By Gale T. Williams
(This letter was originally written to the city’s traffic management division and the City Council.) Please stop installing center street dividers. I live on 22nd Street just south of Montana Avenue and the new center street dividers on Montana Avenue are a real traffic hazard to me and other folks whom I have talked to. I urge you to remove the divider now.
I have been turning left onto Montana Avenue from my street for 40 years with no problem but now it’s no longer safe for me to do so. You can no longer make a gentle normal turn without hitting the divider. Now as you turn left, you must drive straight across the first two lanes — then and only then can you attempt a sharp left turn squeezed between the parked cars and the center divider. Even if the divider had been set back from the intersection by 20 or more feet, then a normal turn would be possible.
The safest way to turn left onto Montana Avenue is to turn into the center lane then merge into the traffic lane when safe. This is now impossible.
With this new hazard on Montana Avenue, I’m now forced to drive Washington Avenue going west. Yes, I can still use Montana Avenue going east but I more often drive west on Montana Avenue. Generally, traffic is discouraged on Washington Avenue with its speed bumps, etc., but now I have no safe choice.
It’s really irritating that I have paid taxes for years to help maintain Montana Avenue and now I am prevented from using it. Who came up with this hair-brained idea of installing traffic hazards? Did you know that driving behind a bus means that when it stops to pick up passengers at a bus stop that you have to also stop until the bus goes again because they either can’t or at least never pull out of the traffic lane when stopping? This is not only inconvenient but also hazardous. Fire trucks will also be slowed and lives put at risk.
At a time when we face lay-offs in our schools, you are spending great sums of money on unwanted, unwise hazardous center street dividers. Not only does it cost to install these dividers but they require too much resources to maintain these areas over the coming years. Too many dollars and too much needed water when we face water shortages.
There were either no public hearings on the creation of these center dividers or the issue was not clear what was intended. I hear that there are dividers to be installed on Colorado Boulevard and I strongly object to the center street dividers and demand that you remove them now and stop creating new dividers.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 6, 2003. Read the original PDF.