Killing Machines and Deadly Streets
By Frank J. Gruber
The traffic discussion L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez unleashed
a few weeks ago continued last week. Mr. Lopez himself participated
in a Warren Olney/"Which
Way L.A." program on KCRW Thursday evening that's well worth
listening to.
Mr. Olney's other guests were M.T.A. Board Member Richard Katz, who
detailed some of the history of the Westside's intransigence about transit
(fighting the Red Line subway, fighting the Exposition light rail, killing
the post-earthquake carpool/bus lane on the 10), and Ted Balaker from
the libertarian leaning Reason Foundation, who argued for charging tolls
for access to express lanes.
True fixes for traffic congestion will require both more and better
transit options and making driving more expensive.
On the transit front, a few weeks ago the City of Beverly Hills released
an exemplary report analyzing the best route for a subway line through
that city, including an analysis of potential station locations. This
is the kind of report Santa Monica needs to commission for the Expo
Line.
Beverly Hills' Mass Transit Committee (this time around, B.H. has become
so enthused about the subway the City has formed a blue ribbon committee
to study it) determined that the best route would be the simplest --
along Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard, then veering southwest
along the latter to Century City.
Assuming that the line would have stops at Century City and at Fairfax,
the Committee determined that stations at Wilshire at Beverly Drive
and Wilshire at La Cienega would be almost perfectly spaced at roughly
a mile apart and would serve the densest conglomerations of employment
and population. (see
report)
One question I would like to see examined in a system-wide study is
the desirability and feasibility of building a four-track system that
would allow for express trains -- as in New York City. Knowing that
Wilshire Boulevard is sixteen miles long, and learning that the typical
distance between stations is one mile, I wonder just how numbing a sixteen-stop
ride from Santa Monica to downtown L.A. would be.
Perhaps express trains would only save a few minutes, but the success
of the Metro Rapid buses has shown that the ability to build up speed
between stops adds greatly to both the reality and perception of speed.
The most sadly relevant story about traffic was not any new tale of
woe from a driver caught in traffic or of Westside music lovers giving
up their L.A. Phil tickets, but rather that of another pedestrian killed
trying to cross a Santa Monica street. (see
story)
Nothing illustrates more clear how we have built a transportation system
geared wholly to the wants of motorists than the appalling fear even
the most able-bodied pedestrian must conquer to cross our boulevards.
It's infuriating when drivers of vehicles weighing thousands of pounds
can kill someone and have the police describe what happened as "just
inattention."
Unless a pedestrian is committing suicide (i.e., running in front of
a car on purpose), there should be strict criminal liability for any
motorist who hits a pedestrian. If you put yourself in charge of a four-wheeled
motorized killing machine, you need to be responsible for whatever happens
in front of you.
But I am not entirely unsympathetic to (my fellow) motorists. We're
all sinners. My real venom is directed at the traffic engineers who
have designed streets to move such large amounts of cars at such high
speeds, that it's nearly impossible for a driver to drive in such a
manner that he or she can stop in time to avoid any danger within view.
But then who employs traffic engineers? Let's see, politicians? Politicians
like Zev Yaroslavsky, who wants to increase the pedestrian killing potential
of Pico and Olympic by turning them into one-way speedways. And Antonio
Villaraigosa, who wants to put anti-pedestrian left-turn signals on
every intersection. And all politicians who vote to widen streets and
narrow sidewalks.
And then who employs the politicians?
* * *
I haven't fully digested the City's new report, by the Urban Institute,
evaluating the City's "continuum of care" for dealing with
the problem of homelessness, but one item jumped out at me.
That was the fact that the jail in the new Public Safety Building can
hold 112 people, but only holds twelve on the average night.
No, I don't mean the police should arrest 100 homeless people every
night. Having a disease -- mental illness, alcoholism or drug addiction
-- and not having a roof to sleep under should not be a crime.
But sleeping outside on a sidewalk or under an overpass or in a park
is dangerous, and one way to get homeless people into our continuum
of care and of a mind to try housing (whenever -- first or last) would
be to start using more liberally the 72-hour civil commitments that
are available when a person is a danger to himself or others.
If we need less than an eighth of the jail facility for criminal suspects,
then let's reconfigure the other seven eighths into a clinic -- operated
not by the justice system but by the public health system -- for homeless
people who are endangering themselves every night in Santa Monica by
sleeping on the streets. Each commitment would give social workers another
72 hours to penetrate the shell of denial that is the chronic homeless
person's shield against reality.
Done right, the homeless people might get the feeling that we care.
You never know where that might lead.
Event notice:
I have to note that one of the odder but nonetheless endearing organizations
to sprout in Santa Monica's rich soil of social activism is the "Activist
Support Circle," the group Jerry Rubin founded to provide emotional
support for progressive activists.
I bumped into Mr. Rubin last week -- naturally at a community meeting
-- and he asked me to publicize the ASC's next meeting, which will feature
actress and singer (and anti-war activist) Michelle Phillips as special
guest speaker. The meeting will take place this Wednesday evening at
seven, at the Friends Meeting Hall (1440 Harvard Street).
My only bone to pick with Mr. Rubin is that his flyer advertises free
parking, but fails to give directions by public transportation. Memo
to Jerry: is the ASC on the bus or off the bus |
