How I’m voting for the environment in the Nov. 4, 2008 election.

Measure T, aka RIFT, if passed, would basically cut commercial development in Santa Monica by half until 2023. Why would we want to hobble our economic growth this way? Because it’ll reduce traffic, say the proponents of the measure.

No one likes traffic, but what happened to simply making it easier and desirable for people to get out of their cars? I think the best way to reduce traffic is NOT to preemptively limit the places people might want to get to, but to make it easy for people to get to these places without driving.

Even if hampering commercial development actually did cut down traffic in Santa Monica — and by the way, 2 independent traffic studies (both PDFs) show that traffic won’t be affected much — I don’t think that’s a desirable way to reduce traffic in our city. There are really many, many things we should try to mitigate traffic before resorting to a drastic measure such as Measure T. A couple of these include:

1. Enforce the Parking Cash-Out law, as Gary of Gary Rides Bikes suggests in his opposition to Measure T. “This law states that businesses which offer subsidized parking real estate by giving their employees free parking are required to offer a rebate for the value of that parking space to any employee who voluntarily gives up their free parking privileges,” Gary explains, and tells his own story of how his biking to work put an extra $120 a month in his pocket — and got a whole bunch of his co-workers to do the same.

2. Give the Big Blue Bus more funding to increase frequency, and maybe even add lines, by adding fees / taxes to new commercial development — an option that’s certainly better than forbidding this development via Measure T. For ex, I’m of the opinion that if we added a direct line that took people from downtown Santa Monica to downtown Culver City (and don’t tell me BBB 12 does that, because that’s a windy, car-sickness inducing ride that’s anything but a straight shot), we could cut down on quite a bit of traffic.

But let me add here that there actually ARE a lot of traffic-busting efforts underway — efforts that Measure T would hamper. Many of these efforts are a part of LUCE, Land Use and Circulation Element, a general plan for the city which residents have been working to shape through many, many public meetings. LUCE’s current Strategy Framework is now available; the plan contains a lot of traffic mitigation measures, including plans to encourage / mandate mixed use development.

This means that Measure T’s like a slap in the face for all of the many, many community members — including myself — who participated in shaping LUCE. We took time — huge chunks of it — out of our individual days to help shape the city’s directions and policies. Those I know who participated in the process have been pretty happy not just with the content of the meetings they attended, but the resulting Strategy Framework that emerged.

Now, Measure T would suddenly supersede the community input that shaped LUCE! The City Attorney’s impartial analysis on Measure T begins with this: “This measure would amend the Land Use Element of the City’s General Plan.” Why should this measure supersede the work that so many community members have put into shaping LUCE? Either the people supporting Measure T didn’t bother to attend the LUCE meetings to put in their 2 cents, or their ideas were not viable ones that other community members could support.

Somewhat oddly, my favorite councilmember, bicyclist Kevin McKeown, supports Measure T, arguing that “LUCE still places no limits on cumulative commercial development.” Well, maybe that’s because Santa Monicans don’t WANT to place these limits! I spent 5 hours of my Saturday at a LUCE meeting dedicated to transportation — and while many, many suggestions on mitigating traffic came up, forcibly limiting commercial development was not one of them.

I can’t help but feel that the main reason Kevin supports Measure T is because developers don’t. “Out-of-town developers … have bankrolled a deceptive campaign against residents,” Kevins says. Kevin’s dislike of developers is unsurprising, considering the fact that that major developers ran a smear campaign against him the last time he ran for election. Yet a measure must be weighed according to its merits.

Moving beyond traffic issues, which Measure T won’t fix, the claim proponents of Measure T make is that the initiative will help balance out the imbalance between jobs and housing in Santa Monica. Pretty much everyone agrees that we’ve got a lot more former than the latter, and Measure T supporters say we’ll get a better balance by limiting commercial development.

However, this too is an issue addressed by LUCE, which calls for more mixed-use development that’ll help mitigate our current imbalance. While proponents of Measure T say that existing one-story businesses could be torn down and rebuilt as mixed-use developments, thus helping balance jobs and housing, I don’t see why new mixed-use development initiatives should have to battle through a lot of red tape to get built.

I mention Kevin McKeown specifically because he’s like the only person I know whose opinions I respect who supports the issue. Everyone else — including State Senator Sheila Kuehl, President of SMMUSD Oscar de la Torre, Executive Director of Environment Now Terry O’Day, Metro board chair and Santa Monica councilmember Pam O’Connor — is against Measure T, as are Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Task Force, Police, Firefighters, and many others.

The No on Measure T campaign names all sorts of other reasons you shouldn’t support this measure. The LA Times summarizes those thusly: “The measure is poorly written and would open the door to unintended consequences. It would eliminate millions of dollars for schools, police, fire, emergency medical technicians and other services. It would encourage developers to demolish affordable apartments and replace them with expensive condos.” But my basic reasons for rejecting Measure T are above.

Hate fighting traffic in Santa Monica? Well then get out of your car already, and vote yes on Prop 1A and Measure R. Then collect your parking pay out, and donate some of that extra cash you’ve got to transit coalitions you support.

And vote no on Measure T

Images from saveourcitysm.com and presentations made to the City of Santa Monica.

4 Comments