Emergency Meeting Breaks Parking Gridlock

By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer

October 31 -- A who’s who of Westside civic leaders hammered out an agreement Friday afternoon to open up Airport Avenue to student traffic in exchange for a signal at Santa Monica College’s Bundy campus driveway.

The compromise -- subject to approval by the Santa Monica City Council -- promises to break up the bottleneck that’s been tying up parking ever since the satellite campus opened last July.

Los Angeles Council member Bill Rosendahl, who hosted the often contentious emergency meeting, said he had to take action after almost getting into a car crash on the way home.

He was “barreling down Bundy,” he said, when he suddenly had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting cars lined up to make a left turn at the campus driveway.

“We have a safety crisis made by the City of Santa Monica and Santa Monica College because they couldn’t get together,” Rosendahl told the gathering. “It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

Traffic at the driveway wasn’t a problem until last week, when Santa Monica City engineers posted a sign warning students they had until November 2 to clear out of the airport parking lot they’d been using. The lot will be part of a park the City plans to begin constructing this week.

The College responded to the City signs by directing students to park in the Bundy campus lots – lots which until then had been virtually empty and which can only be reached through an unregulated driveway on South Bundy Avenue.

The more than two dozen leaders of nine government agencies and two neighborhood groups responding to Rosendahl’s last-minute call could barely fit inside his conference room where they hashed out their differences.

After an hour and a half of heated argument, Mayor Pam O’Connor, Mayor Pro Tem Herb Katz and Kate Vernez and Gordon Anderson of the City Manager’s office agreed to recommend opening a gate at Donald Douglas Loop to cars going in and out of the campus lots.

O’Connor made it clear that this temporary solution -- subject to council approval -- was conditional on Rosendahl’s pledge to push for a “half signal” to control left turns at the Bundy driveway.

“I will grab my city and all of its assets,” Rosendahl promised, but added “I cannot give you that sincerity until you give me the sincerity of using Airport Avenue.”

It wasn’t easy reaching consensus. The cities and the college came into the meeting agreeing that cars should be allowed to exit the Bundy campus parking lot at Donald Douglas Loop and turn right toward the Airport Avenue/Bundy intersection.

But the talks stalled over the subject of left turns into and out of the campus driveway – turns everyone agreed were unsafe and probably weren’t going to stop without some kind of City action.

“I don’t care how many right-turn signs you put up, the students are going to make left turns,” Katz said.

But gridlock set in when the competing agencies couldn’t agree on how to regulate the outlet.

“How does Los Angeles allow access to a property that’s in the City of Los Angeles?” challenged O’Connor, who wanted the City of Los Angeles to install a traffic light at the Bundy campus driveway.

O’Connor was making the point that the campus and the driveway are in Los Angeles, although the lot is adjacent to Santa Monica Airport. Airport Avenue, which runs through the airport, is a private road, O’Connor was quick to add.

“We the City (of Los Angeles) have a light at the end of your private road for your convenience.” Rosendahl shot back.

“It’s the City of Los Angeles,” O’Connor exclaimed in frustration as talks seemed to be breaking down. “You can’t say it’s the City of Santa Monica’s fault.”

“We’re not going to have three lights. That’s what we’re telling you now,” Rosendahl retorted.

Putting another light on Bundy Avenue between the signals at Airport Avenue and Rose Avenue would add to already clogged rush hour traffic, argued Jay Kim, Senior Transportation Engineer with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

Moving traffic north to the Airport Avenue light would make more sense, he said.

“A half signal (at the Bundy campus driveway) is not going to work out. The very geometry makes it unfeasible,” Kim tried to explain.

While Kim delved into technical dilemmas, Rosendahl brought the topic back to “the safety of the students” again and again, repeating the phrase like a mantra throughout his arguments.

“I don’t want to play politics with kids’ lives,” Rosendahl said at one point.

”Those are easy words to say,” Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson interjected as tempers flared.

Things got even hotter when Vice Chair of the Airport Commission Mark Young put in his two cents.

“No one is talking about Santa Monica College making a compromise,” Young complained. “They’re trying to bully themselves more or less into having access to Airport Avenue.”

College administrators kept a discreet silence during the exchanges, which sometimes resembled a high-intensity poker game with ambiguous stakes.

Finally College Trustee Nancy Greenstein and Mayor Pro Tem Herb Katz had had enough of the bottleneck.

“The reality is, there’s a downside to everything,” Greenstein said. “We have to come up with the best solution we can.”

Katz agreed. “I really want to get off this idea that this is my property, this is your property…We have a problem, let’s solve it as a problem.”

The afternoon was wearing on in the crowded quarters, and from that point on, reconciliation seemed to be the order of the day.

Once Greenstein floated the idea that temporary ingress to the campus lots from Donald Douglas Loop could be a “pilot” “short, short term” solution, the way was clear for Rosendahl to make a U-turn on putting up a “half signal” at the campus driveway.

“If you do that (agree to ingress from Donald Douglas Loop), I will commit to the signal, barring some safety issues,” Rosendahl agreed. “If it works and it makes sense, why not?”

While O’Connor made absolutely sure everyone understood that the agreement was subject to Santa Monica City Council approval and that it could be called off if Rosendahl didn't move fast enough on the signal, most came out of the meeting optimistic.

After leading a hearty round of applause and congratulating Rosendahl for his “great leadership,” Katz said the meeting represented real progress.

“We got a long way today,” he said.

“I think it was definitely progress,” Thomas J. Donner, interim president of Santa Monica College agreed. Rosendahl “responded heroically by calling this meeting,” Donner said.

“It is clearly going to be a safety issue for students,” Donner answered when asked whether he thought the agreement would make it past the City Council. “I wouldn’t want to vote against that.”

Not everyone agreed. “The college made progress.” answered Zina Josephs, president of Friends of Sunset Park, a neighborhood organization which has opposed opening Airport Avenue to traffic coming into the campus, when asked if the meeting represented a step forward.

“The only entity that gave ground was the City of Santa Monica," Josephs said.

She complained that now the intersection at 23rd Street and Airport Avenue is going to become more dangerous. “I don’t see how that improves student safety,” she said.

The City of Santa Monica will publish a staff report detailing the agreement this week and it will come before the City Council on November 8.