Tonight, Santa Monica City Council will have a study session on the City’s Strategic Mobility Goals and the Big Blue Bus. We believe investments in safety must be a key component of our City’s mobility strategy. Together with community partners we have formed the Santa Monica Safe Streets Alliance to promote 10 principles condensed here:

• No traffic fatalities are acceptable. Traffic collisions must not be brushed aside as “accidents”: collisions are predictable and therefore preventable.
• Invest resources to improve equity. Our mobility and transportation systems should be safe and ensure commitment to serve as a model of 21st Century constitutional policing.
• All students and children have a right to walk, bike or scoot safely to school.
• Our mobility and transportation systems should equitably serve Santa Monica residents and all those who study, work or visit in our community
• Our transportation system should generate zero emissions. To reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to help strengthen our community, we need a Big Blue Bus (BBB) system to be popular, efficient and financially sound.
• Streets are our largest public space. Street planning should integrate mobility and place-making to enhance social, economic and cultural opportunities, as well as our well-being needs.
• Streets are essential environmental systems. We need to design our streets as critical components of our environmental and natural ecosystems so they contribute to safeguarding water, air quality and climate resilience.
• Community co-creation is essential to enduring change. Diverse community voices are critical for identifying core values and the vision for transformative change, community stakeholders must be engaged from inception to completion of all projects.
• Data drives decisions. We need to invest in robust, transparent collection and analysis of data which is essential for understanding what the tradeoffs are and to help provide transparency when challenging decisions are made.
• Plan our city and mobility together. Policies on housing, open space, community facilities, commercial development, public spaces, and other land use policies should give priority to clean, affordable and sustainable mobility as it has a profound impact on our mobility options and choices.

We need safe streets, designed with infrastructure that supports sustainable environmental eco systems that are safe, livable and welcoming to all. That’s the commitment of the Santa Monica Safe Streets Alliance and is outlined in our Principles for Safe, Livable and Sustainable Streets in Santa Monica.

Email City Council at: council@smgov.net to tell them you support strong commitments to safety and environmental sustainability listed in the Santa Monica Safe Streets Alliance – Principles for Safe, Livable and Sustainable Streets in Santa Monica.