Have you ever wondered why our rush hour traffic seems backwards? Morning rush hour is heaviest leaving Downtown LA and afternoon rush hour is heaviest going towards Downtown LA. This is very counterintuitive and very confusing for people from out of town. But it makes total sense for LA because there are so many more jobs than housing units on the Westside of Los Angeles, which means people going to work travel East to West and people going home travel West to East. This traffic does not stop at the borders of Culver City – it is why there is so much traffic going East on Venice, Washington, Jefferson, and Slauson in the afternoons.
Culver City has helped contribute to this traffic. Since 2010, the number of jobs in Culver City went from just under 43,000 to just over 60,000 in 2020. During the same period, the number of housing units in Culver City went from over 16,750 to just under 17,150. Culver City added approximately 17,000 jobs (40% increase) while only adding 370 housing units (2% increase).
Because of the problem Culver City has contributed to, Culver City has an obligation to decrease this job/housing disparity, and in turn, maybe decrease traffic. The most effective way to do this is to allow two or three units on plots where capacity has been artificially limited at one unit. There may be other ways to add units, but with no extra land in Culver City available for this endeavor, allowing for this infill seems to be the best bet.
Allowing for multiple units on artificially limited residential plots is nothing more than Culver City working to meet its obligation to correct a problem that it has contributed to over the past few decades. I applaud Culver City for this. It would be nice if more people and jurisdictions recognize the problems they have created over many years and work to solve them instead of fighting against the solutions and/or making them worse.
Marc Bauer
Culver City
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