Santa Monica has terrible traffic gridlock.   This is my contribution to its effort to end gridlock.  DON'T EVER GO TO SANTA MONICA!!!  You can go to Venice Beach.  You can go to Newport Beach, or any of the fine beaches in Orange County.  You can head on down to Oceanside or Carlsbad and the nice San Diego County beaches.  But please, Santa Monica does not want you to cause gridlock in its touristy areas, so PLEASE, DO NOT GO TO SANTA MONICA.  For anything.

...

Lacking appropriate skills and inspiration, Santa Monica city planners and leadership are unable to come up with any reasonable solutions to their gridlock problem.  Which is unfortunate, because their bad planning and construction is largely responsible for the gridlock.  That, and the fact that they like tourists to come to spend money in Santa Monica, which translates to lots of extra vehicles attempting to find a parking spot.

I myself recently spent three green lights (of the lights ahead of me) not moving an inch, with two feet of my car sticking out past the crosswalk.  Yes, I had misjudged.  It seemed to me that with more  than 1/2 a car length available for my car and the next two lights green, it was reasonable to continue through the intersection.

I was wrong.  This was too bad.  Indeed, I am a very polite driver and would never intentionally do this.  I said to my daughter, "Oops, I wish I didn't cross the intersection.  I didn't anticipate we would sit here not moving for two green lights!"  Cars could not go through the intersection the other direction.

Of course, that was not specifically my fault.  Cars would have easily gone past me through the intersection, except for the car that had followed me into the intersection and was now blocking the entire crossing lane.  That was unfortunate.  About this time, I was seriously regretting not having taken a different street -- but as a tourist, I'm not that entirely familiar with the traffic problems of Santa Monica and so I had made a mistake that was wasting a lot of my time.  All this, because every month or so my daughter and take our weekly "Dad-Daughter Night Out" to Santa Monica for dinner and random entertainment.  OH, WELL, WE USED TO DO THIS.  But, responding to the Santa Monica's critical need to end downtown gridlock, we are going to cooperate with the city fathers and NEVER GO TO SANTA MONICA AGAIN.  (It's really not that nice of a place, anyway.  I like San Diego a lot better...)

So, anyway, about the time I could once again move, a cub scout in a police uniform with a gun demanded that I pull over to the curb.  In fact, as it turns out, this young man was largely responsible for my not being able to get out of the intersection in the first place, as he was busy stopping cars and writing them VERY EXPENSIVE tickets for blocking the intersection.  He pulled me over and pulled over the person behind me.

Well, technically I was innocent, because reviewing California Vehicle Code Section 22526(a), the requirement is not that you fully clear the intersection, it is that you not obstruct the cross traffic.  And, my vehicle was not actually obstructing the cross traffic -- that was the responsibility of the car behind me.  But the Cub Scout police officer had his view and I had mine.  (We did not actually discuss this issue -- I was polite ...)

Also, it's worth noting Santa Monica is not doing this for any "safety" reason -- both I and the driver of the car behind me were directed to illegally park for 10 minutes while tickets were written.  I was directed to park in a red zone, obstructing ingress and egress from an alleyway.  The other driver was instructed to park in an area that was specifically not a parking spot and too close to the corner, so once again, technically illegal and still obstructing turning traffic.  So, the "anti-gridlock enforcement" is actually contributing significantly to the gridlock.  As I have noted, the real point of this process is to somewhat impolitely ask tourists not to come to Santa Monica.  So, I hope my readers and I can assist on this score -- perhaps by getting the message across to the public in a slightly less expensive and more reasonable way.

But anway, I looked at the ticket for a "bail" schedule to see what the ticket was going to cost me.  However, Mr. Cub Scout pointed out that the fines "change too frequently" to actually provide a schedule with the ticket.  So it's a mystery fine -- which I imagine will turn out to be largely based on zip code.  In other words, I imagine that citizens of Santa Monica pay a much smaller fee to block their own intersections than tourists pay.  I can understand how they might feel this way.  It is, after all, their town.  If they do not want tourists to visit, a pretty good way to tell them is to ticket them for visiting.  (But, personally, I would have been far more appreciative of a sign at the city limits that said, "tourists not welcome, please leave."  Being a cooperative person, I would have immediately gone somewhere else for dinner.)

I do not know the amount of the "block the intersection" fine.  Signs posted at the intersections (which naturally, I did not notice until after getting this ticket) say, fines are "up to $500" -- which I guess allows them to be very flexible in dealing with strangers from various zip codes.    But, if you figure the take at this one single intersection was $1000 for about 10 minutes work, the Cub Scout patrol is a very lucrative operation for the City of Santa Monica.  Which is good, I suppose.  What better way to balance budget shortfalls than by levying a whopping tax on unsuspecting visitors to your City?

But, personally, I do appreciate the message.  Santa Monica has gridlock.  It does not want visitors to come and add to their traffic, because they lack the skills to maintain free moving streets.  And, being a helpful person, I will help!  This is my plea to you ... please, please help save Santa Monica from Gridlock!  Do not go there!  Do not spend money there! Do not patronize any Santa Monica businesses!  All this will cut down on the gridlock.  It will also reduce court congestion (less tickets) and reduce the workload of the police department so that it can fight actual crime.

Now, personally, I must save up the amount of the fine, as I do not have that sort of spare change lying around.  If the fine had been, say, $75 -- as the Cub Scout pointed out, the ticket is akin to a "parking ticket" -- then I would not have blinked.  But then again, Santa Monica would have failed to motivate me to assist in ending Santa Monica gridlock.  So, the higher fee was certainly justified.  Gridlock is, after all, a terrifying crime and must be stopped.  I really have to be thankful that gridlock violations do not come with a mandatory night in jail, considering the heinousness of the offense.  I suppose I have actually been let off easy.

Now, to assist you in AVOIDING SANTA MONICA, let me list some other alternatives for you.

1. It's snow season.  My daughter and I like the mountains.  May I suggest Arrowhead.  Arrowhead is struggling, as it's Thai restaurant just went out of business.  But it has a nice Mexican restaurant and also a late-night cafe with a pool table.  Well, there are some other restaurants, but as a vegetarian, I don't really go to the steak places.
2. In the same vein, let me recommend Big Bear Lake.  Here, you can find good Italian, Tibetian, all-you-can eat Chinese, Mexican and other fine cuisine.  Plus, you can throw a few snowballs and be close to the ski slopes.
3. There is also another mountain to visit.  Try Idyllwild.  There is the Gnome restaurant, Mexican, a bread & sandwich place and a restaurant with evening Karaoke in the center square.
4. But, if you really want to visit the ocean areas, I recommend San Diego.  Carlsbad is much more interesting than Santa Monica and of course, you can always go to Balboa in Orange County.  There's a nice beach in Oceanside that doesn't get much use (and has free parking).

I'll report more as the days go by.  I'll be spending all my tourist dollars in these locations -- and I'll be sending post cards to the Santa Monica City Council Persons, their Mayor, their Chief of Police and the Chamber of Commerce.  I want to keep them posted on my effort to help them avoid gridlock.  I figure that to make up for the $500 fine, I cannot visit Santa Monica again until my tourist dollar sales tax expenditures total at least $500.    That means I will have to spend $6250 before I can ever visit Santa Monica again.  Think of all the fine places I will be experiencing!!!  I figure this is roughly 125 weeks, so I will not be going to Santa Monica for at least two and 1/2 years.  Think how much will have changed.  It will be like visiting a brand new place!

You can help, too!  Send me an email when you help avoid Santa Monica gridlock by going somewhere else.   And ... send the Santa Monica city fathers a post card to tell them you are helping out.  You can reference "Curmudgeonly Reports" so they know you are helping me help them.

Thank you for visiting, and have a pleasant tomorrow!