Business leaders said they weren’t informed of change
BUS BARN — City officials say they’ve made sufficient efforts to address community concerns about the creation of a new bus-only lane, but they are still willing to work with those who have issues about lost parking.
The Santa Monica City Council’s decision on Tuesday to create a bus-only lane on Lincoln Boulevard at peak traffic times, which will cause shops to lose front street parking, triggered criticism among the business owners, who said they were kept out of the loop on the proposed change.
However, representatives from City Hall say they have taken needed steps to inform the public about the proposal. Even so, city officials say they are still willing to work with those who are concerned about how the new bus-only lane may affect their businesses.
“We will continue to look at how the bus-only impacts the Lincoln Boulevard area,” said Dan Dawson, director of marketing for the city’s Big Blue Bus. “If there is any more help we need to offer businesses in finding parking solutions, we will help however we can.”
The Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday approved a limited bus-only lane at peak traffic hours along a portion of Lincoln Boulevard. While proponents say the move will encourage mass transit use and improve traffic conditions along the city’s busiest commercial corridor, local business owners contend it will lead to a reduction in parking that will result in fewer customers patronizing their establishments.
The bus-only lane still needs to be approved by the state, which city officials said is likely to occur. Upon approval, it would allow exclusive access on Lincoln Boulevard for buses and other shuttling vehicles during weekdays.
As a result, parking will be prohibited on the east side of Lincoln Boulevard from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. between the south city limit and Grant Street, as morning traffic heads north toward Santa Monica and the Interstate 10 freeway. Parking will also be prohibited on the westside of the roadway from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. between Pico Boulevard and the city limit, as evening traffic heads south.
While business owners told the Daily Press earlier this week they weren’t informed about the proposed change, Dawson said the Big Blue Bus’s outreach has included two letters sent to all of the affected shops on Lincoln Boulevard. The Big Blue Bus has held five community meetings, which a total of 50 residents attended to discuss concerns about the bus-only lane.
Although eight speakers turned out at Tuesday’s meeting to endorse the bus-only lane, only one spoke against it.
Dawson said he didn’t notify community members that the bus-only lane was on Tuesday’s meeting agenda because it would have been contrary to the Brown Act had the discussion been bumped.
The handful of individuals who spoke on behalf of the bus-only lane on Tuesday were local environmental and political leaders, many of whom had attended the community meetings and were closely following the issue, Dawson said. They, as well as members of the business community, would only had known the proposal was set to be discussed if they had read Tuesday’s agenda, posted on the Web.
A group called the Lincoln Boulevard Task Force, comprised of regional government groups and local citizens, studied the expansion of public transportation on Lincoln and concluded that adding the bus-only lane is the most immediate way to ease congested traffic on the roadway, according to the staff report.
However, local business owners said reduced parking at peak times will be bad for business. Customers will be forced to park on residential side streets, where parking is already limited.
Dawson said City Hall hired Ilium, a traffic consultant firm, which conducted a parking utilization study to determine how much parking may be available for businesses when the bus-only lane was in effect.
According to the study, the residential streets along Lincoln Boulevard will have less than 100 percent occupancy, even with the added load from customer-motorists.
Some street-cleaning schedules and temporary parking zones have been changed or added on side streets to accommodate business owners as well, Dawson said.
A survey conducted by the Harrison Company showed 17 percent of motorists living near Lincoln Boulevard would use the Big Blue Bus to travel to and from work if a bus-only lane were in place.
Dawson said that even if 1 percent of these survey takers actually switched to bus use, it would have a significant effect on Lincoln congestion.
“It would be extremely significant,” Dawson said. “What we’re seeing here is a large part of the population that is very interested in transit and wants to do whatever they can to avoid traffic on Lincoln.
“With the bus-only lane, now they will be able to.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 16, 2005. Read the original PDF.