Sunset Park Residents Step Up Calls for Traffic Signals

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

September 20 -- Sunset Park residents are aggressively pressuring the City to step on the gas when it comes to taming traffic along a dangerous stretch of Ocean Park Boulevard, just a stone’s throw away from where hundreds of kids attend school.

While consultants hired last spring by the City are expected to spend several more months evaluating the best ways to improve traffic along the boulevard between 14th and 18th streets, several recent accidents have re-ignited concerns that the busy stretch is not safe.

“The input the community gave in the meeting last spring was good, it’s just hard waiting another year and a half or longer to get something changed,” said Zina Josephs, a board member of Friends of Sunset Park, the city’s fastest growing neighborhood group. “People are getting hurt in the meantime.”

Motorcycle officers were posted Wednesday on the dangerous stretch that has seen at least two accidents in the past week, one of them involving a utility vehicle that demolished a BMW in a head-on collision, injuring the car’s driver. (see story)

A storeowner on Ocean Park Boulevard also claimed she saw a young woman struck while crossing a crosswalk.

“The accident… has left me feeling rather hopeless,” said resident Julia Dumas-Mitchell in an email to Josephs. “A 20-year-old girl stepped out as did I -- on the opposite side -- within a second she was flung into the air.”

The woman’s condition is unknown.

In response to the accidents, about a dozen of the groups’ 400 members have contacted the City, specifically asking them to step up their analysis efforts and offer short-term solutions.

But while top transportation officials suggest speeding vehicles may have caused of some of the accidents, they caution that fixing the problem soon may not be possible.

“I just don’t have a date for that,” said the City’s transportation director, Lucy Dyke, when asked when she expected the $75,000 analysis back from consultants. “Six months would be too long though.”

There are several reasons for the hold up.

From investigating eye-witness claims that certain intersections throughout the City are dangerous to coordinating information sharing with consultants, the analysis is moving along, but is periodically halted, Dyke said.

When the report is issued, community members can expect accurate accident statistics, as well as information on how fast cars are traveling along the roadway, Dyke said.

“In my opinion, speeding is problematic and people are going too fast, especially with those schools nearby,” said Dyke referring to Will Rogers Elementary, John Adam Middle School and Santa Monica College.

The community will also be able to weigh the pros and cons of narrowing the road – which serves as a route for between 17,000 and 19,000 cars a day – from four lanes to two lanes, as well as possibly adding parking at the current site of a middle school playing field, she said.

In the meantime, Dyke said the City is reacting to residents’ immediate safety concerns.

“There have been crosswalk stings and enforcement recently,” conducted by police, she said.

In addition, the City will conduct a speed survey – measuring the speed of motorists – and hopes to acquire electronic signs that show drivers how fast they are traveling.

Yet it could take up to two months before those signs are rolled out, she said.

Any immediate redesign, she said, would need to come after Police suggest the change.

On the ground after a wreck, police are the sole possessors of accurate traffic accident information in Santa Monica, she said.

“If they see something we’re doing that can be corrected, they’ll let us know,’ she said.

Staff can currently access a state database on accident statistics, Dyke said, but the information is usually six months old.

“There is usually a lag time,” she said.

In the meantime, residents continue to wonder what the lag time will be on moving forward with changes they asked for long ago, including a petition sent years ago with hundreds of signatures asking for traffic lights at the 16th Street intersection.

“The voice of the people is just being ignored by the city,” Julie Moosbrugger – who is considering a second petition drive – wrote in an email to the City.

“How many more accidents have to happen, how many more people have to be killed before we will be heard,” she asked.

Installing traffic lights, prohibiting left turns and installing better signage along the four intersections are all priorities for FOSP, said Josephs.

“This are things we have been asking for ten years,” she said.