Running the Numbers
In the minutes from one of the three meetings of the Citizens Advisory Committee reviewing the South Sepulveda redevelopment, developer Bob Champion proposed having 260,000 square feet of retail in the new project (44.32 x 260 = 11,661 trips).
Add to that the 5.86 daily trips per condo (5.86 x 800 = 4,688 trips), and you get 16,350 new daily trips generated by the project. Spread those over a 16-hour span (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.), and that is t about 1,000 trips an hour.
Divide 1,000 by 60 minutes, and you come up with 16 trips a minute.
Of course, a number of daily trips presently are being generated by the businesses along South Sepulveda. This number would have to be subtracted from the figure of 16,350 trips in order to find out what the project’s net gain in traffic would bring to our area.
Averages vs. Real Life
These numbers are estimates, based on averages of surveys for similar developments that are compiled for the engineers’ ITE Trip Generation Information handbook.
It cannot be assumed that trips will be generated all the time as averaged out in the numbers noted above.
For example, the average daily 5.86 condominium trips can be intuitively viewed as resulting from a two-car household where two people leave in the morning for work, each in his/her own car, and come home in the evening (four trips).
After coming home, they may go to the market in one car and come home after shopping (two trips).
In any residential neighborhood, people do not all leave for work and come home at the same time.
There is a staggering of vehicle trips, depending on the nature of work. Also, not everyone goes to the market at the same time every day.
For the retail portion, a similar postulation can be mad,e wherein not everyone arrives for shopping at the same time every day.
But it must be acknowledged that just because everyone doesn’t leave at the same time, there will not be morning and afternoon traffic jams each weekday on Sepulveda Boulevard.
Logically, it follows that there also would be some peak times coming and going, to and from the Gateway Project itself.
Every Four Seconds
As stated above, at an average of 16 trips smoothed out over a minute, this equals one car every four seconds.
I cannot believe there are enough entrances and exits proposed by Mr. Champion to accommodate all the new project’s traffic along Sepulveda. Berryman Avenue probably will have to be closed. Or it could be made into an "entrance only" with the traffic signal removed.
This would let traffic off Sepulveda instead of adding to the morning and afternoon congestion.
It would force Sunkist Park residents coming out of the alley to turn on Berryman and pass through Sunkist Park, to avoid Sepulveda altogether.
The real question:
"Can the back alley handle that much traffic flow during the morning and afternoon commutes?"
Can the project’s proposed three egress/ingress lanes handle that much traffic onto Sepulveda without impeding the flow of traffic and without contributing more to the congestion during the rush hour?
Let’s Walk
Sepulveda Gateway, as the project is known, is supposed to be pedestri-friendly.
What about the untimely and irregular pedestrian traffic crossing Sepulveda? Every time someone pushed the button to cross Sepulveda, it would screw up the timing of the traffic lights, snarling traffic even worse.
Would pedestrians then be prohibited from crossing Sepulveda at certain times of the day?
This suggests that during peak traffic hours residents from the western or Gateway side of Sepulveda would not be allowed to cross and shop at Sorrento’s Market.
Wouldn’t they just get into their cars and drive to the other side of Sepulveda in order to shop?
Building Bridges
Could the solution to this pedestrian problem involve building a pedestrian bridge?
Where exactly would it go?
Which business on the east side of Sepulveda would have to be removed in order to build it? Maybe the pawn shop property owned by City Councilman Steve Rose?
Think about it. Who needs a pawn shop or an auto maintenance shop across the street from such a majestic, high-end development as the magnificent Sepulveda Gateway.
My guess is that if the Gateway is built, both of these businesses and buildings would seem out-of-character with the surrounding neighborhood.
Both could be seen as being physically and economically blighted eyesores in need of redevelopment.
High Anxiety
Most of my neighbors’ concerns that I have heard revolve around their anxieties about the lack of future mitigation.
They fear that once the project is built, it will be the Sunkist Park neighbors who will have to live with the unplanned, unintended results.
It sounds as if the Sepulveda Gateway Project is going to be more of a popular attraction-destination than Costco.
Does this mean that the Gateway will have more traffic, more shoppers than Costco does now?
This Is Mitigation?
Look around Costco. It is gridlock on a daily basis.
If the Costco traffic iindicates how Culver City successfully mitigates its traffic problems, it seems to me my neighbors in Sunkist Park have every right to be very anxious about building the Sepulveda Gateway Project.
