Santa Monica

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It's now been more than a week since pedicabs started operating in Santa Monicaand I can confirm that the circles of hell have not come unleashed upon the fair city of Santa Monica. Traffic congestion in popular areas is often slow going, but that has always been the case. So we have Santa Monica, much the same as it has been, but plus some pedicabs now.

The City of Angels is noticeably transforming. Our once car-centric town is becoming less car-dependent. Public transit is having a comeback. Pedestrian and bicycle infrastructures are improving.

Streetsblog Los Angeles is excited to announce that sometime in August we will launch a new website for news and views in Santa Monica, Santa Monica Next.

Editor's Note: Streetsblog Los Angeles founding board member Carter Rubin recently finished his Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree at UCLA. In the following article, he recaps the findings from his capstone “client project” for the Urban Design Studio at the L.A. Department of City Planning. His research adviser was the inimitable parking guru, UCLA Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup. You can read the report in its entirety here.

In my first post discussing new stop signs to be installed on Broadway east of 26th St., I set up some of the context for why stop signs can be frustrating to bicyclists, how social conventions of both drivers and bicyclists can vary from person to person. The Santa Monica Daily Press has also picked up the topic, in a recent article which I am quoted along with several others on the proposed new stop signs.  Something I also didn't touch on before and which I recall from reading Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic, is the fine line beyond a threshold where too many stop signs reduces compliance because of the tendency for some drivers to speed between stops to try and compensate for having to stop.

I am going to have a hard time writing this.

In response to a high rate of intersection collisions on Broadway in the residential stretch with center medians east of 26th St , new stop signs are to be added so that there will be 2 additional 4 way stop regulated intersections.