Residential Traffic Program

This is an introduction to the City's Residential Traffic Programs consisting of the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program and Preferential Parking Program.

Background
Culver City has programs in place to manage and control neighborhood traffic, and reduce traffic and parking impacts on neighborhoods. Commonly referred to as "Traffic Calming", these types of programs have been implemented in communities of all sizes throughout the United States to direct traffic to arterial streets and avoid traffic impacts on local streets not designed for the volumes and excessive speed that may occur as a result of regional congestion. Increasing public safety, including pedestrians and bicyclists, and improving quality of life in neighborhoods are the most commonly cited rationales for adopting traffic calming programs. While traffic calming can produce dramatic reductions in traffic volumes and speed, often the improvements on one local street result in traffic being drawn to adjacent streets. Traffic calming may result in impacts being dispersed not eliminated because generally the ambient traffic congestion in an area is beyond the control of the neighborhood or City in which the traffic congestion occurs. This is clearly the case in Culver City, where a substantial volume of traffic moves through the City to destinations beyond it's boundaries on a daily basis.
Traffic calming can redirect traffic onto the arterial streets designed to accommodate high volumes of traffic only to the extent that capacity is available and travel times are comparable to local residential streets. It is important to note that capacity deficiencies of the regional arterial and freeway network are the root cause of neighborhood traffic problems.
Traffic calming measures may effectively reduce traffic on local residential streets, but can also be an inconvenience to area residents, as they traverse the impediments. Since traffic patterns shift over time, on-going adjustment and refinements of the traffic measures installed are an important part of an effective program.

Current Programs
Traffic calming programs in Culver City are usually initiated by neighborhood petition, but may also be implemented as mitigation for a specific development project. Upon acceptance of the petition or adoption of the mitigation program, each require data collection and analysis, plan development, and field testing of existing conditions prior to installation, and testing their effectiveness following implementation.

The existing traffic calming programs employed by the City include the following:

Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP): The purpose of an NTMP process is to identify the source of excessive volume or speed on local streets and create operational or physical mitigation measures to reduce those impacts without creating new similar impacts onto adjacent streets. The diverters, traffic circles and signage along Higuera Street are an example of traffic calming that reduced its use as an arterial bypass. NEIGHBORHOOD TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT PROGRAM (NTMP) PROCEDURES MANUAL (pdf): The program was originally established by the City Council in 1994, and updated in 2004, and is intended to be a comprehensive localized study of traffic within a neighborhood.

Preferential Parking Program: The program provides a process to create permit parking in residential neighborhoods to minimize parking, and by extension, traffic intrusion by non-residents. Existing preferential parking districts include the area adjacent to Sony Pictures Entertainment Studio, Veteran's Park, Town Plaza, and various residential streets adjacent to other commercial areas. The use of preferential parking was established in 1978 by the City Council. The program was updated in 1990 and 2004 by the City Council.
Preferential Parking Procedures and Regulations (pdf)
Preferential Parking Zones Chart (pdf)

Contact
For more information, please check this website for updates. You may also contact Gabe Garcia, Traffic Engineer at 310/253-5633 or e-mail your questions or comments.
Culver City-City Hall is located at 9770 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232