I’ll be the first to admit, as a former Canyon High School student who lives a few miles past Sand Canyon, I’ve been late many times as a result of missing the bus. At the time there was no excuse for my tardiness. However, I get the sense any current or near-future students’ or workers’ commuting times will be significantly lengthened with the ongoing and recently finished developments in Santa Clarita, such as the Skyline Ranch homes, Vista Canyon community and the currently in development Sand Canyon Soledad Plaza, which would provide about 580 new dwelling units and over 60,000 square feet of retail space.
There have to be some measures the city must take before traffic gets worse. According to a study done by chamber of commerce.org, Santa Clarita has the sixth longest commute in the nation, just behind New York with the number of minutes spent commuting, averaging out at 69.8 minutes a day.
One of the solutions to this problem would be to focus on public transportation, such as adding more bus routes for commuting within Santa Clarita and to Los Angeles as well, in addition to developing more business-friendly land to reduce distance from homes to work.
Not only would more bus routes offer relief to many Santa Clarita Valley residents in terms of traffic, it would also significantly reduce road maintenance costs, vehicle maintenance costs and it would have a positive impact on the air quality of the SCV. The number of passengers a bus can drive is around 50 people. Imagine that, 50 people. That’s 50 fewer parents having to wake up early to drive their kids to school and overall less money spent on gas and car maintenance. You can spend the extra time doing whatever you like, or choosing to work more.
Also, developing more office space would entice employers to move offices closer to their employees because it could possibly be cheaper than office space in the city of los Angeles, thus cutting down on traffic, commute times, and cars on the road. Vehicle commuting would be less practical because of proximity to place of employment.
David Leon Jr.
Canyon Country
