By Jeff Bender Santa Monica
I want to thank the Big Blue Bus for recognizing the problems created by the new Santa Monica College shuttle buses, for listening to the residents concerns, and for their willingness to move forward with solutions to rectify this situation. I also want to clarify a few things from your Nov. 8 article (”Riding on anger,” page 1).
I would not classify my complaints to the city as mere “gripes.” This bus “plan” has resulted in the degradation of my property and has had a severe impact on the quality of life of my family, my tenants, and my neighbors. The worst result of this ill-conceived plan is the dangerous traffic and safety situation that it has created on the corner of 20th and Pearl streets. This is an accident waiting to happen. I’ve already witnessed several close calls, including seeing a pedestrian nearly get hit. I can only hope that nobody gets hurt or killed before a new plan is put into effect.
The percentage of SMC students that are Santa Monica residents was also incorrectly stated in your article. Marvin Martinez, SMC’s provost in charge of “planning,” said that only 25 percent of SMC’s students are residents of Santa Monica, not 50 percent. The fact that 75 percent of SMC’s students are not Santa Monica residents is very significant when one considers the amount of money Santa Monica taxpayers are giving the college.
It seems that every November election the college’s rhetoric to the voters is “just give us the bond money and we’ll do the right thing for the community.” Through these bonds the taxpayers of Santa Monica are giving the school over $300 million. Unfortunately, the college’s priorities are expansion and increasing enrollment at whatever cost to the residents. Under the guise of helping residents by providing more public transportation or by taking student’s cars out of the area, these shuttle buses were forced onto the neighboring residential streets. How disheartening it was for me to hear the college’s true opinion of their neighbors when SMC’s Marvin Martinez told me in September that the corner of 20th and Pearl streets “is not a residential corner.” I can only hope that Mr. Martinez’s shameful disregard for the neighboring residents is not an opinion held by of the rest of SMC’s administration. SMC’s board of trustees and administration should move quickly to help find a solution to this fiasco, instead of trying to wash their hands of the problem by saying it’s only the Big Blue Bus that is to blame. The BBB is running these buses for SMC, as evidenced by the fact that 90 percent of the riders are students.
The solution to the problems created by the new “Sunset Ride/SMC shuttle” and the #6 SMC commuter buses, that all the residents at the Nov. 6 meeting seemed to agree on, is that these buses need to be kept on Pico Boulevard. They should not cut north and south through the residential streets of 17th or 20th, (the cross-town ride bus already has over 50 stops per day on these streets). SMC’s shuttle buses need to run North/South on Bundy to Pico. In order to help accomplish this, Santa Monica College needs to make accommodations for a bus depot, including a bus turnaround area on Pico. They have ample room for such a facility at Pico and 19th Street. After building two new parking structures, and all the parking they are saving with students now riding the buses, they should be able to sacrifice some of the old parking lot currently at this location to provide a safe bus depot for the SMC shuttle buses.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 12, 2007. Read the original PDF.