Santa Monica

This Wednesday, the Santa Monica Planning Commission deliberated on whether or not advise the City Council to push back the updates to the parking ordinance of the zoning code a full year, and after other land use zoning changes are completed. During testimony, I personally testified against delay and was glad that amongst the back and forth discussion and numerous public comments that included a lot of skepticism about parking policy changes (along with some support for change).

Parking has been dominating the public policy debate in Santa Monica the past few weeks, ever since the local lobbying group Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC) made transportation consultant Jeffery Tumlin into a target. Unfortunately they subsequently succeeded in having him removed from Santa Monica projects after years of great work with city planning efforts including our Bike Action Plan.

This past Saturday marked the beginning of the public process for a proposed  Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway in Santa Monica (a video of the concept for the unfamiliar). This is one of the more high profile projects called for in the early scope of Santa Monica’s Bike Action Plan, although the greenway concept goes far beyond bicycling, and requires it's own public process to proceed. The good news is by the end of the workshop I think a lot of people came away with good ideas and valuable conversations.

One of the ways I’m often reminded I’m really a Santa Monican first, Angeleno second, is when I see Styrofoam as a food container . It makes feel a little ill inside. We pride ourselves on environmental stewardship as a core value in Santa Monica, and take protecting the coast and the ocean seriously. Always striving to get items that will not breakdown out of our waste stream and off the beaches. However there is much more we can and must do if we truly want to lead on a society wide transition to sustainability and a stabilized impact on the natural world that supports our very existence.

At Tuesday night’s council session at Santa Monica city hall, it was a clean sweep toward making progress on multi-modal transportation goals and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (for areas not dependent on outside decision making like the federally regulated SMO airport).

I’m currently rolling out (on Amtrak) of Washington D.C. following what has shaped up to biggest rally ever held specifically to confront global warming and climate change as an issue in the United States (the estimates I find most likely were that there were around 35,000 marchers in the street).

For those who didn't know, some commitments came up that demanded nearly all of my time the past few weeks so I took a break from the blogging. For my first post back I thought I’d quickly go through a few of the recent or developing Santa Monica stories I caught word of or have seen that have been mulling around in my brain during my blogging absence. Things are moving quickly these days in Santa Monica, on more fronts than just bicycling, and there’s a lot to talk about out.

Riding on Pearl Street a few weeks ago, I noticed preparations for a new bicycle parking lot.   This past Saturday, before Santa Monica College students returned for the spring, I had a chance to check out the new bicycle parking.  I was surprised to see not only bike parking, but other parking and amenities for those who travel to Santa Monica College without a car.