Odd thing about the informative meeting in Santa Monica about possibly turning Olympic and Pico into one-way streets: Santa Monica seems to have already opted out of the deal.

For ex: As soon as I walked into the meeting room, I was handed a Community Feedback Form, drawn up by Santa Monica’s Transportation Management Division. The top question: “Do you think making Pico and Olympic Boulevards one-way streets east of Santa Monica might be a good idea for Westside traffic?” Emphasis mine.

No, the questionnaire never asks if we think the one-way thing’d be a good idea within Santa Monica. We do get a “What ideas do you think might be worth pursuing in Santa Monica?” As in, the one-way thing’s a no-go, but we’ll consider other transit suggestions that come up in its discussion…. (if you’re curious, you can read my answers here)

Let me first say that, as of now, I’m not against turning Olympic and Pico into one-way streets for most of LA, even if I’m not all for it yet. Sure, the proposal should take in and respond to community concerns first. But Allyn’s seeming enthusiasm for the bus system — and his idea for dedicated bus lanes — was very catching. At the very least, I think it’s an idea at least worth exploring further.

But: The proposal just doesn’t look like it’s going to work in Santa Monica, for purely practical, logistical reasons.

In fact, listening to the presentation sometimes got a bit puzzling, because it seemed like a lot of the points about the proposal were followed with “except in Santa Monica.” As in: We could get 7 lanes of traffic in these roads — except in Santa Monica. We have no street parking during peak hours on these roads — except in Santa Monica.

Some of the practical and logistical reasons why this won’t work in Santa Monica:

* Fewer lanes: Both Pico and Olympic narrow in Santa Monica, with sections that’re just 4-lanes wide. If we’re gonna have 2 contraflow lanes anyway, we’re talking about having what we have now: 2 lanes going one way and 2 the other.

* Light rail: If When the Expo line gets built out, it’ll run on Olympic between 4th and 22nd streets — which is most of the length of Olympic in Santa Monica.

* City beautification: Both Olympic and Pico have pretty wide medians lined with trees, which’ll need to be preserved, which’ll totally mess up the one-way layout. In addition, Santa Monica’s recently spent a buncha money treescaping Pico, working to turn it into a more pedestrian-friendly street for the many small businesses lining it.

* Freeway location: In Santa Monica, the 10 freeway runs between Olympic and Pico. Many people at the meeting voiced concerns that the one-way proposal would basically turn the area between the two streets into a wasteland — one that’s bisected by a freeway at that. In addition, the 10 freeway already makes it difficult to move north-south, as most streets dead-end at the 10. This would push more traffic into residential streets like Pearl, making residents very unhappy.

As community meetings generally go, the meeting ended with a Q and A — meaning a buncha off-topic questions and comments — i.e. one guy going on endlessly about how he just has “a feeling” this is a bad idea without actually making an argument, and a woman demanding to know why all the traffic lights on Pico aren’t already synced. Um, relevance to topic?

Luckily, this meeting also attracted some cool thinking people who raised many of the points above. And while this one-way idea might not fly, I was very inspired listening to my neighbors talk about how much they wanted walkable communities, and how much they supported public transit in lieu of improving commutes for car drivers. Maybe this proposal’ll at least get more impetus behind bus-only lanes, with or without one-way streets.

Lastly, I did feel a bit bad for Allyn, who some people got all antagonistic towards for no good reason. The guy’s retired, but took on this study and used the opportunity to suggest a public transit-friendly idea. He doesn’t at all seem hell-bent on pushing it through as it is; he’s just proposing the idea and asking for feedback. And the end decision on whether or not it gets adopted is not up to him at all. While I don’t think his idea will work for Santa Monica, I didn’t see the meeting as an invitation to rip him a new one just for putting an idea on the table. I hope other meetings are more cordial than this one was.

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