City’s transportation division unveils several options for making Sunset Park streets safer
SUNSET PARK Residents and business owners who have had their fill of seeing pedestrians get struck and the countless near-misses while crossing Ocean Park Boulevard over the years vented their continual frustrations with the city here Tuesday.
While the city’s Transportation Management staff presented a series of options to make Ocean Park Boulevard safer, several residents and business owners just shook their heads and dismissed the proposals, throwing their hands up in frustration.
Some even hissed. Still, the majority seemed pleased that city officials at least reported back to the neighborhood with suggestions on how to improve a deadly stretch of the thoroughfare, specifically between 14th and 18th streets, where several pedestrians have been struck over the past few years, including a couple in 2004.
It is on this stretch of Ocean Park Boulevard where students from John Adams Middle School and Will Rogers Elementary School cross to get to class every morning and where mothers often walk with their young children to preschool.
The community meeting was part of a $75,000 city study to identify potential improvements for the corridor. Parking — a problem in Sunset Park, where residents compete with Santa Monica College students for a limited number of spots — was also addressed.
The study was funded in 2005 and a community outreach meeting held in May 2006.
“It was a relief to finally see some concrete proposals,” said Sunset Park resident Zina Josephs.
The biggest topic of the day was whether or not the city would consider placing traffic signals on 16th and 18th streets, where many of the accidents seem to occur.
“It doesn’t look and smell like the kind of intersection where a traffic signal would improve safety,” said Transportation Planning Manager Lucy Dyke.
Both 16th and 18th streets are too close to 17th Street, where there is a traffic signal, she said. The only part of the city where there are traffic signals at almost every block is in Downtown Santa Monica.
The frequency of traffic signals might actually increase local traffic, according to Dyke. For instance, a signal on 16th Street might encourage more vehicular traffic onto 16th Street.
She showed photos of intersections where engineers felt a traffic light or some sort of improvement was needed, including Santa Monica Boulevard and Berkeley Street, and Washington Avenue and 26th Street, where a roundabout was constructed.
“Some people like it and some people don’t like it,” Dyke said of the roundabout.“It makes it easier for people to cross 26th Street and has not induced a higher volume (of traffic) on Washington.”
Transportation Planning Associate Michelle Glickert presented four different options to improve Ocean Park Boulevard on the stretch near the John Adams Middle School playing field. In each, the corridor is transformed to include only one westbound and one eastbound lane, with a turning lane in the center. There are currently two lanes in either direction and no turning lane on Ocean Park Boulevard.
Each option offers a different configuration: Concept No. 1 includes angled parking on the south side of Ocean Park Boulevard across from John Adams; No. 2 includes a grassy median, but no angled parking; No. 3 would add angled parking on both sides of the street around John Adams, but no median; and No. 4 would not have a median, but would add 10 inches of brick sidewalk, which would move the existing parallel parking on the street outward.
Traffic studies have shown that medians slow traffic down, Glickert said.
Some residents seemed opposed to the idea of angled parking, which currently exists on Main Street near City Hall. One resident said that angled parking would be dangerous if a car is parked next to a large vehicle that is obstructing the driver’s view of traffic.
Backing out of the parking spots at City Hall is always a challenge, according to Josephs, whose car has a wide blind spot that prevents her from seeing oncoming traffic. However, several members of the Friends of Sunset Park do favor angled parking, said Josephs, who is president of the neighborhood association.
With parking being a touchy subject all across the city, Transportation Planner Beth Rolandson presented several suggestions to alleviate concerns in Sunset Park, including adding metered parking in the business district and creating more spaces in areas like city-owned alleyways.
Several alleys in Sunset Park are 30 feet wide, which should be enough to accommodate traffic and parking spaces, Rolandson said.
“We can accommodate the needs of the users, specifically of Ocean Park Boulevard — that’s the residents and the businesses,” Rolandson said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 22, 2007. Read the original PDF.