CITY HALL — City officials confirmed Wednesday that they would no longer work with traffic and circulation consultant Jeffrey Tumlin after comments on an online biography proved even more controversial than the parking policies he espoused.

In the bio, Tumlin wrote that Santa Monica politics “had been dominated by NIMBYs who used traffic fear as their primary tool for stopping development.” The reference, indeed the entire section on Santa Monica, had been removed as of Wednesday.

The comment spurred outrage amongst residents, who called for Tumlin’s dismissal. Additionally, Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, or SMCLC, wrote an adjoining letter expressing distaste for Tumlin’s parking policies, which involve building less parking than currently required for new development and opening up existing lots to increase supply in some areas.

The net effect would be to drive down costs of development, and therefore the price of housing, and ostensibly cause fewer car trips by attracting fewer cars based on the premise that you will not drive where you cannot park.
The theory is embraced by planning professionals, although it constitutes “a huge transition,” said Juan Matute, of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, in January when Tumlin’s proposal first ricocheted through Santa Monica.
That holds little water for Santa Monicans aghast that large amounts of new development could ever result in the “no new net PM trips” promise enshrined in the 2010 Land Use and Circulation Element, a planning document that is supposed to dictate development in Santa Monica for decades to come.
“Mr. Tumlin’s central premise — that new development would yield no additional traffic — is an unsound prediction without basis,” SMCLC wrote. “It is fanciful social experimentation, embraced only by developers.”
It’s unclear if those unpopular ideas will exit along with Tumlin.… (more)

Look at the date on this article. We were cubically warned about him about the time this article came out. He claimed his firm had done some work in San Francisco that was not done by anyone. The product did not exist. So much for the wasted years and millions of dollars spent fulfilling his dreams on our streets. This document partially edited by Tumlin, because the treatise of sorts for those exposing his beliefs in a lifestyle for special interests. How many people and city authorities have been hoodwinked by this guy and his ideas on how to control the masses? How many cities have seen rents go down as promised when they were densified? And how many people have given up the privacy and freedom of owning their owning a car?

The Path to a livable City, published in 2002 by such luminaries as  Gabriel Metcalf, edited by Steven Bodzin of the Congress for New Urbanism, Jeffrey Tumlin of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting, and Shannon Dodge and Doug Shoemaker of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. Lydia Tan of Bridge Housing helped the group gain perspective on housing issues. And thanks to the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition, on whose regional leadership Transportation for a Livable City (TLC) will rely heavily.