| Hello Malibu, Goodbye Mom & Pop |  |  |
By David Chudnow
I recently attended one of the public meetings held to discuss the proposed Olympic/Pico traffic plan. What an exercise in futility! Although the issues are complex and deserving of legislative-type discussion, the Mayor has chosen to avoid the City Council and has announced his intent to implement this plan by himself, over the next few months. Apparently he has the support of Jack Weiss, Council representative of the Westside, the area which will be most impacted. Although both the Mayor and Mr. Weiss had representatives at the meeting, none of them chose to engage in dialogue with their constituents to offer any insight into the issues or to answer any of the questions aimed at them. Rather, they stood cowardly in the rear and let John Fisher, on behalf of the Department of Transportation (DOT), field the questions and dodge the spears. As you may be aware, the Plan (although its particulars are somewhat fluid) desires to transform Olympic Blvd into a “predominately west” street and Pico Blvd into a “predominately east” street during “peak hours” of rush hour (also a somewhat fluid term as used by DOT, but now stated as being 7-9 am and 4-7 pm), from the 405 all the way downtown, to purportedly alleviate traffic congestion. It was clear from the meeting, however, that the Powers that Be have a hidden agenda and are merely using this as a smokescreen.In order to achieve their stated goal, DOT proposes a three-step Plan: a) Creation of Peak Period Lanes on Olympic and Pico – this will be done through the elimination of on-street parking; while this may not be much of a factor along Olympic, given the width of the Boulevard and the fact that most establishments already have their own parking, this would greatly impact the Mom & Pop businesses along Pico, which have little or no parking of their own; essentially it would reduce their business day to 7 hours; b) Alterations in Traffic Light Signalization – under this portion, the lights would be set to encourage “continuous flow” at 25 mph; there are obvious flaws with this; for example, DOT admits there will be interruptions caused by buses stopping in the curb lane; nor does the Plan really consider the qualitative and width difference between Pico east of Beverly Drive and Pico west of there; a test trial showed no improvement in the former location; c) Preferential Direction Flow Operation – under this portion, various strategies would be employed to encourage the desired traffic pattern; for example, left turns would be reduced to only two cars per light, the number of turn lanes would be reduced (in particular, at Motor and Beverly Glen) and traffic flow would be “encouraged” to only go north/south at Centinela and Crenshaw, while being actively discouraged elsewhere, a la the “privatization” of Motor Ave. Although DOT would like us to believe that the cost of the initial phases is only $300,000 apiece, that figure does not consider the substantial human cost to the areas affected nor the impact on local businesses. In effect, the Mayor wants the Westside to bear the burden for allowing this crush of traffic by Malibu commuters who do not want to use the 10 Freeway.
In listening to the DOT’s responses to resident questions it became clear that the Mayor does not simply want to move traffic. If DOT sincerely wanted to do that, they could concentrate traffic flow to and from downtown onto Venice Blvd., a substantially wider street and one far better suited to handle a high influx of cars without disruption of its neighborhoods.
Rather, the Powers that Be really desire to use this to achieve urban renewal of an area they see as “blighted,” the eastern portion of Pico, without engaging in appropriate eminent domain proceedings or paying compensation as required by law. For example, when asked if the Plan included funds to compensate owners for taking of their properties, the answer was a simple no. When asked about the impact on neighborhoods, Mr. Fisher replied that the areas “would adjust,” citing the area of Pico near the Apple Pan as a sterling example. Apparently Mr. Fisher does not recall or chooses to ignore that there were formerly many Mom and Pop stores on Pico east of Westwood Blvd. When the City implemented their new parking restrictions in the 70’s almost all of them were forced out of business. The City compensated no one. They have now been replaced by larger sleeker stores like Circuit City which was able to construct above-ground parking. The Apple Pan survived only due to the tenacity of its owners, its ability to service customers for longer hours and the fact that it has a small parking lot of its own. Mr. Fisher also told us that residents could “adjust their schedules” to the new regime; for example, they could do their shopping on weekends rather than during the week. This is simply unrealistic and impractical. Finally, the Mayor intends to rush the Plan through without any Environmental Impact Report even though it will have huge impact on thousands of residents and have significant adverse impact on numerous businesses. When asked about this, Mr. Fisher stated they see the Plan as simply implementing “parking restrictions.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
In short, if you are a business owner on Pico east or Beverwil, you will have two choices. Either organize or prepare now to close your business and move. There’s an express train bearing down on you and you are in the way. If you are resident, be prepared for substantial disruption and alteration to your lives for the foreseeable future. The Big Boys are ignoring you. (David Chudnow is a 35-year resident of the Westside and an attorney specializing in real estate and business law.)
Need to know: the DOT Plan summary can be found at www.wncla.org. For more perspective on the Pico West/ Olympic East debate, see Alan Mittelstaedt’s opinion piece … “Scream if you hate traffic” … at www.LACityBeat.com . _
