This past week, Q-line asked: “Do you support the creation of a bus-only lane on Lincoln Boulevard as an attempt to ease traffic despite the loss of some street parking?”
Here are your responses: ✆ “I do not support the creation of a new bus lane as an attempt to ease traffic congestion. I think we will have much more congestion with the bus lane. If some hours during the day one lane is taken away, how does that ease congestion? I have always said that City Council members should have their heads examined, everyone except Shriver because they don’t know what the hell they are doing. Why people voted them in I could never understand. It is a horrible mess of traffic in this city anyhow and a bus lane is going to make it worse.” ✆ “When it comes to public transport the Big Blue Bus is a marvelous, affirmative action welfare program for the well off. It’s rumored a driver made $90,000 last year and keeps an airplane at the Santa Monica Airport he uses to commute. We don’t need more bus lanes, we should scrap the whole system and let jitneys operate.” ✆ “It looks like another ploy of the Santa Monica City Council to push out the small business man. It’s really something the way that council acts. Bush is always screaming out about terrorism. My God, we have terrorists on the City Council. They’re always trying to sock it to everybody. It’s just a shame, I don’t know why the citizens of Santa Monica don’t wake up and get rid of those people. When election comes up, I for one will do all I can in my power to get that mob out of there.” ✆ “Public transportation has to be given priority if this region is ever to become functional. Bicycles however, do not belong on the main road. They are a hazard to themselves and everybody else...” ✆ “I certainly do not support the new bus lane on Lincoln Boulevard. One only has to read Bill Bauer’s column, ‘My Write,’ to see why this is yet another harebrained idea of the City Council and their equally dim traffic engineers.” ✆ “The city of Santa Monica has the stu-pidest people in the world running the traffic outside of the people in the Bush administration. These idiots put stop signs at every corner, one-way streets, speed bumps, they put all these roundabouts and curbs that make it impossible to make a right turn when someone is waiting for the red light. This bus lane is just one more attempt to screw up traffic and hurt the small businesses. All the big chains have their own parking lots so obviously Santa Monica doesn’t care about the small busin•sses they want to drive every single one of them out of the city. Next thing you know Santa Monica will be nothing but chain stores and bums and traffic jams caused by the idiots running the traffic.” ✆ “Absolutely not, it’s another stupid idea by the traffic managers in Santa Monica to mess up traffic throughout the entire city. The roundabouts, the narrow lanes, the other traffic nuisances. Those speed bumps are idiotic and cause more accidents. Check the curbs and you can see where all the black marks are. Bill Bauer’s article in Monday’s paper on page four is a perfect response to this.” ✆ “Well here they go again. Trying to fix something that isn’t broken. The buses run very smoothly on our streets. There aren’t hundreds of buses running at the same time clogging up the traffic. If people were more patient and drove sensibly, there would be no problems. The council goes to fix things that they think are probably simple to fix and they’re not broken. They’re not getting the real problems addressed in our city like the homeless situation which has been going on for years and years and years. They go for stuff that doesn’t need to be fixed. The traffic is fine. Yes, it’s heavy, there’s tons of people here today, more and more companies, corporations, businesses. But to make a lane just for the buses? Come on, get off.” ✆ “No, that is just another example of nickel and dimming social engineering by our rulers. Power hungry politicians and bureaucrats jerking us around. It does nothing to solve the root cause of the problem which is increasing over population. If our rulers really wanted to do something about traffic congestion, affordable housing shortages, pollution, etc. they would...” ✆ “I am for the bus only lane in Santa Monica. I like it. Here’s the difference between this one and the one on Wilshire. This one is only peak hours in each direction. I think a.m. is northbound and p.m. is southbound. So the businesses complaining about that they are losing business, they are not really paying attention to what the officials from the Big Blue Bus and the city transportation department are saying. They are assuming it’s like Wilshire, it’s not. One side of Lincoln Boulevard will still be open for parking in the opposite direction. I think it’s a good idea to have a bus lane because it would speed up the buses.” ✆ “I strongly support the new bus lane because faster public transportation is essential for increased bus ridership. The businesses along Lincoln that are complaining need to do their part to help ease traffic congestion and go along with the bus lane program. Perhaps more people will take the bus to their businesses if they cannot find convenient parking. I am more likely to patronize a business that supports public transportation and stay away from those that don’t.” ✆ “When one considers that Lincoln Boulevard starts off in a northbound direction from Sepulveda Boulevard in Westchester near LAX airport and ends up at San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica and is the only feasible alternative route to Santa Monica and all destinations northwest, I doubt anything can be done regarding the daily congestion that exists on Lincoln Boulevard, which is known to be an eyesore street for many years. A special bus lane will not attract new riders, especially those of the yuppie-class generation. I say no to a special bus lane.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 24, 2005. Read the original PDF.