February 11, 2020
Two-Thirds of City Employees Drive Alone to Work;
Most Park Free Downtown
While our City government continues its policy of making parking more difficult and expensive for everyone else, they continue to not apply the rules to themselves.
Their message to residents: “do as we say, not as we do.”
Documents recently obtained by SMCLC show that an astonishing two-thirds of City government employees continue to drive to work in a single occupancy vehicle during prime driving time. And to make matters worse, the City encourages this by providing free parking Downtown for its employees.
This is despite SMCLC having repeatedly raised this issue since 2016 in an unsuccessful effort to get the City to reduce this traffic-clogging, environmentally harmful situation. Instead of making serious progress, the numbers we have obtained from last year are worse.
This is happening at the same time when:
Large scale development is taking place all over Downtown and will likely surge due to a possible state mandate for Santa Monica to somehow build 9,000 new housing units in just the next eight years. This projected growth, if it occurs, will be centered on our boulevards and the area around Bergamot, bringing sharply increased traffic into already congested areas.
City Hall is now proposing taking our publicly owned land in the heart of Downtown at 4th and Arizona for a massive private luxury hotel-centered development. This alone would bring in an alarming 5,000 new car trips daily.