More NIMBYism to the Olympic-Pico Plan

Call for Your Help against Pico/Olympic “Plan” « Wilshire Highlands

Call for Your Help against Pico/Olympic “Plan”
February 22, 2008, 8:43 pm
Filed under: Los Angeles, Olympic/Pico, community groups, neighborhood associations, traffic

Dear Neighbor,

Many people in the area are upset about the Mayor’s decision to by-pass the City Council and the city’s Transportation Committee and put the Pico-Olympic plan into place by March. Many feel that it deserves further study before being implemented and, legally there MUST be an Environmental Impact Report per California state law.There are others who may not be against the plan as much as they are against the Mayor going around the normal city approval process.

Those who work or have children who attend a school on or near Olympic or Pico (Carthay Center, Saturn and others) may find that getting to and from the school is increasingly dangerous and difficult if the “freeway” conditions that many expect do, indeed, occur.

If you want to cut to the chase, here’s the pitch. If you want to see further study (such as an Environmental Impact Report) done before this plan is imposed on our neighborhood, you CAN do something to help. DONATE NOW. Write a check to help pay for the lawsuit that Pico-Olympic Solutions is filing in order to make sure an Environmental Impact Report is conducted before this goes through. They are trying to reach $20,000 by tomorrow and they are well on their way, but they need more donations.

Pico-Olympic Solutions has retained the law firm which successfully fought the Mayor’s LAUSD takeover bid. No amount is too small. $5, $10, or more (obviously) can help. Make payable to GWLACC (Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce). Put Pico-Olympic Solutions in the memo line. (GWLACC is a non-profit foundation, so your donation should be tax deductible.) No donation is too small or too large. Let me know if you have a check that you would like picked up. Or you can drop it in my mailbox (either my 1070 Hi Point Street mail slot or the Friends of Carthay Center mailbox at school) and I’ll get it to the Pico-Olympic Solutions organizers.

More info at FixTheCity.org where you’ll find a chronology of events with city reports, emails, letters, newspaper articles, etc. about the issue. You can truly inform yourself. And if you want to read further on the subject, continue.

Opinions below reflect neighborhood leaders, residents, and business owners who feel that the Pico-Olympic proposal will create significant and negative consequences for the areas surrounding Pico and Olympic. In any event, whatever your personal opinion, an Environmental Impact Report NEEDS to be conducted. Everyone agrees that traffic is terrible, we’ve seen it get increasingly impossible over the last few years. But there are many who feel that…

1. making it easier for single occupant cars to get from A to B will be short-lived benefit as additional cars are encouraged to use and then clog the targeted streets of Pico and Olympic (a band-aid with huge repercussions)

2. the cost-benefit (7 minutes shaved off commute in best case scenario, if one is driving from La Brea to Centinela) is not worth the harm it does to the neighborhoods, the mom and pop businesses, and the health and safety of children and residents

3. Santa Monica has developed and approved additional businesses without any thought to the toll it takes on the roads leading TO Santa Monica. Santa Monica is reaping the increased tax revenue without a proportionate piece of the “pain.” Employees of these businesses can’t afford to live in Santa Monica and there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of thought about how all of these employees will get TO Santa Monica.

4. Most importantly, that it is unlawful for the Mayor to push through a pet project without the proper checks & balances of an Environmental Impact Report, approval from the City Council and agreement from the Traffic Committee.

For those who live near Fairfax and Olympic, we’ve all seen how a decision quite some distance away can have a ripple effect on those beyond the anticipated “zone of disruption.” Fairfax traffic became impossible after the Grove opened. All of the Environmental Impact Reports and traffic mitigation solutions were for the immediate area near the Grove. No thought was put into (or no one cared) what the Grove would do to traffic from the 10 freeway leading north to the Grove. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grove, but its impact reached far beyond its legally defined “impact” zone.

So now they want to push the Pico-Olympic through without even an Environmental Impact Report? When it runs right through residential neighborhoods and small business districts? Nothing? This is madness.

Show me that the small businesses won’t be severely impacted by the loss of almost all of their parking and being on a street that the Mayor has determined should favor cars over pedestrians.

Show me that the speed limit will be enforced 24/7 (already there are multiple cars zooming through a 25 mph school zone at 45-50 mph, and this will suddenly stop because of enforcement? Yet, there’s no money to pay for increased enforcement.)

Show me that air quality will not take a dive as there is an increase in number of cars on Olympic & Pico and idling cars on north/south streets (surely, for this to “work,” the “timing” of the east & west routes will take precedence over the timing of the north/south streets such as Fairfax, Crescent Heights, La Cienega, etc.)

Show me that Olympic/Pico won’t become a mini-freeway.

Show me that the residents and business owners near Pico and Olympic won’t bear the brunt of the City’s failure to properly plan transportation and development (if, about 10 years ago, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky hadn’t derailed the subway construction leading west from its current terminus at Western and Wilshire, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess!)

Hope you are inspired to find out more and get involved, whichever side of the debate you may fall on!

Susan Nickerson