Parking at New Santa Monica Post Office is Dangerous

December 10, 2013

Dear Editor,

I am old and grew up in the south in the fifties. I remember straight in parking and I remember why it was abandoned. Because people were killed backing out.

Outside the Post Office backing out you cannot see, especially if the car/truck beside you is bigger or longer. You also cannot make your exit into only one lane -- there is insufficient space -- so you have two opposing lanes to try and keep track of, neither of which is easy to see. And, they cannot see you if you are emerging from behind a larger vehicle.

Finally, with all the city road/rail construction, Seventh Street offers a reasonable alternative to commuters trying to get into (not out of) town after exiting the I-10 at Lincoln. These people are going fast.

Angling the parking would help but the real solution is to both angle and make 7th in that block one way (against the flow from the Lincoln/10 exit).

I expect it will take some dead people to remember the lessons the south learned back in the 60's, that what made sense with horses and slower, bigger cars of the 40-50s made for death with the faster and variable sizes of later years.

And oh by the way, this kind of parking is very popular these days with the Santa Monica City Hall folks, who see it as a parking relief that costs them nothing for any street wide enough.

At a public meeting on parking in the between Wilshire and Montana area I reviewed all of the above with them. Their indifference to history was unfortunately predictable.

Sincerely,
Rick Robinson