Opinion: Santa Monica's Most Effective Option to Address Traffic

I hate to be the one to tell you this. Traffic congestion probably isn’t going to get any better. In fact, if we do nothing, it will likely get worse. 

Traffic congestion is a consequence of complex interactions that take place in cities and regions: people commuting and going about their days, businesses moving goods and restocking stores, countless other interactions. Because we— and I’m speaking as someone who studies cities and traffic—don’t know everything about these complex interactions, we don’t know everything about traffic. 

One thing we do know about traffic is that it defies our intuitions.  Intuitive solutions—those that would seem to improve traffic for an individual—tend to increase traffic congestion for a community. The best rule-of-thumb to understand traffic congestion in places like the Westside is that it isn’t a result of the number trips that people have to make, but rather how willing people are to be stuck in traffic.

We also know that successful places—such as Santa Monica—attract a lot of people and are more prone to traffic congestion than are less successful places.  So does this mean we should make Santa Monica less attractive to address traffic? Most likely not.

So what can Santa Monica do? 

Well, we could stop growth here, but unless we get rid of the beach and some of our more endearing neighborhoods, people will still want to live around here.  And they literally will live around here—in the surrounding City of Los Angeles, which has grown faster than Santa Monica.

What if both Santa Monica and Los Angeles stopped growing? People would still come to our successful city, but from farther away, coming from places where alternatives to driving aren't as viable. 

But what if traffic did get a little better? What if we could double deck the freeways and our major boulevards to increase capacity? 

The problem is something called "latent demand"—think of the additional trips you’d take if traffic were a little better.  Now multiply that by everyone else.  Now you understand our predicament.

Maybe Santa Monica residents who are mad as hell and can’t take it anymore will move out. New residents–residents who are less bothered by traffic–will take the place of these traffic refugees.

Is the new resident who takes their place less bothered by traffic because they don’t drive much, or because they really enjoy listening to podcasts while stuck in the car?  Santa Monica can attract the former over the latter.

How can Santa Monica do this? Parking policy. All vehicle trips are between parking spaces. This makes parking policy a city’s strongest option to affect traffic congestion.

Take residential parking requirements. By requiring all new residents to pay for a parking spot whether they use it or not, Santa Monica’s current parking policy attracts the type of people who like to drive and aren’t too bothered by traffic.  We could allow new residents the option not to pay for a parking space—and prohibit them (and developers) from gaming the system by using on-street spaces. 

A growing share of the population chooses their homes based on access to car share, bike lanes, high quality transit, and activities within walking distance.  Attracting a large share of such households is Santa Monica’s best long-term hope at improving the transportation system’s effect on our community’s quality of life.

Because of all the complex interactions that happen in cities, it’s hard to make a substantial change to one policy (such as parking) without necessitating a series of concurrent policy changes.  This leads to a lot of change proposed all at once.  However, if the goal is to combat traffic, the choice isn’t about whether or not we grow. The choice is about how we grow. 

Without changing how we grow, traffic will continue to get a little bit worse every year. By taking a more active role in managing how our city grows, Santa Monica can lessen traffic’s stranglehold on this city.

Juan Matute lives in Santa Monica and researches cities and climate change at the University of California, Los Angeles.