Santa Monica
Streetsblog LA
Santa Monica Awarded Silver & 83/100 Bike Score, But Just How Helpful Are Such City Rankings?
Santa Monica was just awarded a bump in it's Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) classification by the League of American Bicycling, from bronze to silver. Coinciding with that news the walkability web application Walk Score released a new round of Bike Score rankings which now includes Santa Monica, which received an average score of 82.5 (rounded up to 83), high enough to come 5th in analyzed cities. Now there are probably few people more excited than myself about the real progress being made toward normalizing bicycling in Santa Monica, but I feel compelled to maintain some skepticism toward popular systems of classification for bicycle friendliness.
May 17, 2013
The Climate Imperative of TOD in Santa Monica
One of the sub-rifts I've observed within the debates and backlashes against development in Santa Monica reflects the diverging views within environmentally conscience minds about balancing localized and broader impacts. There are people who have advocated for environmental initiatives of various kinds their entire life, who I fundamentally clash with despite also considering myself a passionate advocate environmental protection. We're seeing the same issues with completely different lenses.
May 13, 2013
Long Beach, Santa Monica, If YouDonate to Streetsblog in May…You Can Win More Than Just a New Bike
The Southern California Streets Initiative, the local non-profit that staffs and edits Streetsblog Los Angeles, has voted to support local journalism outside of the city limits to Long Beach and Santa Monica. Thanks to local support from Santa Monica Bike Center and Long Beach Community Foundation, we've been able to do this without reaching into our regular operating funds.
May 10, 2013
Santa Monica: Air Traffic Control
The debate over the ultimate fate of Santa Monica Airport (SMO) is contentious with impassioned views from stakeholders on all sides. More concerned with the state of our ground transportation, I hadn't given much thought to my own views about the local airport operations or followed very closely the prior discussions on the issue (although it's impossible to not hear some about it).
May 3, 2013
Santa Monica: From Bike It! Day to Biking Cross Country
Owen Gorman and Rachel Horn, two friends who’ve known each other since their time attending Samohi, are embarking on a coast to coast bicycle tour combining their advocacy interests along the way. The two college graduates were both part of the early student led effort to host a bike to school event on the Samohi campus that became the successful Bike It! Walk It! program. I caught up with them recently to chat about their plans for riding coast to coast and about their advocacy.
April 26, 2013
Santa Monica’s First Kidical Mass A Success
Santa Monica's first Kidical Mass (with support from Safe Routes to School grant funding) successfully drew in quite a a crowd of young kids, toddlers in seats or trailers, and their parents, for a distinctly different vibe than the typical social rides. I absolutely adore efforts like this because they renew my faith that perhaps all is not lost for the project of human civilization. Going back through the pictures for processing, seeing those smiling faces rolling through neighborhood streets, was exactly what I needed after such a crazy week.
April 19, 2013
Santa Monica Bike Update: Pedicab Ordinance Passes, Kidical Mass This Weekend, & The SMC Bike Club Goes Camping
April 12, 2013
Parking Ordinance Timeline Not Deferred, & Thoughts On Future Of Parking
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).
April 5, 2013
They Paved Paradise, Parking In Santa Monica
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.
March 29, 2013
Santa Monica: Public Process Begins For Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway
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.
March 22, 2013