Dear Google, please stop polluting my neighborhood
Editor:
If you live in Santa Monica, it’s hard to miss the big, red double-decker buses wrapped in ads for YouTube shows circling the neighborhood.
I live in a residential part of the city, and on a typical weekend, I see one of these buses turning my corner every 30 minutes. Curious, I ran up to the bus and asked the driver if he made any stops. He said no. I asked if anyone else was on the bus. He said no.
I think it’s safe to conclude that these double deckers exist for the sole purpose of advertising YouTube shows. One of the shows advertised, Video Game High School, was described by Common Sense Media as a “movie centered on gaming with some realistic video game violence and real-life bullying.”
As a mother of a 7-year old girl, I’m not watching your “violent” shows. My daughter’s not watching your shows. My neighbors, many of them families with young kids, are also not watching your shows.
Why do you keep circling my neighborhood, causing traffic congestion, air pollution, noise pollution, and visual pollution without any real benefit to the public?
Google, as the parent company of YouTube, is a self-proclaimed green company. From their website, “We’re greening our company by using resources efficiently and supporting renewable power. That means when you use Google products, you’re being better to the environment.”
Google, I know you’re trying to be green in Palo Alto, but you’re being brown in my neighborhood.
Monica Ciociola
Santa Monica
Opposed to sharing bikes
Editor:
I am a bike rider and huge advocate for bicyclist. However I hope that you do not approve bikeshare program. I recently used a bikeshare in London that really opened my eyes to all of the logistics and issues with such a program. I urge you to try a bikeshare before you make any decision on one.
Some of reasons I believe it is a bad idea in Santa Monica are:
$10.4M for 500 bikes = $20,800 per bike! For that kind of money you could buy everyone in Santa Monica a low cost bicycle
Bikeshares work well in dense urban environments like London. I continuously hear we are a small beach town and our residents care about cars/parking. Conversely London embraces density, tall buildings, public transportation and is anti-automobile – all things which are critical for a successful bike share program.
Most everyone who wants to ride a bike has one – even the homeless; you could offer low cost loans for people who can’t afford one
Perry’s and our bike center already provide bikes for those visiting and provide them a locations where the tourist are. I believe Perry’s pays the City substantial sums to operate these and they would most likely go out of business.
Why would residents pay $15-25 per month or up to $300 per year when they could just go out and buy a bike?
Therefore I appreciate your looking to support cycling. More importantly invest the money into making cycling safer. A couple of dedicated cycling lanes would go much further to promoting cycling. Our very expensive bike center is already a good solution for our city
The only way I could support such a program is if you find a corporate sponsors willing to pay for 100% of the installation and even more importantly the daily upkeep of the system.
If you get some numbers on the actual cost per ride, I think you will see this is an extremely unsustainable idea.
Thank you.
Linda Fineman
Santa Monica
We’re not paying $10.4M for 500 bikes at $20,800 each! The bikes costs about $2000 each including the GPS tracking and payment hardware. We have $2M of grants from Metro and AQMD to cover capital costs. The $10.4M is the capital AND operating costs over 8 years and those costs will be recovered and then some from ridership revenues and sponsorships. And our upfront payment is not 40% of the contract but 40% of the cost of the bikes and other hardware, all covered by the grants, and two months advance on operating costs to be recouped by the City and taxpayers from revenues. The intent is to operate a bike share program with no subsidy from the General Fund and taxpayers. And annual passes are proposed to be $120 rather than $300, although we haven’t yet set rates and are looking at discounts for residents.
I agree as in virtually everything else City staff proposes, SM has got the very expensive cart b/4 the needed infrastructure horse.
People on the Residocracy Facebook page looked behind the staff report for the BikeShare program and found out the $22,000 per bike goes to–surprise, surprise!–the consulting company staff hired to advise them how to roll out the program, CycleHop, and its subsidiaries.
We also determined CycleHop has never started a program it advised on on time–many of them have been delayed two or more times for years–and yet our City staff advises to pay them 40% of the contract fee in 30 days after signing the contract.
Programs that are working and have been working for years in Paris, Mexico City, Copenhagen, the Netherlands, and other places–rely on private funding in return for locations of valuable points for picking up bikes in tourist areas and/or have a MUCH smaller cost. This is simply a half-baked proposal that embarrasses anyone with any sense.
On the point Ms. Fineman makes about the lack of safety for bicyclists on our streets, the last year I could get statistics for showed it was five times as dangerous–risk of death, we’re talking here, not skinned knees or hurt feelings or getting lost–for a bicyclist to ride on SM streets compared to LA County as a whole. One of the cities CycleHop is delaying opening in is doing so b/c they have realized the City will be liable for attracting tourists to known unsafe streets.
The cost of litigation and huge damage payments is not included in this program’s over $10M beginning cost. Adding that means we could finance some separate elevated bike paths (with separate pedestrian paths there as well, for good measure), instead of starting yet another program SM will then tweak and tweak and tweak–at ever more cost–and never get right.
Last I heard we had over 100 planners working for the City of SM. Why do we keep getting proposals that look like a college exam meant to allow students to discuss every issue about how not to do a new program?
Have you even watched VGHS? It’s an extremely mature show with strong female characters, who have their own agency, clearly pass the bechdel test, and in general is an extremely positive show for youth. I suggest you do some research before going nuts about perceived misconceptions.
Forget bikeshare, they should provide every existing bicycle in Santa Monica with a headlight, wheel reflectors and tall reflector, which are available very cheap. The Ninja bicyclists are the problem, not a lack of bicycles. $20,800 per bikeshare bike is a preposterous, total rip off of the tax payers. Into whose pocket does that $10.4 million go? And finally, do we want visitors unfamiliar with Santa Monica who may not have been on a bike in decades weaving around in our terrible traffic?