We have a public safety problem in South Pasadena, but it may not be the one you are thinking of. The safety problem is that too many of our city’s streets are designed for high-speed, cut-through driving rather than people outside of cars. We were reminded of that last week when we lost another member of our community to traffic violence. We ask readers to think of them on November 17, which is “World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims”.
In the last decade, city records show that there were 40 violent crimes in South Pasadena, while 790 people were injured in traffic collisions. In other words, it is 19 times more likely to be injured in a traffic collision than in a violent crime in South Pasadena. In just the last two years, terrifying collisions on Orange Grove, Marengo, and Meridian Avenues killed two people and injured four others. State and national traffic collision data show that the injury rate for pedestrians and cyclists have increased by 80% over the last decade.
This problem touches on everything from the quality of our air to the city budget to the education of our city’s children. Unsafe streets make it difficult for people to enjoy local businesses.
Unsafe streets also encourage more people to abandon our public spaces for the safety of a private vehicle. Our city feels obliged to spend millions to maintain roads that are used by commuters whose only interest is driving through our city as quickly as possible.
The problem is obvious to anyone in town around 8am or 3pm when our streets are jammed with cars shuttling our city’s children to and from school. There are about 5000 students in South Pasadena and over 10000 trips to and from our schools. More than half of them are driven to school in a personal vehicle [1]. These cars emit noxious fumes at schools that are known to impair brain function and cause asthma. These cars contribute to climate change, which has already produced heat emergencies and more dangerous wildfires for Californians.
One positive trend is that parents across the country have taken the initiative to organize “walk and bike buses”, in which families escort kids to school. In South Pasadena, these groups take dozens of cars off the road each week and teach our children how to live a healthy, independent lifestyle. They’re also just fun!
Safety near our schools is a symptom of a larger problem, in which we’ve allowed car travel to take precedence over our quality of life. The stubs of the SR-710 freeway generate about half the traffic in our city, along with the crashes, pollution, and noise that comes with it.
Residents, visitors, and students who would rather walk or bike bear the brunt of these impacts. Fortunately, our city has taken the first steps to fixing this problem by allocating money to design planning for major city streets. Many of us participated in the “charettes” organized by Toole Design Group, who listened to our concerns and sketched potential solutions.
Those designs responded to broad community concerns related to safety, quality of life, environmental resilience, and business development. Our city’s Mobility and Transportation Infrastructure Commission is now considering more detailed design and vision document. It includes a comprehensive, city-wide strategy to reduce cut-through driving and restore our public spaces.
Their solutions include “complete streets” that accommodate all users comfortably, as well as traffic calming measures on residential streets. The design team has worked on the SR-710 problem and has implemented traffic calming solutions nationally. We are lucky to have their expertise as we decide how to spend our limited grant money.
We ask residents of South Pasadena to get involved. Tell your council members that you support the vision presented by Toole Design Group. Attend the public MTIC meeting to show your support. We need them to approve of the design vision in order to develop costed designs.
We implore the City Council to take up this issue and develop a comprehensive plan to prioritize safety on our streets. Seven of twenty General Plan goals of our city recommend policies to improve walkability, bikeability, and public transportation, which are all included in the Toole Design Group concepts [2].
We should follow the example of Pasadena and develop a long-term Capital Improvement Program that is driven by the General Plan goals. This would improve communication, speed implementation, and avoid neighborhood battles that have limited progress. Our City Council can begin acting today by prioritizing Strategic Plan items related to the Traffic Management and Mobility Master Plans.
City budgets are tight, but most transportation costs are supported by grants or dedicated funds. We need to use those funds to improve safety and sustainability rather than doubling down on failed ideas from the last seventy years of transportation planning, such as road widenings.
Join us and add your voice to the demand for safer streets and a healthier, more sustainable future for our city!
Signed,
South Pas Active
South Pasadena Preservation Foundation
Transition South Pasadena
Make OG Safer
Ramona Ave Neighborhood
Marengo Matters
SMART Families
South of Huntington Neighborhood (SoHu)
Citations: [1] – https://www.bts.gov/topics/passenger-travel/back-school-2019. [2] –
https://www.southpasadenaca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/219/636721709083330000
