Building a Better Redondo The Traffic Report

Traffic

Over-development
Over-development adds to our traffic woes by forcing too many cars onto our streets.

Each Upzoning the City approves makes the situation worse because the City is unprepared to handle this additional growth.

More accidents, more pollution, more wasting time and gasoline.

Large-scale development continues to build housing that is too dense and generates too many cars for the surrounding neighborhood and the community at large. It reduces the quality of life for us all as we spend more and more time in traffic and less time doing the things we love.

A 2006 Redondo Voter Survey commissioned by the City said the two top concerns of voters were managing/ limiting development and traffic. Measure DD can help.

How BBR's Measure DD Works to Keep Traffic from Worsening

MEASURE DD will allow us to vote on large-scale developments created by upzoning which create the worst local traffic
MEASURE DD requires the City and the developer to put forth real numbers when doing a required traffic analysis.
Shouldn't we know how many cars will result from a large development?
MEASURE DD in part uses traffic as an indicator in helping determine what can or cannot be built without a vote.

The initiative's traffic thresholds are designed around one of the critical metrics: the level of service of our critical intersections.

The Current Zoning Situation and the City's "Upzoning"

The Current Zoning Standards set for Redondo Beach allow for over 5,000 new residential units to be built -- which translates to about 29,000 car trips per day.

Think about it. That is alot of new homes and alot of traffic coming to Redondo.

But the City doesn't see it that way. They continue to Upzone development ABOVE the 5000 new homes - promoting a broken system that creates even MORE traffic.

The City sets Zoning Standards - then in effect bulldozes them for even more development taking our revenue-generating commercial areas along with it.

How Can Redondo sustain this level of growth via "Upzoning" without creating a strain on our infrastructure, our fire and police departments and our schools?

The answer is we cannot. Upzoning above our Current Zoning Standards, which are very generous, erodes our quality of life and has strained our City and its financial future.

The Resident's Measure DD respects Redondo's Current Zoning Standards - protecting property while allowing for a vote of the people when the City wants to "Upzone" in your neighborhood.

The City States that Traffic is Decreasing - Do You Believe It?

Quote from the City of Redondo's Website:

"Caltrans reports decrease in traffic: When the State of California’s Department of Transportation (Caltrans) recently released its 2006 average daily traffic counts on State highways, the City of Redondo Beach was pleased to find traffic on Pacific Coast Highway decreased last year by eight (8) percent." Webpage here.

We wanted to point out that the City must of forgot to report the other numbers from the CalTrans report. We highlight them for you in this nifty chart:

Image of Caltrans chart

The City Is Bombarded By Traffic Complaints

Cut-through Traffic is a concern - as well as accidents

While the City wants us to believe traffic is decreasing they are being inundated with traffic complaints.

Their recent efforts to try to abate cut through traffic as well as their Traffic Calming Measures and Traffic Hotline proves the point.

Recent City Traffic Studies have reported increased cut through traffic as a problem. Our residential streets are becoming shortcuts because of the traffic on our arterials.

The City Does A License Plate Survey

From The City's Webpage:
"To assess who uses the City’s roadways, the City recently conducted a sample license plate survey during the morning northbound commute on Pacific Coast Highway. The results point to the City being a gateway to destinations to the north: 68 percent of Pacific Coast Highway traffic is from vehicle trips originating outside of Redondo Beach." Webpage here.

We reject these findings --

License plate matching is known to have disadvantages, to say the least. For one thing, it is limited to the geographic coverage of a single day and it's limited by the location where you are recording the data.

Moreover, using the data from cars going North on PCH and then making a determination that, "...68 percent of Pacific Coast Highway traffic is from vehicle trips originating outside of Redondo Beach." is not correct.

The data collected was only from Northbound PCH traffic, one one day at one location.

The City continues to use faulty data to support it's argument that over-development is not linked to traffic problems.

Measure DD requires real numbers from real developments - so we know what we are voting on.

The Latest in the Harbor

The latest we hear from the City is that they are proposing to accept 750,000 additional sq ft of commercial zoning, possibly including a new hotel in the Harbor and Pier area. The total amount of sq ft proposed may exceed 1.2 million sq ft !

Since the Redondo Voters have rejected this type of development in the Harbor area, we are not sure why this is moving forward.

Not sure what square footage looks like? Here are some examples:

-- The new huge Plaza El Segundo is around 380,000 sq ft.
-- South Bay Galleria is 872,847 sq ft
-- The Shade Boutique Hotel and Metlox Area in MB is 63,850 sq ft with over 40,000 sq ft of public open space. The people of Manhattan Beach were allowed to vote on this complex.

Major upzoning for development in the harbor would affect the surrounding community as well as the boating community and existing pier businesses. Traffic must be considered.

Learn more about the Harbor Proposal here.

Measure DD would allow us to vote on these and similar land use zoning changes in Redondo. VOTE YES on Measure DD.

_____________________________

Traffic Misc. File:
From a 2007 landmark traffic study done on the LA area*:

Entire Reuters Article here.
* Texas A&M 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report