The Planning Commission wants you to take your favorite mode of transit to its Wednesday meeting for a discussion of Citywide mobility options, plans and data.
Among the topics for discussion will be the city’s mobility strategic goal, the city’s first resident travel survey results, trends in public transit, the city’s bike/pedestrian plans, traffic management, infrastructure projects, communication strategies and an overview of the opportunities/challenges facing mobility.
While many of the topics will be extensions, revisions or updates to ongoing projects, at least on will provide brand new data with the unveiling of the first resident travel survey.
The traditional sources of travel data are the U.S. Census and American Communities Survey. Both track commute work trip with the Census updating every 10 years and the Communities Survey every five years. The State of California conducts a travel survey every 10 years tracking all travel within a specific timeframe.
Staff said an individual city like Santa Monica has a small sample size in the larger results and the long gaps between surveys limits the usefulness of the data.
To compensate, the City organized its own resident travel survey in 2016. The survey tracked all travel for a 24-hour period for 872 residents. Results tracked origins, destinations, length of travel and mode of transit. The survey was conducted online and concluded before the Expo line opened.
According to the results, Santa Monicans make about 3.4 trips per person, on par with the statewide average of 3.6. However, locals differed slightly in their choice of transportation.
Locally, driving in a private vehicle was the most common method with 64.5 percent of trips. Walking was second at 17.6, being a passenger in a vehicle had 7.8 percent, bicycles had 5 percent and public transit had 2.9 percent. The average local trip lasted 33 minutes.
The most recent data from the state has driving at 76.9 percent, walking at 16.6 percent, biking at 1.5 percent and transit at 4.4 percent.
“The data confirm the greater level of bicycling and walking in Santa Monica, and help us benchmark against our plan goals,” said the staff report.
When asked why they were traveling, the most common reason was home activities with 30.8 percent. Shopping/dining had 21.2 percent, work had 17.5 percent, social activities had 7.1 percent, exercise/sports had 6.7 percent, childcare had 4.7, school had 1.7 and healthcare had 1.8.
According to the data, locals travel slightly shorter distances than the state average.
“Looking at travel distance by travel mode, walk trips were the shortest with the average trip length of 1 mile,” said the report. “The longest trips were made by Private Vehicle and Public Transit showing an average of 7-8 miles. The total average distance overall is 5.23 miles, compared to average trip length in the 2010 California survey of 7.1 miles. As shown in Table 3, when the Santa Monica survey information is further broken down, 53 percent of all private vehicle trips are under 3 miles, and 17.6 percent are under one mile. Not surprisingly, approximately 96 percent of all walk trips and 80 percent of all bicycle trips are under 3 miles.”
Just over half of all trips started and ended in Santa Monica (51 percent). Of those, 54 percent were as a driver, 29.4 percent were walking, 6.5 percent were biking and 6.4 percent were as passengers in a car.
Drivers said better infrastructure would encourage them to walk/bike more (42.8 percent) and 33.2 percent said discounted transit passes would encourage them to drive less.
For more information on the mobility discussion, see the agenda at http://www.smgov.net/Departments/PCD/Boards-Commissions/Planning-Commission. Planning Commission will meet at 7 p.m. on March 1 in City Hall, 1685 Main St.
