By W. Norse Santa Monica
Let me get this straight, [City Hall] just spent $700,000 to cover 83 parking spaces at 2600 Barnard way Lot No. 4 with turf and now bans parking … except on major holiday weekends. The turf will filter a very small amount of urban runoff that was not reaching the bay and had less environmental impact than the extra air pollution, heat, wasted gas, and gridlock the experiment will cause on non-holiday, peak use periods by all the extra cars with nowhere to park. The lanes outside the gated area will be dead-ends, with nowhere to turn around, unless even more parking is removed to fix the problem. The city will compare runoff from a lot that was heavily used, year round, to runoff from an area of asphalt that is parked on only six or so times a year. The city will declare a “green success,” knowing all along that the science is faulty. Yep, I think that is pretty darn accurate. As with most so called “green solutions,” if you really analyze the facts, somehow or another they prove to be impractical, poorly thought out or a PR hoax, and end up doing more harm than good.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 21, 2008. Read the original PDF.