inexcusable. With private vehicles still transporting over 95 percent of those on the road, it’s putting the cart way before the horse. I’d laud the move if this were 2037 when the subway, light rail and expanded bus fleets will be (hopefully) operational.
With the “one-way” proposals for Pico and Olympic boulevards officially dead, another long-term solution for reducing congestion — extending the MTA Purple Line to Ocean Avenue — is alive and kicking. The project will cost billions of dollars and take years to build. Organizations are forming to make the Purple Line to the blue Pacific a reality.
According to the Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2007, subway backers are "not giving up on a sales tax increase” as a way to pay for it. The Times reports, “Former Santa Monica Mayor, Denny Zane is organizing a nonprofit group tentatively called Subway to the Sea and said that raising the sales tax could possibly provide enough money for construction.”
Zane, who is co-chair of the powerful Santa Monica for Renters’ Rights group, makes a good living managing ballot propositions for regressive taxes such as the recent college bond, wastewater and school parcel taxes. In addition, he also managed Julia Brownley’s run for 41st Assembly, last year.
Zane’s Renter’s Rights group postures as defenders of the poor, renters and the disenfranchised while Zane himself hires himself out as promoter of tax initiatives that burden the lowest income groups the most. If the politicians in Sacramento would stop absconding with transit monies, maybe a sales tax increase wouldn’t be needed.
We must stop robbing Peter to pay Paul. And, it’s time to relieve traffic congestion especially since Villaraigosa has shown how cheaply and easily it can be done, Here, it means putting “Utopia” on hold. I doubt the pipe-dreamers in charge will do that.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 30, 2007. Read the original PDF.