Gary Kavanagh

Santa Monica has done a lot of things right over the years, such as reinvesting in the public realm, supporting education, improving pedestrian accessibility, funding the Big Blue Bus, and being ahead of the curve regionally on bike facilities. However success is not without its own challenges. While many cities saw real estate prices plummet since  the 2008 US housing market crash, Santa Monica has largely retained high home prices because it is such a desirable place to live.  The downside of this trend is that multifamily residential rents are also climbing.

The debate on affordability and access to education turned ugly on Tuesday at Santa Monica College. A student protest of the board of trustees was halted by campus police using pepper spray, garnering national media attention. The heart of the contention between students and administrators is a proposal to maintain some classes slated to be cut due to state budget constraints, by introducing a second tier of classes with higher tuition. Basically, classes that were most popular with students, including many that would be prerequisites to gain entry to professional degree programs such as nursing would cost more than less popular ones, a move some students have called a privatization of public education. Protests continued this week, and the two tier plan may be placed on hold.

This week marks another milestone in new approaches to street design in the city of Santa Monica. A two block segment of Longfellow St. receives a makeover, taking cues from the mixed use woonerf concept from the Netherlands. Longfellow St. had always been too narrow to include both street parking for adjacent apartments and sidewalks, making it an ideal candidate for promoting mixed street use. Its formally unappealing design and poor lighting was also felt by some to be a contributing factor to crime in the area. Now vehicle traffic is calmed with cues from new plants and textured surfaces.  Solar powered pedestrian scale lighting with LED bulbs were installed along the street. Other ideas are being considered for further traffic calming enhancements later, that would eliminate the need for traffic control signage all together.

(Note:if you want to support Gary's work and our regular coverage of Long Beach, join us at the Library Alehouse this Tuesday. - DN)

This week, Santa Monica opened it’s first on-street bike corrals located within business districts, with two prominent locations on Main Street. At Main St. and Kinney St. there are 2 corrals on each side of the street, with a larger full space on the east side of the street, and a smaller corral with 4 racks on the north side. Another full size corral with 7 rubberized staple racks is located in front of the Peets Coffee at the Edgemar Center between Ocean Park Blvd. and Hollister Ave.

Lately it seems like every week in Santa Monica there is something new happening that makes it easier and more pleasant to get around without a car. New sharrows there, a new bike lane here, bike racks popping up at shops all over town. New pedestrian oriented mixed use developments are going in several at a time along the future Expo Line corridor and revamped Big Blue Bus shelters are waiting in the wings.