City “Solution” Far Worse Than Problem
These days, when City Hall people speak of “improvements,” “enhancements,” “beautification,” or ‘opportunity,” an ever-increasing number of residents shudder seismically.
Too often, City “improvements,” “enhancements,” “beautifications” and “opportunities” have turned out to be MORE of something we need less of.
“Less” is a concept that City Hall rejected some time ago. Invariably, quantity tops quality, trendy trumps style, and confusion smothers clarity.
Only City Hall people would see the prospect of a light rail station in the most congested area of the city as “an exciting opportunity.”
We’re speaking of the area where what City Hall now calls the “Station District,” the “Civic Center District” and the “Downtown District” converge. Not so long ago, neither downtown nor the Civic Center were “districts,” and they didn’t converge. They were separated by the10 freeway. It was a clean and useful break, as it held the downtown commercial commotion at bay and prevented the traffic tsunami from rolling across the Civic Center and swamping Ocean Park.
The Civic Center has long been a kind of oasis in the midst of the rising hubbub. wide, open, pleasantly aloof, coherent.
But, for all its crooning about open space, City Hall abhors nothing so much as passive land, and, in 1993, it commissioned a Civic Center Specific Plan. Since then, the Plan has been revised regularly — with each iteration more muddled and misbegot. At the same time, it began adding buildings that in design, scale and location insulted the original buildings.
The latest iteration of the Plan includes a multi-million-dollar remodel of the Civic Auditorium, as well as a kind of joint use partnership with Santa Monica High School, facilities. The school campus is just across Fourth Street from the Civic Center, and is now part of the “Civic Center District.”
Owing solely to City Hall’s continuing inability or unwillingness to commit itself to preserving the unique character of the Civic Center, it has been in planning limbo or more than a decade.
The Santa Monica Pier has always been a major traffic attraction. City Hall’s decision to brace the pier with Santa Monica Place and “hotel row” and to spend millions promoting this fabled beach town as a “regional commercial hub” and romper room were the genesis of Santa Monica’s now-legendary gridlock.
In 1996, in response to residents’ mounting complaints, then-planning director Suzanne Frick announced that a “comprehensive” traffic plan was in the works. But, 13 years have passed, Frick decamped for Long Beach several years ago, and no such plan has ever appeared, because City Hall is much better at cause than effect.
Specifically, according to City Hall, this latest “exciting opportunity” deals with an “anticipated increase in pedestrian activity” by making radical changes in “the patterns of traffic and movement in the downtown area…that incorporates additional park areas, smooth circulation with pedestrian, bicycle and transit access, and a vibrant gathering space, while simultaneously achieving the goals in the Civic Center Master Plan, the LUCE Strategic Framework and Creative Capital.”
The most striking, and ominous, aspect of this plan is the weight it gives the station, and the license it gives City Hall to remake the heart of Santa Monica.
Downtown Santa Monica and the Civic Center can fairly be called “districts,” but the proposed station certainly doesn’t rate the designation on its own. Clearly, it’s not just a station to City Hall, it’s salvation, and it will require millions of dollars and spreading rather than reducing the congestion.
The “Station District” at Fourth and Colorado, will inject more pedestrians into the Downtown District, which is already choking on traffic of every sort. It will add a plaza at the station, as well as “wider and improved pedestrian access routes between the Santa Monica Pier, the beach and the Civic Center,” and a trolley or shuttle from the station to the Pier and back.
It will also “modify the grid” by adding a new street from the Freeway’s Fourth Street off-ramp to divert freeway traffic away from the station – and, not incidentally, from downtown Santa Monica. Thus, motorists would have to go south into the Civic Center and/or Ocean Park in order to go north into downtown Santa Monica.
This “modification” will displease drivers, Ocean Park residents and downtown business owners, but this plan isn’t about pleasing people.
It would be far simpler to close the Fourth Street off-ramp, which is it a branch of the Fifth Street off-ramp, and wave everyone off at Fifth. But this plan isn’t about simplicity either.
And why is the station on Fourth anyway? Some years ago, the City paid $34 million for the Sears auto shop for some sort of transit station.
At the time, we wondered at the efficacy of locating it hard by the principal downtown freeway exit.
Since the light rail is still five years away, the City could find a more functional location, but, as we have learned, City Hall people would rather change Santa Monica than change their collective mind.
The plan also calls for creating more open and park space, by “capping” a portion of the freeway east from McClure tunnel in order to “reconnect” the Civic Center District’s green space with the Downtown District’s ungreen space.
Surely decking the freeway and calling it open or park space amounts to consumer fraud—especially since the Downtown District has been connected to the Civic Center District for decades by the landmark Main Street bridge, so “reconnection” via the freeway deck would also be redundant…and utterly mad — especially when the bogus open space is less than a block from the ocean.
In fact, this plan is an absolutely perfect recipe for terminal gridlock, AKA chaos. . In that sense, it does fulfill the primary goal of the Civic Center plan and the LUCE “Strategic Framework to impose “urban form” on this beach town. After all, nothing is more urban than gridlock.
Ironically, the accumulating hustle and bustle at its perimeter has isolated the Civic Center, and, if the plan is approved, could cut it off entirely. If City Hall is bent on diverting freeway traffic away from the station, how does it plan to route the 2200-plus City employees and 1100-plus RAND workers, the residents of the planned 364-unit monster “Village” project, and audiences coming and going from the revamped Civic Auditorium? They can’t go north on Fourth, and will only be able to go south on Main. If and when Olympic Drive is extended from Main to Ocean Avenue, they can enter the great coastal traffic jam and creep north or south. Or they can choose the east-bound freeway crawl.
In trying to do so many things, the plan fails to do the one thing it should do, which is to integrate the light rail station and riders into the downtown mix.
No one knows, with any certainty, how many riders there will be. City Hall estimates the current daily transient population at 300,000. Some of them will undoubtedly prefer light rail to buses and/or driving. Since this light rail line begins in downtown Los Angeles and travels west well south of the 10 freeway, riders are more apt to be workers than, say, Bloomingdale shoppers, and more apt to arrive in downtown Santa Monica at 8 a.m. than noon. In addition, more riders may disembark at the 17th Street station on their way to jobs at the hospitals or classes at the college. This is all pure speculation. But City Hall’s radical, elaborate and expensive plan is based on speculation, too. The difference is that the planners choose to imagine hordes, mobs of riders, and we don’t.
17 Responses to “City “Solution” Far Worse Than Problem”
stop making sense…
By stewart resmer on May 7, 2009
Sorry, but Santa Monica and the rest of Southern California can no longer afford either economically or environmentally to engage in social engineering in favor of the automobile.
The residents of Santa Monica intuitively know this and that is part of why Measure T failed.
The Station District makes sense.
By Dan Wentzel on May 7, 2009
This is the most ill-informed, ridiculous conjecture I’ve ever read about the impact of a mass transit line. Guess what, Peggy? 60-million people will be living in California in 40 years, whether you like it or not. It’s people like you that created such horrible car congestion in the first place with your NIMBYism. Why don’t you wake up to the realities of the already past late-20th century and then voice your opinion?
By Matthew on May 7, 2009
I agree. All of those “chaotic” pedestrians shop downtown, stay in hotels, go to the beach and spend dollars which help make Santa Monica vibrant & viable.
Don’t let the next generation of Westisders fall victim to the disasterous planning mistakes of the previous generation of Westiders.
By jf on May 7, 2009
I’m just speechless at such nonsense — especially the bit about how the current Civic Center is “pleasantly aloof.” It’s just cut off from the rest of the city! It’s in a no-man’s-land at present. Connecting Santa Monica to the rest of LA by light rail will be a godsend. Thank goodness more folks don’t share the backward views expressed here.
By Eric on May 7, 2009
This is one of the most poorly reasoned and written articles I have ever read.
By Jefe on May 7, 2009
This is more a rant than a well thought out article. I am one Santa Monica resident that welcomes the light rail and all the pedestrian enhancements coming with it.
By Steven Lake on May 7, 2009
I’m sorry, but how does shifting workers from cars and busses into trains increase gridlock? It increases mobility by providing alternatives!
I’m also certain there are a lot of businesses in Santa Monica that would jump at the chance to get more customers past their doors and potentially into their shops. Wow.
And even if JUST workers who arrive at 8:00am use the train (unlikely, but let’s just say), that frees up valuable parking space for tourists, shoppers and residents. Expo Line is a great thing – it can’t come soon enough.
By Rich Alossi on May 7, 2009
Peggy thinks City Hall actually means to manage the city for the taxpayers.
She doesn’t get it, that the cabal that runs this town actually wants total gridlock.
Why else would they run the train down Colorado, at-grade, crossing Lincoln?
Their intent is to slow down traffic to the point that their 8 mph battery-powered buses look attractive.
In order to force people into their socialist model, they will go so far as to BAN bicycles, since they’re “a pedestrian hazard”, and will outperform the worker’s paradise transit system. Why do you think the city’s last traffic Engineer quit? His replacement (who drives to work), has been overheard saying such gems as:
“Lincoln Boulevard competes with the 405 Freeway, and that’s a race we don’t want to win.”
and
“Cars going the speed limit … should be illegal.”
When the train kills its first transient or undocumented, the same Santa Monica that brought you George Russell Weller will “cry out for social justice”, and require that the LRT come to a complete and full stop at EVERY INTERSECTION.
I wonder if the city will keep its promise, that the $18 Million Fisher Lumber site will be used to expand Memorial Park, specifically NOT for low-income housing? Can you say “Transit-Oriented-Development”?
By Rail Dude on May 7, 2009
peggy, i feel sorry for you. you are so backwards. Maybe this was a sarcastic bit? Transit and good planning is sorely needed and thank God for Santa Monica’s forward thinking for the areas around teh line.
By D on May 7, 2009
Socialist model?
Now that’s funny. People with an inflated sense of automobile entitlement never seem to admit is just how publicly subsidized their motoring is. They benefit from publicly “socialized” roads which their gas taxes don’t even begin to pay for. They’ve benefitted from 50 years of social engineering in favor of the automobile, gutting public taransit infrastructure, leaving people without options. Foreign policy decisions are made and arguably wars waged in an attempt to secure cheap gas for their cars. The auto industry is subsidized by the governments who’s country makes them. Local governments allow NIMBY’s to thwart public transit improvements despite the cost to the economy and environment of not improving.
Of course, public transit is also subsidized. But don’t kid yourself about your “free market” automobile. Los Angeles is full of socialist motorists who delude themselves about their free market cars.
By Dan W. on May 7, 2009
Also, motorists haven’t even begun to internalize the cost to society and to the planet that their cars cause. So let’s have no lectures about the “free market” from socialist motorists.
By Dan W. on May 7, 2009
I am very unclear what Peggy is getting at when she says “…riders are more apt to be workers than, say, Bloomingdale shoppers, and more apt to arrive in downtown Santa Monica at 8 a.m. than noon.”
Is this a bad thing? LA is one of the largest cities in the world and wow , just imagine people actually using mass transit to get to work and not just as a novelty trip when they want to show others how green they are. If your complaint is that you can not get in your car to drive block to block to do your shopping, that may be true which I think is a good thing. Santa Monica has a ridiculous amount of cars choking its little streets and we need to wean people off their cars and to hop on a bus or train or WALK to get around.
By ras on May 8, 2009
Truly remarkable commentary. Worthy of feature on Curbed LA and another of other “clipping services.” May even go national I am almost dumbfounded that the idea of “injecting more pedestrians into Downtown Santa Moncia,” would be seen as bad. The conflation of pedestrian activity with automobile congestion, is such an absurdity, that I can’t help but wonder, if the author didn’t write this with tongue in cheek. Where else would a light rail station go, BUT in the most congested part of the city. This may be the most pure piece of NIMBYism I’ve ever read. Most of the comments already posted sum it up well. Measure T lost. Measure R won. I do believe however, that no single piece of writing could have discredited this newspaper more than this, unless the whole piece is a parody.
By Neal Payton on May 8, 2009
Peggy is right. This rail line is nothing but a gift to real estate developers and the architects and construction companies that they employ. The Expo Authority has already admitted that the line “won’t reduce traffic or congestion on the 10 freeway, any boulevard, or major street.” And if the line doesn’t take cars off the road then it’s not going to improve the local environment – not even a little bit. Yet, alleviating traffic or improving the environment are by far the two most commonly cited reasons people give for supporting the line.
Worse, by the Expo Authority’s own projections the vast majority of riders will not be residents of Santa Monica but workers traveling to Santa Monica from other parts of the city. Unfortunately, since light rail is so slow the vast majority of these riders will not be shifting from cars, but will be former bus riders or workers new to the area attracted by all the increased real estate development surrounding each station. This will definitely be great for business. It will definitely be a horror show for anyone who needs to drive home. If you thought Olympic Boulevard at 5:00 couldn’t get worse – just wait.
To give you some idea of what’s planned, realize that the recently built light rail line in Portland is given credit for generating over 1.4 billion dollars in real estate development and almost all of that development was within three blocks of a station. As outlined in LUCE, Santa Monica is planning to build “highly urban and pedestrian” developments around each its stations. Which sounds great until you realize that this will lead to many more crosswalks and traffic lights across the streets (like Olympic Boulevard) bordering the route. These pedestrian crossings will compound the already tortuous traffic delays that will caused by not grade separating the line.
But none of these problem concern rail advocates because bad traffic gives them more leverage to ask for more tax dollars to build more rail lines. And that’s exactly what are political leaders are going to say after this rail line is built and traffic gets far worse– we need to build more and more and more…
By alex on May 8, 2009
Alex, All the problems you and Peggy are voicing have less to do with rail and more to do with over population which I agree is a problem and wish would be better addressed by our politicians when they take a position on illegal immigration. Building higher densities around mass trans is only controversial in Los Angeles for some reason. In any other city that is just considered practical and logical. For some reason, many liberal Angelenos take a retarded, duplicitous stance that making money is evil and if a developer wants to make money it is doubly evil. I think too many minds have been corrupted from ad Hollywood scripts that stereotypical paint a developer as a greedy, evil empire and dumb people can not discern fact from fiction anymore.
By ras on May 9, 2009
Pay no attention to the folk fresh out of the rail coo-coo bin Peggy. The same 20-30 people swarm every one of the comments for these type of articles.
You hit it out of the park. And alex points to the people really pulling the strings.
By One-flew-east on May 20, 2009