NYT: Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone

This is exactly why Santa Monica was a great place to grow up, but why I have no desire to live there again.

NYT:

That warning the other day was among hundreds that have been issued in a culturally tumultuous crackdown by Santa Monica officials against violators of a city ordinance, rarely enforced till now, that bars congregating on traffic medians.

The target is increasingly loud, littering and generally intrusive groups of exercisers who gather from dawn until dusk along the Fourth Street median. The ocean view, the air and for some the architectural spectacle have transformed the area into a huge outdoor gym rimmed by multimillion-dollar homes.

In the last six months, park rangers, dispatched by the Santa Monica Police Department in response to complaining neighbors, have stationed themselves on the corner of Fourth Street and Adelaide Drive during much of the day, at the ready to break up any unauthorized kickboxing. “I agree with the residents that they should not be rousted out of bed by a professional gym instructor at 6 in the morning saying, ‘One, two, three, four!’ ” said Bobby Shriver, a Santa Monica city councilman (“Recently re-elected with an even greater margin than I won by last time!”), who lives on Adelaide Drive but says he did not request the enforcement.

Since the patrols began, the city has issued eight citations for the flouting of the median law — the fine is $158 — and has given warnings, which are generally heeded, to about 600 people a month.

LA Times: Westside subway plans move forward

LA Times:

In a surprising and ambitious move, local transportation officials said Tuesday that they would pursue planning for two subway lines to the Westside, with one train along Wilshire Boulevard and a shorter leg partially following Santa Monica Boulevard before diving south to meet the Wilshire line.

Of course, the effort is still hypothetical, and Los Angeles still needs the money to build the multibillion-dollar rail line. But officials are showing unusual bravura for a project that looked to be dead a decade ago.

It was in 1998, amid several spending and construction boondoggles on the existing subway, that voters in L.A. County banned the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from using sales tax money for new subway tunneling.

That ban remains in effect, but complaints over Westside traffic have continued to pile up, fueling efforts to extend the subway.

Various routes have been discussed over the years, with recent momentum falling on the Wilshire corridor. But MTA officials never formally settled on a route until launching a study a year ago that sought public reaction, and then they began crunching numbers.

“We thought people would say they want a Wilshire line or we want a Santa Monica [Boulevard] line,” said Jody Litvak, a spokeswoman for the Metro Westside Extension study. “We were surprised they wanted both.”

[Hat tip: Ryan Stern]

A Santa Monica friend passes away

Mila Rainof, one of the smartest, ambitious and most interesting people that I knew in middle school and high school has suddenly passed away in a tragic car accident in New Haven, where she was attending medical school at Yale. While I lost contact with her over the years, I feel a renewed sense of connection, knowing that she would have come to Oakland this fall to start her residency.

The world is indeed worse-off without her. We’ll miss you, Mila.

NYT: Classic Beach, but Much More in Santa Monica

The NYT had a big piece today on my hometown, Santa Monica.

Next door, Rooms & Gardens (No. 1311-A) sells furniture, antiques and accessories like pillows fashioned from an antique Indian sari. The actress Mary Steenburgen, one of the store’s three owners, praised the walkability of the area — not a common commodity in Southern California — when I asked her about the location of her store.

“The thing I love about Montana is that you feel as if you are in a pedestrian city,” she said. “It’s fun to look out the window and see people walking by with their dogs, instead of just cars streaming by.”

I’m not going to comment much on it, other than to say that the key word here is “feel.”

News from the Westside

LA Times:

Much of the opposition to Villaraigosa’s plan emanates from the Pico-Robertson area, a heavily Jewish enclave that features a mix of auto body shops, dental offices, bakeries by the dozen, Israeli and Persian markets, Thai eateries, Catholic churches, synagogues and Chinese restaurants, including a kosher place with mezuzas on the doorways. The elements of this urban hodgepodge have set aside any cultural and ethnic differences to battle City Hall with a united front.

“The opposition is across the board from La Brea to Centinela,” said Scott McNeely, co-chairman of the Pico Neighborhood Council. “They’re going to do this at the expense of local businesses.” McNeely said he surveyed local businesses and found that many feared a loss of several hundred dollars a day in sales if rush-hour parking was eliminated.

Los Angeles transportation officials have said the plan would provide consistency for drivers along two important thoroughfares where rush-hour parking restrictions are intermittent. Despite that intention, officials last month suggested that they might allow some rush-hour parking on the north side of Pico to assuage opponents.

Meanwhile, residents are worked up about another issue that they say is related to the traffic plan. The city has been quietly considering extending the hours that nonresidents could park in “preferential parking” zones in neighborhoods. Residents of many neighborhoods in the Pico-Olympic corridor have resorted to permit-only parking to prevent restaurant valets and business customers from parking cars for extended periods on residential streets.

Some critics of the city’s no-parking plan see a connection. If the city eliminates peak-hour parking, more restaurants would have to use valet services, “which means they will have to encroach on residential areas,” said Jay Handal, chairman of the West Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. “To do that they would have to amend preferential parking.”

LA Times:

Local transportation officials have come up with a list of about a dozen potential subway routes on the Westside, with most of the corridors following either Wilshire Boulevard or Santa Monica Boulevard — or both.

All of the routes, along with other mass transit options for the congested Westside, will be discussed at a series of public meetings that begin tonight. Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will study the feasibility of the routes before releasing their preference this spring.

The subway project, estimated to cost $5 billion to $7 billion, has no funding and has not undergone a required environmental review. Nor has a new subway been approved by the MTA board, which consists mostly of elected officials and their appointees.

The route proposals are part of an ongoing “alternatives study” to determine what kind of mass transit would best serve the Westside. The MTA’s proposed routes were based on public comment received in recent months.

The many different routes are expected to spur discussion. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for example, has touted a line that follows Wilshire through Beverly Hills, before veering south to Century City. The line would swing back north to rejoin Wilshire near UCLA in Westwood.

Santa Monica High School Marching Band to perform in London on New Year’s Day 2009

More music tourism news, but this time, from my alma mater.

Santa Monica Daily Press:

The Santa Monica High School marching band will be marching over the Atlantic to London, England in 2009, ringing in the new year by performing in the city’s holiday parade.

The 130-member marching band and colorguard will head to perform in the New Year’s Day Parade in London, the entertainment unit’s first trip out of the country since the 1960s when it performed in Mazatlan.

Besides performing, the band will spend the eight-day trip seeing the sites in England.

With the opportunity to travel abroad and spend a week away from home, the number of band and colorguard members is expected to increase next year.

“Of course with that kind of excitement, it (will help) the recruiting,” said Terry Sakow, the director of bands at Samohi. “More kids will want to do marching band, so we might have a slightly bigger band next year.”

The trip is expected to heighten visibility for the 92-year-old high school’s marching band program, boosting recruitment, especially if the trips become a regular feature for the award-winning program.

“Obviously it adds to the reputation to play overseas,” Sakow said.

The parade’s organizing committee contacted the band director in September to extend an invitation to perform in the 22-year-old parade whose route travels along some of the city’s most famous sites, including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Piccadilly Circus. The committee learned about Santa Monica High School’s marching band thanks to Gary Locke, the long-time band director at Riverside Community College that endorsed the Viking marching band.

Back in SoCal

I’m in Santa Monica all weekend. Will be in Oaktown by midday on Monday.

Also, Highway 46 is one of the scariest stretches of road I’ve ever driven at night. It’s a two lane highway that’s really dark at night, and super far from everything.