City Council Meeting: November 13, 2007

Agenda Item: 8-F  

To:                   Mayor and City Council 

From:              Eileen Fogarty, Planning & Community Development

Subject:          Endorsement of Planning Principles for the Industrial Areas and Consideration of Transportation Strategies in the Land Use and Circulation Element Update Process

 

Recommended Action

Staff recommends that the City Council:

1.      endorse “Industrial Lands Principles” as developed through the community outreach process and summarized in this report; and

2.      comment on the concepts presented at the first Transportation Workshop and endorse general approach for development of Principles for the next Transportation workshop.

 

Executive Summary

The Industrial Lands are well situated to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the future transit stations to create neighborhoods near transit with workforce housing and adjacencies to local, walkable services that will reduce auto trips.   Many of the community’s desirable objectives for creative arts and incubator space, open space, sustainability and preservation can be advanced as the area is planned.  These considerations will be overlaid within the context of the desired urban fabric, massing and scale, with particular attention to transitions between the adjacent residential areas.  An underlying assumption is that the City’s industrial and related employment base would be protected.   The Principles considered by the community at the second Industrial Lands workshop will be presented to Council in a supplemental report after the workshop.

 

The Transportation workshop held on October 6th engaged the public in a thoughtful discussion regarding causes of traffic congestion, effective opportunities for action, and measurement of the City’s transportation system performance. The workshop was well-attended with 140 actively engaged community members. Some of the key points for Council discussion include:

·        Different congestion types and locations require different solutions. 

·        Santa Monica should identify and incorporate proactive tools for managing future regional congestion.

·        Transportation Demand Management should be considered for major employers and implemented on a “district” basis. Such measures can significantly reduce employee auto trips associated with existing and new employment centers. 

·        Smarter parking management strategies that can have a major impact on specific types of congestion by reducing the amount of vehicles and time spent searching for a parking space should be introduced city wide.

·        Planning for bicycles, transit and pedestrians needs to be further expanded and integrated into the City’s street fabric.

·        New street classifications should be established to assure transit, auto, pedestrian and bicycle continuity, connectivity and appropriateness to land use context.

·        Greater connectivity in vehicular and pedestrian routes should be provided, particularly where circulation patterns are not consistent with the City pattern.

·        Santa Monica would benefit from transportation performance measures that reflect the largest goals of the city: that is, to balance congestion management with other goals, including economic viability, quality of life and ecological sustainability.

 

Discussion

Background

The Principles for the City’s new Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) are gradually being formed through a series of interactive community workshops.  The intent is to continue developing principles through a series of workshops this fall and winter and to develop a Draft LUCE concept plan for review by the public in late spring.  To date, the City has held three Neighborhood Preservation and Placemaking workshops, one community-wide Placemaking workshop, two Industrial Lands workshops and one Transportation workshop.   Future workshops will address the City’s economic and housing diversity and the City’s boulevards and commercial areas.  A number of smaller work sessions will address the Main Street, Montana and Downtown areas as well as meetings with the city’s major employers.   

 

This report is intended to accomplish two objectives.  First, the City held its second Industrial Lands workshop on October 25th, where draft Industrial Lands Principles were presented to the community for their comment and feedback.  Since that meeting will occur after the writing of this report, a supplemental report will be provided to summarize community response to the Principles presented.  It is intended that the Council will review and potentially adopt Industrial Lands Principles at the October 30th meeting

 

A second purpose of this report is to share the initial concepts presented at the Transportation workshop held October 6th to get feedback and direction from Council concerning the development of these concepts.  A second Transportation and Parking workshop, to be held this winter, will share the draft Principles with the community for their consideration and comment.

 

Industrial Lands Principles

The workshop participants reviewed proposed Principles for the “industrial lands” area of the City, generally bounded by Centinela Avenue on the east, the I-10 Freeway on the south, Lincoln Boulevard on the west and Colorado Avenue/Broadway on the north as indicated in Exhibit A.  This area contains the current LMSD (Light Manufacturing and Studio District) and the M1 (Industrial Conservation District).   The discussion focused on three types areas envisioned for Santa Monica’s future over the next 20 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibit A

·        Traditional Industrial:  There was strong support for preserving and fostering the City’s traditional industry as an important part of the City’s economy and job base.   Maintaining this type of district will continue to provide lower cost opportunities for small and incubator businesses.  A recommended principle was to restrict housing in this area to ensure future industrial land availability and create other small business opportunities.

·        Creative Arts/ Transit Neighborhoods: The two special opportunity areas adjacent to the proposed transit stations in the vicinity of Memorial Park and Bergamot Station were visualized as future creative arts neighborhoods.  The areas would encourage workforce housing convenient to neighborhood services within a walkable range to reduce auto trips.  A mix of arts and entertainment uses would be encouraged to create vitality throughout the week and into the evening hours.  The Bergamot arts center would be preserved and enhanced, servicing as a key focal point for the area.

·         Mixed Use/ Creative Arts/ Industrial:  Other areas would foster a variety of uses including creative arts, industrial uses and housing.  The primary use would be creative arts with a range of housing types to be incentivized, including housing for singles, families and seniors.  There would be a special emphasis on affordable workforce housing. Neighborhood and business serving retail would be encouraged in specific locations to promote walking.  Opportunities for new and sustainable green industries would be fostered.  Street-front commercial and industrial uses would be encouraged along the light rail alignment.

 

Other principles proposed for the Industrial areas were general to the entire area and were topical in nature.  These included:

·        Urban Design Principles for the Industrial Lands:

Ø      Maintain and create fine-grained streetscape fabric

Ø      Assure that buildings are appropriately scaled to their surroundings and the City.

Ø      Assure that buildings are well designed and contribute to the “public benefit”

Ø      Assure that buildings face and engage the street (the public realm) and are compatible with the pedestrian scaled streetscape

Ø      Establish overlay zones to assure compatibility of new construction with adjacent residential neighborhoods and historic buildings

 

 

·        Open Space/ Park / Recreation Principles for Industrial Lands:

Ø      Create a “Freeway Forest”

Ø      Require green or open space public benefit with new major development

Ø      Connect parks and open space with pedestrian and bike routes

 

·        Transportation Principles for Industrial Lands:

Ø      Focus “change areas” along transit routes

Ø      Breakdown the I-10 Freeway barrier

Ø      Provide goods and services within walking distance to reduce vehicle trips

Ø      Move towards jobs/housing balance through mixed-use development that includes workforce housing, extends the hours of transit use and mixes the direction of peak hour travel

Ø      Provide north-south Big Blue Bus transit connections to the light rail stations

 

·        Parking Principles for Industrial Lands:

Ø      Consider shared parking facilities for commercial development through a parking district and capitalize on the diversity of uses (fewer spaces required)

Ø      Consider reducing parking requirements near transit stations

Ø      Consider maximum parking ratios

 

Several overarching implementation principles are key to the success of these principles, including: (1) Consideration for coordination and timing with the development of the light rail transit system; and (2) the need for the preparation of Specific or Area Plans to provide more detailed guidance for the areas.

 

Transportation Workshop

The October 6th workshop was the first comprehensive forum on the topic of transportation in the LUCE community outreach effort.   The workshop provided a forum for the community to better understand the transportation issues facing the City and also to become more knowledgeable about the opportunities for action.  The format included a series of presentations and interactive discussions with the 140 community members participating.

 

The workshop proactively engaged the community in approaches to address congestion and the quality of life within the City as related to the transportation system.  Future congestion is largely a result of regional factors that surround the City of Santa Monica and there is no single approach that is going to address it.  Rather, a range of strategies knit together based on a comprehensive plan is proposed.   The strategies include the following considerations:

  • Physical Measures: This includes connectivity of the grid system and ensuring desirable facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists.

 

  • Land Use Context and Connections: This includes opportunities created along transit routes, and the light rail in particular.  It also includes encouraging services within walking distance of residential and employment nodes.

 

  • Investment in Connectivity:  This could include additional cross-town bus service, encouragement of for car sharing programs at strategic locations and provision of bike stations at major transit hubs.

 

  • Employment Demand Management Measures:  This could include measures that enhance the City’s current program to significantly reduce auto trips.

 

  • Address Specific Sources of Congestions:  Some of the sources of congestion internal to the City can be addressed at the source and these include congestion related to employment, school drop-off and pick-up and special events.

 

The workshop explored an approach for the City street system that would define each street by a typology and would include consideration for the broader livable community goals of the city to accommodate transit, walkers and bicyclists in additional to automobiles.   The workshop also presented a system of performance measures that assess the quality of service for all modes including transit, auto, bicycle and pedestrians.

 

Current Traffic

Identified Areas of Congestion and Level of Service maps for the entire City in the morning and evening peak hours (Exhibits B-1 and B-2) indicated that congestion is concentrated in certain areas.  Much of the congestion is periodic, limited and localized in the downtown, near freeway ramps, related to events or the beach, to parking searches, specific intersection issues or school drop-off and pick-up.  Five primary sources of congestion, with solutions and recommendations offered for each were identified (Exhibit C contains the full list of recommendations.)

 

 

Exhibit B-1: Intersection Level of Service – AM Peak

Exhibit B-2: Intersection Level of Service – PM Peak

1.      Freeway Traffic: A key factor of traffic congestion is the backups relating to access and egress to the I-10 Freeway.  Short of congestion pricing, Santa Monica’s options to reduce the problem are very limited.  The best approach is to locate this type of congestion in areas of the city where it has the least impact.  By "metering" traffic coming on and off the freeway, Santa Monica can limit the number of cars that can back up into the neighborhoods. 

 

2.      Employment: Employment is a large contributor to AM and PM peak traffic.  It is easier to create a modal shift for employment trips, i.e. reduce the number of single occupancy vehicles, compared to other types of trips. Aggressive transportation demand management (TDM) employer-based programs can significantly reduce amount of traffic – Water Garden (as Development Agreement condition) reduced trips by 50%.  Other measures suggested for consideration in addressing work-based trips are: parking cash-out requirements, universal transit passes, focusing office space near transit; use of parking as management tool, personalized travel information (i.e. “Travel Choice” programs that provide direct, personalized commute options and incentives), incentives for existing employers  and identify new funding sources to help cover the cost of these programs (e.g. impact fees, public benefit requirements, parking taxes, congestion pricing.)

 

3.      School: School related traffic is a significant contributor to AM congestion (as much as 25%) since it is concentrated in spot locations, with  multiple turning movements, double parking and other hazardous maneuvers.   Walking and biking to school can be encouraged as ways to reduce congestion and improve student fitness.   Safe Routes to Schools program have been proven to be very effective in that they address both the physical aspects of safety and classroom activities to promote safety and awareness.  It was suggest that a city-wide Safe Routes to Schools program could be developed.   Also suggested were walking school buses for elementary grades and universal transit passes for middle school-aged children and older.

 

4.      Beach: Santa Monica is one of the few places where the freeway takes you directly to the beach.  The parking is scattered in many locations, with motorists turning and queuing for spaces.   Expanding real-time parking information to include changeable message signs to direct motorists approaching the beach to the closest available parking was suggested.  City staff recently obtained a grant from Metro for this purpose.  Another suggestion is to use variable pricing to manage demand.  This recommendation was implemented as part of the Coastal Circulation study a number of years ago, but it may be time to assess and adjust the pricing again.

 

 

5.      Santa Monica Residents:  Santa Monica residents own fewer cars and drive less than typical for the region, and this is especially true for the mixed use neighborhoods near transit.  Santa Monica residents can walk to more services than just about anywhere else in Los Angeles County.  The measures that reinforce these factors are related to land use decisions and the suggestions included:

·         Promoting local retail by supporting mixed, local-serving, unique retail. Locating services within walking distances reinforces the Placemaking Principles developed in the previous workshops.

·         Any new residential opportunity should be focused near retail corridors and transit – and in Santa Monica these are currently the same.  In the future the Expo Light Rail will provide expanded options.

 

Additional suggestions to address resident needs included the expansion of residential car share programs and unbundling residential parking costs.

 

Regional Growth

Santa Monica will need tools to manage the impacts of the tremendous amount of projected regional growth.  Effective, proactive traffic management requires a holistic approach that focuses on many smaller changes as opposed to one major solution to address traffic congestion.

 

Infrastructure - Great Streets

It is essential to expand our focus to a variety of transportation modes since no one solution is going provide all the answers.  One of Santa Monica’s strengths is its investment in all modes of transportation, as there are still many opportunities for improvement.  The general direction for further improvement could include:

·        Walking: Identify areas for sidewalks improvements, including the addition of missing links, areas in need of widening and prioritized streetscape improvement projects.

 

·        Biking: Santa Monica has the future makings of a great biking city because of the topography, size and climate.  Three key elements are necessary: (1) provide a connected bike network; (2)  provide safe, sheltered places to park bikes; and (3) encourage a supportive culture that treats cycling as an ever day activity.  suggestions included.

 

·        Transit: Santa Monica has an important advantage in managing its own successful transit system.  Implementation of signal priority for four rapid buses bus routes within the City is funded and underway as part of the City’s signal upgrade program (the City has received a grant from Metro for this and is implementing this improvement sin Phases 2 and 3 of the City’s Advance Signal Traffic Management Program).   Another resource is real-time bus arrival information at bus stops (note: BBB is in the process of implementing this in the downtown and its busiest bus stops.)  Most significant is the incredible opportunity that the Expo light rail will bring, preferably with three stations at Bergamot, 17th Street and downtown. 

 

Measuring Success

The transportation system is ultimately a means of supporting the larger goal of accessibility. Typical measures that address intersection delay (known as “level of service” analysis) do not address other transportation modes, the person capacity of the system and factors such as the average speed in a corridor.  There are a number ways to think about defining success of the City’s transportation system.

 

Street Typologies: Part of the LUCE plan will be the creation of new street typologies that identify land use context that transportation needs to support and the importance of each street for the modal network.  A neighborhood commercial district street has different needs and priorities than one of the boulevards or a neighborhood residential street.

 

Quality of Service:  Quality of service can then be used as a better indicator of how well the transportation system works for the community rather than level of service Measurements can be developed to assess each mode. Examples of the types of measures that could be used

  • Transit: The measures could include frequency, hours of service, reliability, capacity and travel speed by line, quadrant or some other factor.

 

  • Automobile: The measure could include travel time between specific points and the steadiness of the speed.

 

  • Pedestrians: The measure could include perceived safety, quality of the environment (sidewalk, land use adjacencies, greenery, level of traffic), frequency of protected crossings.

 

  • Bicycle: A bicycle compatibility index could be developed that would take into consideration the roadway geometrics (number of lanes, width of lanes, character of area); traffic operations data (speed, volumes, trucks, driveways); and parking.

 

The workshop concluded with a discussion of how transportation serves the needs of Santa Monica and the goals of our community. The Council-adopted goals for the Circulation Element were overlapped with the goals of the Sustainable City plan (Exhibit D). This process enables the evaluation of transportation as a contributor to quality of life beyond mobility, as a contributor of accessing goods, services and recreation rather than simply traveling quickly.  Finally performance indicators that reflect the goals and priorities of the community can be tracked over time, similar to the indicators successfully used in the Sustainable City Plan.  The idea that transportation can mean walkable streets, vibrant retail districts and enjoyable access for people using all modes resonated with most participants.

 

Transportation Workshop Follow-up

Through a series of exercises, workshop participants identified locations where traffic is perceived to be worse, locations where they thought inevitable freeway on/off ramp congestion should be concentrated, areas that should be relatively congestion-free, as well as areas where some congestion is tolerable. Community members were receptive to the strategies presented to reduce the need to drive and developed additional strategies through their work in small groups. The output from the breakout groups is being compiled by staff and will be presented at a follow-up transportation workshop this winter.

 

Budget/Financial Impact

The recommendations presented in this report do not have any budget or fiscal impacts.

Approved:

 

Forwarded to Council:

 

 

 

 

Eileen Fogarty

Director, Planning & Community Development

 

P. Lamont Ewell

City Manager

 

 

Attachments:

Exhibit C: Measures for Consideration Presented at October 6 Transportation Workshop

Exhibit D: Potential Citywide Transportation Goals and Performance Measures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXHIBIT C:

 

MEASURES FOR CONSIDERATION

PRESENTED AT

OCTOBER 6 TRANSPORTATION WORKSHOP

 

Freeway Congestion

·           Locate congestion where it has the least impact and keep it from spreading

·           Identify local routes to avoid bottlenecks

·           Smarter regional traffic management

·           Create transportation alternatives that avoid congestion: Expo Line, Subway-to-Sea, walking, biking

·           Create and maintain local services to reduce Santa Monicans’ need to drive long distances

 

Employment/Shopping Congestion

·           Create TDM program requirements: Adopt a trip reduction ordinance for all new development that requires 30% fewer peak auto trips than typical (ITE rate)

·           Parking cash-out requirement, allows employees/residents who don’t drive to take the cash value of the parking subsidy, use incentives to apply parking cash-out for existing businesses

·           Universal Transit Pass Develop a joint universal pass program with Big Blue Bus and MTA and require passes for all employees in new projects

·           Focus any development near transit

o       Expo Stations

o       Downtown

o       Rapid corridors

·           Parking Management, manage parking to ensure adequate availability at all times and reduce search traffic

·           Adjust parking requirements to reflect trip reduction goals and use savings to improve access by other modes

·           Manage spillover into residential neighborhoods – and capture its value

·           Price parking to discourage peak hour driving

·           Personalized travel information programs reach out to commuters and provide direct, personalized commute options and incentives

·           Incentives for trip reductions for existing employers:

o       Create Business Improvement Districts or Community Benefit Districts and provide matching funds

o       Provide better city services for employers and districts that reduce trips – streetscape projects, sidewalk cleaning, etc.

o       Tiered pricing for programs, like universal transit passes

o       Awards and advertising

o       Tax incentives and impact fees

·           Identify new funding sources:

o       Development Impact Fee. Base on auto trips using URBEMIS (San Joaquin County), but use to fund transit, TDM, etc (San Francisco)

o       Public Benefits requirements

o       Parking Impact Fee on new development

o       Parking tax

o       Congestion pricing (London, Stockholm, being pursued in San Francisco, New York.)

 

School Congestion

·           Develop Safe Routes to Schools Program

o       Include traffic calming and other engineering investments

o       Include classroom component

·           Implement universal transit pass program for students including elementary, middle, high schools and colleges

 

Beach Congestion

·           Changeable message signs on major approaches to direct drivers to available parking

·           Variable pricing at beach parking lots – high enough in the summer so just a few spaces are usually available, lower cost or free when demand is low

·           Access management at beach parking lots to reduce turning and queuing vehicles

 

Santa Monica Residents

·           Promote Local Retail

o       Support mixed, locally serving, unique retail

o       Consider formula retail restrictions

o       Monitor retail imbalances and establish moratoria on specific uses as necessary

·           Focus change around transit and retail: any new residential opportunity should be focused near retail corridors and transit – in Santa Monica, these are the same

·           Residential Carshare Program

·           Unbundle Residential Parking Costs, separate the cost of housing from the cost of parking, particularly in rental housing

 

Pedestrian Recommendations

·           Develop Quality of Service standards and map

·           Complete missing sidewalk sections and widen where possible

·           Prioritize major streetscape improvement project

 

Bicycling Recommendations

·           Incremental implementation of bike network

·           Bike Station at Expo Line terminus

·           Bicycle Boulevards

 

Transit Recommendations

·           Support Expo Line and plan station locations at Bergamot Station, 17th St/SMC and Downtown

·           Improve signal prioritization for buses on primary transit streets, especially Wilshire, Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Main and Lincoln

·           Provide more real-time bus arrival information at bus stops

EXHIBIT D:

 

Potential Citywide Transportation Goals and Performance Measures

 

The transportation system needs to support not just local mobility, but all of the City’s goals.  In order to measure how well the transportation system supports these goals, quantifiable performance measures are necessary.

 

The following chart draws from two sets of goals adopted by the City of Santa Monica.  It starts with the eight goals of the Sustainable City Plan.  Under the Sustainable City Plan’s “Transportation” goal, the adopted goals of the General Plan’s Transportation Element are included.

 

Following each goal is a brief description of the key ways the transportation system supports this goal and a potential way of measuring the degree to which transportation is successful in doing so.  The proposed performance measures were developed to:

  • Draw from existing data already being collected by the City, or data that is readily available
  • Form the shortest possible list of measures that still capture the essence of the goals
  • Remain comprehensible to the public and elected officials, allowing for a simple “dashboard” report on the transportation system’s overall performance

 

Adopted and Proposed Goals

Potential Measures

Resource Conservation

 

Environmental Responsibility: For a transportation system that minimizes, and where possible eliminates, pollution, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle congestion

·     Total Vehicle Miles Traveled. 

·     Per Capita Vehicle Miles Traveled.

These measures closely correlate with most of the environmental impacts of transportation

Environmental and Public Health

 

Personal Health: Reduce rates of cardiovascular disease and obesity through increased rates of walking and bicycling, particularly for school trips

·     Pedestrian and bicycle mode split, including school trips

Personal Safety:  See “Universal Safety” under Transportation, below.

·     See below

Transportation

 

Environmental Responsibility: See Resource Conservation, above

·     See above

Community Care: For a transportation system that links conveniently-placed land uses and amenities to enable people to be health, to pursue fitness, cultural, educational and commercial opportunities and participate in the community

·     Accessibility index for specific locations across the city.

Effective Transportation System: For everyone to get where they need to go comfortably, and where walking, bicycling and using transit replace as many auto trips as possible to reduce congestion and maintain mobility as travel demand grows

·     Mode split

·     Peak hour person capacity of specific corridors

Local and Regional Mobility: For people to be able to travel easily within Santa Monica and to and from regional destinations in a way that preserves the quality of life in residential neighborhoods

·     Peak hour person delay between specific points.

·     Motor vehicle speed and volume on specific non-arterial residential streets

Universal Safety: For pedestrians, cyclists, transit-riders and drivers to feel and be safe regardless of their age or ability

·     Rates, locations and causes of transportation related injuries and fatalities.

·     Surveyed perception of travel safety

 

Well Designed Spaces:  For quality designed pedestrian-oriented public spaces so people can travel quickly and comfortably, can enjoy the outdoors and interact with other people

 

·     Citywide Pedestrian Quality of Service analysis

·     Accessibility Transition Plan Implementation

Economic Development

 

Local Retail. Support locally serving retail within walking distance of most residents

·     Accessibility index (see Community Care)

·     Local retail district sales tax per square foot for businesses under ~2,000 square feet

·     Pedestrian Quality of Service (see Well Designed Spaces)

Parking availability.  Ensure adequate parking availability, particularly for retailers.

·     Ensure approximately 15% of spaces are available in all lots and garages and on all blocks at all times.

Open Space and Land Use

 

Special Streets.  Ensure a high degree of use and maintenance for Santa Monica’s unique recreational and ceremonial streets

·     Average daily pedestrian use of designated streets, such as San Vicente median, Oceanfront Walk, Beach Bike Path, Palisades Park.

Housing

 

Jobs/Housing Match.  Locate employment to be accessible via transit to housing units that match the salary of the jobs provided

·     Percent of homes in Santa Monica affordable to Santa Monica workers

·     Percent of homes in key transit corridors affordable to Santa Monica workers

Housing + Transportation Costs.  Create more housing opportunities by reducing the costs of transportation for residents

·     Rate of residential parking unbundling

·     Rate of transit pass program utilization

Community Education and Participation

 

Program Awareness. Santa Monicans should be aware of their transportation choices.

·     Rate of familiarity with transportation options offered in Santa Monica

Human Dignity

 

Equity.  Ensure the costs and benefits of transportation investments accrue equitably to Santa Monicans, regardless of income, race, age or ability.

·     Ensure all other measures are met equitably across the city, especially locations with concentrations of low income, elderly, children and disabled residents.