Traffic is the biggest issue in Culver City with development a close second.
As we come to the last weekend before the City Council election, it strikes me the dichotomy between the interest in the Council race and specific issues that face residents namely traffic and development.
In fact, attendance at many of the candidate forums has been low.
Yet there are meetings in the community that have had tremendous public attendance. We have an important election on Tuesday that will see a new majority on the City Council.
Yet when I walk the neighborhoods, some folks tell me they haven’t followed the race.
When I ask what is important to them, I hear “Do something about the traffic” or “What’s happening with that development?”
Same Headlines at Every Meeting
These are the major issues that face our community, the issues that face each one of us on our streets in our neighborhoods.
Some public neighborhood meetings I’ve attended are formed to discuss specific issues, traffic and development.
I attended a meeting for the neighbors on Huntley, Globe, Barman and Tuller near the 405 Freeway construction at Culver one rainy January evening.
Despite the weather, 35 people were in attendance (nearly half of the 80 residents who live there). Neighbors reported that the rain kept some away who’d planned to attend.
It was one of the best and most productive meetings I have attended.
Update from City Hall
Sol Blumenfeld, the Community Development Director, and many on his city staff told the residents what has been happening with the Culver Boulevard and 405 Freeway construction around their homes, and what to expect in terms of completion.
Residents raised specific concerns, ideas and solutions about traffic.
The city responded immediately with some of the suggestions and is working on the other measures, which include, stop signs.
The group is also forming a Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP) committee to further address the cut-through traffic in their neighborhood.
On March 19, another neighborhood had a meeting with Culver City Traffic Engineer Gabe Garcia. This meeting also was well attended by concerned neighbors. The neighbors who live on Coolidge Avenue, Matteson Avenue, Minerva Avenue, Albright Avenue, Bledsoe Avenue, Berryman Avenue and McLaughlin Avenue came together to hear about the proposed closure of Berryman to through traffic.
Same Outcome Repeated
Discussions about what to do about traffic have been going on with the city for seven years.
Resident Bill Flick was concerned that their fate would be much like that of the residents of Sunkist Park’s:
No action, and back to talk, talk, talk about the traffic that all agree is a problem.
The obvious impasse was stated: “If you close Berryman, traffic will swell on adjacent streets.”
Herein lies the chief problem with the traffic mitigation measures around the city.
Dissecting the Program
Let me explain. The NTMP began in 2004 as an effort to gather input and support from various traffic calming solutions. For any given neighborhood a study area needs to be defined. Then a representative group from the community and city staff come together to offer suggestions.
Those feasible collective measures that the group decides on are presented to the residents of the whole study area in the form of a ballot.
A vote of a percentage of the residents decides yea or nay for the proposal.
This sounds reasonable and equitable.
But the reality is, not one group since the inception of the NTMP program has achieved success.
Why?
Lack of Response
Because many never respond to the ballots or questionnaires.
This results in insufficient numbers of participants to allow approval of even temporary measures to be acted upon.
We are reaching full crisis in some areas with incidents ranging from broken mirrors to fatalities.
We need to examine the NTMP program.
We have hard working, dedicated city staff and committed residents.
We should be able to identify solutions to our traffic woes and implement them on a temporary basis to start with, followed by permanent measures as we continue to evaluate the traffic impacts citywide.
Help Wanted
Further, we must hire more officers and increase traffic enforcement.
Citing rolling-stop offenders and speeders on our residential streets will improve safety.
We need to come together as a community and find solutions to our traffic problems. We can solve these problems.
Ms. Anderson is a candidate for the City Council in Tuesday’s election.
