Mitigate traffic impacts to preserve air quality

By David A. Jeffrey

We are at a crossroads. We are facing severe traffic impacts with resultant air quality degradation. Now is the time to reduce these impacts and preserve our air quality.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The Margarita plan has been in the planning stages for years, and will allow for between 700 to 1,100 homes to be built north of Tank Farm, between Broad and South Higuera. In addition, this is to be a self-contained community, with businesses, shopping, schools, and public safety. Add these impacts to the already congested streets mentioned above, then factor in business traffic from Tank Farm Road and the airport expansion area, and the result is traffic congestion with significant air quality impacts

We must provide the infrastructure to deal with our present traffic before we add additional impacts. Prado Road interchange is an essential component, with conservative estimates of 15 million dollars for construction. Widening of Higuera and Los Osos Valley Road, with improved interchange at 101 are also critical components. We must also consider extending Buckley Road to 101 to ease airport area traffic.

We have opted to eliminate drive through fast food establishments to ensure preservation of air quality, however local traffic congestion imposes far greater air quality impacts, certainly not what is envisioned by our General Plan. We also have limited shopping opportunities with weekend trips, for many families, to Santa Maria, Atascadero, and Arroyo Grande. These automotive trips also add to degradation of air quality. In addition to frequent out of town shopping, 80% of our police and fire department personnel live outside of SLO and 67% of all city full-time employees live outside of SLO. All these commuter automobile miles translate into cumulative automobile emission impacts.

Our approach must be to decrease those unnecessary trips by providing shopping venues and providing reasonably priced housing. We can accomplish both these goals while maintaining SMART GROWTH with compact urban form. 52% of our housing stocks are rentals, most of those rented at exorbitantly high rates to students. We must partner with Cal Poly and Cuesta to provide on campus housing. Cuesta and Cal Poly have the land essential to develop 5,000 to 10,000 student units.

Next we must carefully plan for mixed use infill projects that will provide both residential and retail opportunities, with architecture lending itself to SLO quaintness and charm.

Finally, City Center must have additional parking coupled with a reduction in parking demand. This can be accomplished by city and county full-time employees, as well as full-time employees of City Center retail businesses to use satellite parking, leaving city core parking for shoppers and those visiting our cultural and recreational venues.