Pico Plan a Regressive Stop-Gap Measure

July 18, 2007

Dear Editor,

I'm glad columnist Frank Gruber is giving the Pico plan a fair hearing, all the better to debunk it through the public “process.” (see column)

The problem is that it is inherently regressive, anti-street, anti-business and anti-neighborhood. This is merely a stop-gap measure which I believe will be used to further delay a serious commitment to subway and light rail to the Westside.

An optimistic 20 percent flow increase, as Gruber correctly points out, will be sucked up by latent demand, and the likely efficiency is surely to be less than that. So why bother?

It's folly, not sound planning, to attempt to convert surface boulevards into freeways. The myriad inefficiencies of surface conditions will render the whole scheme grossly dysfunctional, waste a lot of treasure and save no one enough time to make any real or lasting difference.

We need rapid mass transit that can operate above, below, along side and independently from the mess that is surface transportation.

Eric Parlee
Santa Monica