An LA Traffic Fix?
Marc Haefele of KPCC, Citybeat and Citywatch fame offers his thoughts on the political SigAlert over the Pico-Olympic traffic plan. (Tina Dupuy also has a piece on it in LA Weekly.)
Unsnarling traffic can be a mess
A plan for Olympic and Pico boulevards pits two council districts against each other.
Marc B. Haefele
Op-Ed - LA Times
March 2, 2008
It's probably not a neighborhood in which you'd want to spend a lot of time. Not that it's dangerous. It's just 11 gritty blocks of small enterprises on West Pico Boulevard on the Westside.
There's a charter school, a couple of strip clubs, a mattress store and one that sells grand pianos. A couple of restaurants offer valet parking, but for the others, customers have to find a meter. It's a neighborhood where shops that repair autos, shoes and even golf equipment can afford to operate. So can a Mexican grocery and a secondhand record store where the treasures include a Wilson Pickett album ($3) and a complete recording of Maria Callas singing "La Boheme" ($2).
The problem is that this little stretch of Pico Boulevard between the Santa Monica city limits and the 405 Freeway is a traffic bottleneck. So it's sitting squarely in the gun sight of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to ease congestion, pitting the two most-affected council districts against each other.
Originally, the mayor wanted to turn Pico and Olympic boulevards into one-way streets. But fierce neighborhood opposition forced him to retreat to the scaled-back, but complicated, plan that gets underway Saturday -- unless a court grants an injunction sought by a group of Westside businesses to block it.
The new plan turns Pico, from the Santa Monica city limits to Fairfax Avenue, into a mostly eastbound one-way street, and Olympic into a mostly westbound one-way street, for three hours each morning and late afternoon. In April, signals will be timed to speed up traffic flow, and later this year, the streets will probably be re-striped to make the added eastbound and westbound lanes permanent. Street parking will be largely forbidden along both boulevards during rush hours.
More
Unsnarling traffic can be a mess
A plan for Olympic and Pico boulevards pits two council districts against each other.
Marc B. Haefele
Op-Ed - LA Times
March 2, 2008
It's probably not a neighborhood in which you'd want to spend a lot of time. Not that it's dangerous. It's just 11 gritty blocks of small enterprises on West Pico Boulevard on the Westside.
There's a charter school, a couple of strip clubs, a mattress store and one that sells grand pianos. A couple of restaurants offer valet parking, but for the others, customers have to find a meter. It's a neighborhood where shops that repair autos, shoes and even golf equipment can afford to operate. So can a Mexican grocery and a secondhand record store where the treasures include a Wilson Pickett album ($3) and a complete recording of Maria Callas singing "La Boheme" ($2).
The problem is that this little stretch of Pico Boulevard between the Santa Monica city limits and the 405 Freeway is a traffic bottleneck. So it's sitting squarely in the gun sight of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to ease congestion, pitting the two most-affected council districts against each other.
Originally, the mayor wanted to turn Pico and Olympic boulevards into one-way streets. But fierce neighborhood opposition forced him to retreat to the scaled-back, but complicated, plan that gets underway Saturday -- unless a court grants an injunction sought by a group of Westside businesses to block it.
The new plan turns Pico, from the Santa Monica city limits to Fairfax Avenue, into a mostly eastbound one-way street, and Olympic into a mostly westbound one-way street, for three hours each morning and late afternoon. In April, signals will be timed to speed up traffic flow, and later this year, the streets will probably be re-striped to make the added eastbound and westbound lanes permanent. Street parking will be largely forbidden along both boulevards during rush hours.
More
Labels: olympic blvd, pico blvd, traffic
Posted by Edward Headington @ 3/02/2008 11:17:00 AM
5 Comments:
Bill Rosendahl is a wimp. He had agreed to the plan, but when the same group of people who put up objections to it showed up at Transportation Committee to protest it once again, instead of holding firm and pointing out that moving the same amount of traffic along won't increase traffic (one of the group's contentions), but actually move it along faster and keep it off side streets -- he caved. But not just caved, got all emotional and joined the mean-spirited attack on the Mayor and threw his promises and the negotiations of the past 14 months to the wind. You don't want someone representing the city who can't take and keep a stand, and in fact turns against his colleagues and Mayor as soon as he's questioned.
This article talks about how things got this bad in the city because some politicians always put their own districts ahead of the city. That's understandable, the easy out == if you don't, there can be a lot of hostility. And they have to weigh the fact that it's that group which elected them. But Rosendahl has done that also with the area around LAX, a lot of things, which mean that he spends a lot of time doing his gay touchy-feely thing, listening and practically bursting into tears in sympathy with whoever he's listening to at the time, then acts in a away that's basically ineffective and just plain wimpy.
Leaving the big problems worse.
I'm sick of him already after just two years, wish we'd elected Flora Krisiloff, who had more experience and strength of character and will.
With all the problems in our 11th district emotionalism and the blame game against the Mayor and city isn't going to help us much.
I live on one of the side streets north of Pico, and I'm sick of people cutting through my street, looking to get out of gridlock. There are a couple of businesses I go to there a lot and hope they're not hurt, but the fact is, most major streets already have no parking during rush hour, and Pico isn't some little Larchmont Village or isolated side street. It's bad planning to think you can plop a village into the middle of a busy thoroughfare. There is some side street parking available for the extra hour or two, and the city tried to offer temp permits, but the residents nixed that. So if anyone is to blame, it's the battle between merchants and residents that already exists.
The L A Weekly article talks about how silly it is for traffic to grind to a halt further east in Wesson's district as well, where Pico/Fairfax join four other streets in a dangerous, undriveable intersection. Kevin Roderick had run a piece on it saying that he used to live there and that stretch of Pico "isn't much." He's just caving in to a few locals, too.
The Times article focuses on Rosendahl's "nondescript" stretch doing the same. Not a lot of love for the residents at both ends who undermine the will of the majority. Like Haeffele says, all the other busy streets already have no parking during rush hour. The Mayor wants to improve traffic flow which everyone wants -- except on their street. Seems like the newspaper op ed tide is turning in favor of the city as a whole.
The ultimate solution will be mass transit, 22 years too late, close to this area, along Wilshire or Santa Monica Blvds. or some combo, which is what the MTA is planning. All they need is $7 billion bucks.
my main concern, that i haven't heard mentioned anywhere yet, is that they aren't going to be making improvements at intersections that are already dangerous. I live by one on a hill that needs a dedicated left turn signal. I know of someone else who had the same concern.
We're talking about increasing the speed and flow at these intersections (possibly creating freeway conditions), thereby increasing the danger, but no one is making the recommendations to mitigate that danger
Also, what about the people who walk to temple or where ever else down Pico? Parked cars act as a barrier to peds on a sidewalk. Are we putting them at risk too? Are people going to walk on these streets at all anymore?
i didn't have such a problem when the discussion was about making them one way streets because the parked cars would still be there, and the conditions to make turns on to side streets would be better. But this is a much more complicated and (to me) dangerous and irresponsible plan.
This can't create "freeway conditions" because the lights will be timed to coincide with speed limits, which sure aren't freeway speeds! They're the same old 35, which people drive at upto 40 without attracting attn. if all goes well.
Sorry, but I think that if you can go at anywhere near that, it will be a miracle and cause for celebration.
Saying that total one-ways was more acceptable to you makes no sense -- that's what makes people think it's a highway, like Santa Monica Blvd. at stretches where there are no intersecions -- but even then, how often can you ever "let loose?" Maybe after 9 p.m. which is way out of the scope of this project. This is designed to allow people to get to their/our homes e.g. north of Pico, without more complications.
Also, as for the people going to temple being in danger, and your claim that parked cars act as an impediment -- again, we're talking only about no parking during rush hours until 7 p.m., and the notion that cars will run down pedestrians if there are no cars at the curb, is ridiculous at any time.
Dangerous intersections like the one at Pico/Fairfax, and six others, will become less so as the lights are coordinated -- if people need extra lights, crosswalks, or whatever, be specific about that.
But what I've heard attending these meetings is all kinds of worst-case scenarios that aren't based on fact, and if things become worse not better, the city and Mayor have said they'll respond. But at this point, all these "what ifs" that defy reality are just obstructions.
Let's give the plan a chance -- without demanding the expensive EIR and lawsuits, which would only be required if this project were adding new traffic, which it's not. It's designed to move existing traffic along more smoothly and directly, and discourage drivers from cutting onto side streets. (The foot traffic you're talking about, the observant JEws walking to temple and shops, won't be affected anyway because they're not coming and parking by car.)
For those who live on side streets off Pico and/or Olympic, there is a help to discourage through traffic; just get your neighbors to petition the city for speed humps.
Not the long flat ones, either, but the shorter, more severe ones that make them slow to 15 to 20 MPH or risk damage to undercarriages.
Also erect signs calling attention to them and you will see a decline in traffic.
The more yuo have, the less traffic you will have and it will slow way down, making it safer for every resident.
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