By Frank Palardy Santa Monica
There’s always more attention to the ocean side of the city, particularly the “business district,” but the Eastside has grown the most in recent years. Although several large office buildings were added in the last decade or two, there has been little attempt to deal with the traffic. Lately, they’ve actually restricted traffic on major streets like Pico and Wilshire boulevards. This leads to traffic jams on streets like Colorado Avenue that run through residential neighborhoods. The city is supposed to do something on Colorado Avenue but they haven’t. All Colorado Avenue really needs is a few stop signs. Santa Monica Boulevard actually has more stops. What would help most to handle the problem would be to take another lane out of the wide median on Olympic Boulevard, at least back to 20th Street. The number of lanes does increase at Centinela (the border), which is exactly why traffic flows down Colorado Avenue, then Centinela Avenue to Olympic Boulevard. I don’t understand why this wasn’t planned when all these offices were built. After the earthquake, Olympic Boulevard served as the main route, but even then no one at City Hall responded. Maybe they’re not aware this is even in the city.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 29, 2005. Read the original PDF.