San Luis Obispo is experiencing a significant traffic upsurge. At times during the day, the lines of cars are extreme with people driving while using their cellphone, drivers in long lines and in a hurry running red lights. This level of traffic is not safe, it consumes individuals’ time, and it impacts the environment.
An Oct. 10, 2023, Los Angeles Times editorial states that we “need to radically redesign … transportation system to reduce the need for people to drive everywhere all the time.” Bicycles lanes, costly hourly downtown parking, and expensive parking structures will not reduce the developing traffic concerns, nor will the above efforts being made save downtown businesses.
There was a time in American cities when growing city centers were vibrant. Residents traveled to downtown business districts, mainly without cars—and car ownership. That was back during the first half of the 20th century when streetcars connected residents with the city center, when people would walk a few blocks to the streetcar lines (which people do today when they walk from downtown parking spaces and structures to conduct their business).
True, the city has buses, but buses have an image problem, they are uncomfortable, riding from the street center to the curbside for a jolting stop, accelerating again to climb to the street center. Drive behind a bus and watch how the buses ride. Plus, city buses do not operate frequently enough to attract riders. Who is willing to wait an hour or more for a bus? A close miss of the bus and another hour?
Should we, residents of the city, give some consideration to San Luis Obispo streetcars, streetcars that connect downtown with the university, the big box stores, the strip centers, the tourist lodging areas, the airport, all with massive surface vehicle parking, and the city residents? Why not approach the university requesting engineering and environmental studies help to conceptualize SLO battery operated streetcars (no overhead wires) and well-planned and located streetcar lines for submission to the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act funds to create and to build a renewed streetcar model for reducing the excessive vehicle traffic growth within cities of 150,000 or less?
Buzz Kalkowski
SLO
This article appears in Nov 23 – Dec 3, 2023.