The City Council is still hard at work making more dopey decisions concerning traffic.
They’re in the process of approving a grand plan to expand that exhilarating “transit mall” experience to Bayside streets adjacent to the Third Street Promenade.
A plan that would turn one-third of Lincoln Boulevard south of Pico Boulevard into exclusive rush hour bus and bicycle lanes for eight Big Blue Buses an hour was approved last month — despite that curb lanes on this major artery will soon sit empty and unused 99.99 percent of the time while tens of thousands of commuters will be squeezed, stalled and grid-locked into remaining traffic lanes.
Not content to let Lincoln Boulevard take the honors for the most recent egregious misuse of resources, our elected leaders are now planning to add highly traveled Second and Fourth streets to a long list of badly mismanaged streets. The proposal is to enhance street lighting, install new bus benches, rip out some of the old ficus trees and install landscaped curb extensions between Wilshire Boulevard and Colorado Avenue. This is at a total cost estimated at $4.1 million.
Planning officials say curb extensions will make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street. However, their placement will block access to the city parking garages and interfere with pedestrian drop off points in front of businesses on both Second and Fourth streets. With the parking or curb lane built out in places, vehicles will have to turn into parking garages from traffic lanes, thus slowing or stopping through traffic all together, especially when it’s backed up to get into the garages.
This is another classic case of fixing something that’s not broken. If City Hall is going to spend money to improve the “pedestrian experience” downtown, why hasn’t it done something about the filthy and disgusting alleys on either side of the Third Street Promenade? There is a crying need for improvement, however, it seems that planning officials have their priorities backwards and the City Council is once again asleep at the wheel.
Most of the objections voiced by our council persons had to do with cutting down some of the trees. But would you expect City Councilman Kevin “gridlock” McKeown to concern himself about tens of thousands of motorists when he can fret about ficus trees?
Even more pathetic was a statement from City Councilman Ken Genser that curb extensions “take the fear out of crossing the street.” It’s not the distance that scares me, it’s the crazy drivers and lack of traffic enforcement.
Despite fear of using the public right of way, I don’t see any of our elected officials asking for more traffic enforcement officers. All the curb extensions, islands and speed bumps aren’t putting a damper on the incessant reckless and dangerous driving I see all over town.
One of the reasons why this project exists is the availability of MTA funds to partially pay for it. The MTA could spend its funds more wisely — like improving its own services or subsidizing the outrageously high cost of MTA bus fares. But with our Mayor Pam O’Connor being a senior member of the MTA board of directors, landscaping and traffic impediments in Santa Monica get more of her attention than MTA’s own customers.
The City Council keeps approving traffic-jamming curb extensions, islands, bus lanes, speed bumps and other devices to slow traffic and force us into alternative means of transportation. The problem is that it hasn’t worked, isn’t working and it won’t work. This plan will further jam traffic, degrade the environment and discourage people like me from doing business in downtown Santa Monica.
The social engineers will still say this is all good for sustainability. Maybe some idealist will write and discuss how the exhaust from thousands of cars stuck in traffic is good for sustainability? Maybe, some enlightened smart-growther will tell me why not rebuilding and improving downtown parking garages will make for a more sustainable city.
This is a poorly executed proposal with serious flaws and an unneeded “spend that grant” project. Nevertheless, the City Council will still slam-dunk anything concocted that will push their personal agendas, slow traffic, discourage driving and promulgate their own wacky concept of sustain-ability and environmental friendliness. (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 24, 2005. Read the original PDF.