1 David Yakobson
From: Cynthia Rose <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 11:35 AM
To: councilmtgitems; Council Mailbox; Gleam Davis; Jesse Zwick; Caroline Torosis; Lana Negrete; Oscar de la Torre; Phil Brock; Christine Parra Cc: Jason Kligier; Kyle Kozar; David White; Anuj Gupta; Jacqui Swartz; [email protected]
Subject: Agenda Item 10B: support
Attachments: 2024-08 CC Support Items 10B Speed Survey.pdf
EXTERNAL
Please find our letter of support for agenda item 10B
--
Cynthia Rose
Director
Santa Monica Spoke
SMSpoke.org
I acknowledge with respect and gratitude the Tongva, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples on whose traditional territory I live and work.
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
A community group dedicated
to biking in Santa Monica.
Working to make the
City of Santa Monica a
more sustainable,
bikeable place to live, work and play.
August 27, 2024
Support Agenda Items 10B
Dear Mayor and City Council Members:
With great appreciation Santa Monica Spoke and the Santa Monica Safe Streets Alliance support Agenda Item 10B, an ordinance to amend the City’s speed limits. Our City Transportation Staff (SMDOT), led by Anuj Gupta and our Mobility Team (including our newest traffic engineer Mia) have conducted a Speed Survey which has been used to carefully update our streets speed limits in accordance with the California State Law. This resulted in the reduction of speed limits on approximately 31 miles of our streets, while precisely attending to a slight - though unfortunate yet unavoidable - increase on the California Incline. Staff has done conscientious and credible good work on the survey. We must, however, continue the efforts supported by the community to engineer our streets for safety and reducing unsafe speeds.
Staff has demonstrated its professional acumen and sensitivity to what it takes to realize our Vision Zero Goals and the safety of all of us using Santa Monica streets. We must continue to prioritize the efforts of Vision Zero with continued momentum - we cannot be distracted from realizing our goals of zero preventable road fatalities by 2026.
Thank you SMDOT staff and Council for your continued leadership in making sure our community is moving toward being safer. Thank you for bringing forth the safe streets initiatives that also advance our climate goals, which are particularly meaningful as we celebrate our 30th year of sustainability leadership.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Rose
Director, Santa Monica Spoke Cris Gutierrez
Co-Chair, Santa Monica Safe Street Alliance Co-Chair, Santa Monica Safe Streets Alliance SMSpoke.org
SaMoSafeStreets.org
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
1 David Yakobson
From: Phil's Eighty Grand Electric Mercedes <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 10:31 AM
To: Phil Brock; Oscar de la Torre; Christine Parra; Lana Negrete; councilmtgitems; Jesse Zwick; Gleam Davis; Caroline Torosis
Subject: oppose 10B
EXTERNAL
Hi councilmembers, it's your favorite extremely expensive Mercedes SUV again. I oppose this awful measure, motorists like Phil have places to be and they shouldn't have to be slowed down by silly concerns like safety for poor people and extremely privileged cyclists who can't afford their own extremely expensive Mercedes SUV.
I do approve of raising the speed limit on the incline though. In fact, make it higher! Motorists can easily go even faster than that on the incline after Phil wisely bullied staff into watering down the so-called safety improvements there.
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
2 David Yakobson
From: Paul James <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 9:41 AM
To: Caroline Torosis; Christine Parra; Council Mailbox; councilmtgitems; Gleam Davis; Jesse Zwick; Lana Negrete; Oscar de la Torre; Phil Brock
Subject: 10B: Support speed Limits Updates
EXTERNAL
Dear council,
I strongly support item 10B. Lowering speed limits in our cities can benefit all road users and help us reach our goal of a clean & safe Santa Monica.
Signs and rules don’t make a real difference unless they’re enforced and speed enforcement has clearly been lacking.
I urge you to support this item and to ask for speed limits to be enforced.
I love biking in Santa Monica because there's so much to do and it's a very efficient way to get around the city.
With so much activity and so many people attampting to share the roads (mostly cars and SUVs by far), everyone needs to be held accountable for their behavior behind the wheel.
Everyone who has ever been on a bike has a horror story with a bad driver. Speed limit reduction and enforcement would help us out immensely.
-Paul LaBelle, 90034
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
1 David Yakobson
From: Dustin Shahan <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 7:26 AM
To: councilmtgitems; Council Mailbox; Gleam Davis; Phil Brock; Christine Parra; Lana Negrete; Jesse Zwick; Caroline Torosis; Oscar de la Torre Subject: Re: Support 10B for lower speed limits
EXTERNAL
Resending as I didn't get the auto reply...
On Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 8:08 PM Dustin Shahan <[email protected]> wrote:
Good evening council,
Please support item 10B for lower speed limits. There is abundantly clear data proving how important vehicle speed is for everyone on the road.
Please also ensure that these are actually enforced. There are far too many vehicles regularly blasting down neighborhood roads with no repercussions.
Thanks!
Dustin Shahan
90401
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
2 David Yakobson
From: Caro Vilain <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2024 10:38 PM
To: councilmtgitems; Council Mailbox; Gleam Davis; Phil Brock; Christine Parra; Lana Negrete; Jesse Zwick; Caroline Torosis; Oscar de la Torre Subject: I support item 10B
EXTERNAL
Dear council,
I strongly support item 10B.
I urge to not only support this item, but also ensure that this ordinance is enforced and that drivers are made aware of it.
I hope that you understand how important this item is and how it will save lives, if implemented and enforced.
While pedestrians have a 90 percent chance of surviving a crash involving a vehicle traveling 20 mph or below, they have less than a 50 percent chance of surviving a crash with a vehicle traveling 30 mph or above.
I’ve been so far very “lucky”that both of the careless drivers who hit me while I was riding my bike in Santa Monica were going at low speed; I got to get away with injuries that I might never fully recover from but that thankfully weren’t life threatening.
A friend of mine who was born and raised here and cares deeply about making our streets safe wasn’t so lucky when they were hit by a driver a couple weeks ago. It’s estimated that the driver who hit them was likely not going faster than 30mph, which might not feel that fast from behind the wheel of a car, but that crash nearly ended their life.
Lowering speed limits in our cities can benefit all road users and help us reach our goal of a clean & safe Santa Monica, but signs and rules alone don’t make a real difference unless they’re enforced, which we all know hasn’t been the case. I encounter speeding drivers every day riding my bike around Santa Monica.
I urge you to support this item and to ask for speed limits to be enforced.
Caro Vilain, 90404
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
3 David Yakobson
From: Brian Sweeney <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2024 8:57 PM
To: councilmtgitems
Subject: Item 10B: Proposed Speed Limit Reductions
EXTERNAL
Dear Mayor Brock and honorable City Council members,
I'm writing to express my enthusiastic support for the proposed speed limit reductions described in Item 10B. I also want to extend a huge thank you to City staff and the consultants at Fehr & Peers for doing a tremendous job with the study.
I walk my three little kids to school in the morning and literally every day we encounter someone speeding far above the existing speed limit on Ocean Park Blvd. (or otherwise blowing a stop sign in the neighborhood). It's not only dangerous but also exhausting.
These speed limit reductions are a necessary first step, but we also desperately need SMPD to be more proactive in enforcing these new speed limits if we want to improve street safety. I know traffic stops are significantly down since COVID; we need those to go up--above and beyond the special enforcement operations (and even if it that just means increasing the number of warnings)--if we want mobility staff's hard work here to be impactful.
Thank you, as always, for your help making our community safer.
Best wishes,
Brian Sweeney
Sunset Park resident
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
4 David Yakobson
From: Jacob Wasserman <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2024 8:46 PM
To: Council Mailbox; Gleam Davis; Phil Brock; Christine Parra; Lana Negrete; Jesse Zwick; Caroline Torosis; Oscar de la Torre; councilmtgitems
Subject: Item 10.B: Support Speed Limit Safety Changes
EXTERNAL
Dear Santa Monica City Council,
As a driver, pedestrian, biker, voter, resident, and parent, I am in support of the speed limit safety changes in Item 10.B and urge adoption. Living on 11th Street, this speed limit reduction will make me and my family safer.
I wish the California Incline speed limit increase could not be implemented, as speeding up and down that hill is already a huge risk and cause of crashes, but I understand state law forces your hand.
Thanks,
Jacob Wasserman
11th and Washington
90403
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
1 David Yakobson
From: Peter DiChellis <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2024 2:23 PM
To: councilmtgitems
Subject: ITEM 10 B Speed Limits
EXTERNAL
Safety measures on residential streets and near schools must include stronger enforcement of negligent and reckless bicycle riding, including on many of the same streets named in this proposal Santa Monica Department of Transportation data show bicyclists are nearly equally at fault in serious crashes but are cited far less than motor vehicle drivers, as follows:
Bicycle-involved Fatal and Severe Injury crashes in Santa Monica since 2010 Total: 72 =100%
Driver at Fault: 31= 43%
Cyclist at Fault: 26 = 36%
Other/No Fault: 15 = 21%
Citations at “Bicycle Safety Operations” (Sept-Dec 2023) Total: 132 = 100%
Drivers: 97 = 73%
Bicyclists: 35 = 27%
Despite this clear data, City policies continue to point a false finger of blame for bicycle safety at motor vehicle drivers.
For example in recent a pilot program to objectively measure whether vehicles blocked bicycle lanes, video showed only 16% of nearly 2,000 so-called “violations” were actually blocking the bike lane; the remaining 84% of “violations” happened when there was no lane blockage whatsoever but the vehicle’s tires were on the white line of the bike lane.
Perhaps the pilot program only demonstrated that curb parking spaces are not wide enough and despite best efforts drivers cannot easily fit their vehicles within the allotted space.
But, predictably and despite clear data, great moaning ensued about the risk to bicyclists. No mention of the risk cyclists pose to themselves and others when running stop signs, traveling against traffic, riding on sidewalks, and all manner of other recklessness instigated in Santa Monica.
Bottom line: “bicycle safety” and related safer-streets programs must include enforcing bicyclist safety, not simply pointing a false finger of blame at motor vehicle drivers.
Sincerely,
Peter DiChellis
Santa Monica
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024
Item 10-B
August 27, 2024