Residents bemoan living along street ago, allows pedestrians to cross the street, each lane at a time, Katz said.
The City Council discussed possible ways to make the corridor safer, including adding a temporary traffic signal at Pier Avenue, but it “didn’t do the job,” he said.
Many of the residents who live west of 23rd Street cross the road in order to have a straight shot access to Clover Park, which is located about a block away.
Don and Joyce Lensch, a retired couple that has lived at 16th and Hill streets for 32 years, walk to Clover Park every day with their dog, waiting at 23rd Street until there is a break in the traffic or a car stops.
Though cars have always zoomed down 23rd Street, the volume of traffic on the thoroughfare has drastically increased, Joyce Lensch has observed.
“In the afternoon, it’s unbelievable,” Joyce Lensch said. “It’s so bad late in the afternoon, they’re like in a parking lot.”
Part of the problem is that motorists are using 23rd Street instead of Lincoln Boulevard, seeing it as a faster way to get from West Los Angeles to the I-10 Freeway, said Sgt. Larry Horn of the Santa Monica Police Department’s Traffic Services Division.
The problem also extends to the smaller streets that intersect 23rd Street. Whenever traffic is backed up on 23rd Street, many motorists will cut through the smaller neighborhoods streets like Marine Street and Ashland Avenue.
The SMPD is trying to cut down on delinquent drivers, conducting traffic saturation in the Sunset Park neighborhood, including a six-hour assignment on July 11.
Six officers patrolled Ocean Park Boulevard from 17th Street to Centinela Avenue and Pearl Street from 20th Street to Centinela Avenue, writing 61 citations. The traffic on those streets are directly related to the traffic issue on 23rd Street, Horn said.
“What that does is it gets cars using the roadway to use it safer,” Horn said of traffic saturation. “It doesn’t make them go away.”
Real Estate agent and Sunset Park resident Golda Savage said she has written several complaints to the city about 23rd Street, including a letter she sent to city officials late last month.
Savage lives east of 23rd Street on Hill Street and crosses the thoroughfare almost daily to walk her three dogs, sometimes standing at the curb for 10 minutes before she’s able to cross.
“They speed while they’re on their cell phones, typically drinking morning coffee and in an early morning daze,” Savage said. “You’re pretty much taking your life in your hands trying to cross the street.”
Some residents say they have almost been killed trying to cross.
Amy Bisson, who lives on 21st and Hill streets, has given up trying to walk to Clover Park with her two daughters — ages 6 and 3.
She made the decision to start driving to Clover Park after an incident about six months ago when her eldest daughter was almost hit by a car while crossing the street on her bicycle.
Bisson said she was pushing her youngest daughter on a stroller while her older daughter rode alongside on a bicycle. They were able to cross the first half of the street fairly easily, stopping at a median and waiting for another car to stop.
A woman saw the family and slowed to a stop. Bisson and her daughters were about to cross the street when the woman decided to just keep driving, she said.
“I just thought, ‘forget it,’” Bisson said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 16, 2007. Read the original PDF.