By Robert Winthrop 11th grader, Santa Monica High School
In America’s large cities, a person needs to get to one place as fast as possible to do their daily tasks and responsibilities. Santa Monica is no different with a population of more than 85,000. But how can such a large amount of citizens get to work with a City Council adding “traffic calming measures” that only increase the amount of traffic congestion?
Many companies and the nation are losing productivity out of this major suburb of Los Angeles because of these traffic slowing measures. One citizen put it simply, “that streets are to be driven on, not blocked with sticks, islands and curb extensions which unduly slow traffic.” If the City Council is part of the government and the government is for the people, why isn’t the City Council for the people? California is already in a budget deficit of $31.4 billion with no clear or easy way out and our city is spending money to make us late to work and school. This angers me because it just adds one more thing I need to worry about while driving. Traffic has become so horrible for some that “traffic has changed their lives. Transportation should not be a life changing experience for those of us just trying to get to work and school on time.
All of these measures to “calm” us raging Santa Monicans started in 2000 with the placement of median modifications, curb extensions, enhanced crosswalks and a traffic circle south of Pico to the city’s southern limits on Fourth Street. The estimated cost of this one section of our large city was for an astounding $115,960. The city claims that these measures were implemented to slow the traffic in that neighborhood because local residents complained of high and dangerous speeds. The average speed before the placement of these modifications was 28 mph. The average speed now, with these modifications is 24 mph. An unanticipated result of the measure is that traffic on this street has decreased, loading other streets in Santa Monica with more traffic than they should have to handle. To top it all off, the ratio of accidents has remained the same since the completion of these measures. The only logical conclusion would be to label these “traffic calming measures” a huge mistake and waste of tax dollars.
The city’s most important services, the emergency services, have also complained about the measures being placed around the city. Emergency services estimate a negative impact on more than 8,200 emergency response calls a year and a rise of up to one minute per call. In a society that is growing in population and crime, emergency situations come with that growth in our society. If our City Council does not want us to work or be safe, what does it want us to do?
We can not let our City Council work against us. We must use our voice and be heard by the people that we employ, because without us, our City Council cannot exist. I personally know many people who agree with Matthew Glasser, a contributing columnist for the Santa Monica Daily Press, who said that he will “pledge all of (my) future votes to any political candidate who will make solving our traffic problems their one and only campaign issue.” We need to put the right people in the right positions to help us live more prosperously and more importantly, safer.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.