Two new committees tackle traffic and the environment
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN After a forward-thinking and eventful year, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair Pam O’Connor passed the baton to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on July 1.
Most notably, O’Connor, who also serves on the City Council, established two ad-hoc committees — one on congestion pricing and one on sustainability — during her term as chair.
“These were two areas that I wanted to push the agency forward on and shine a spotlight on,” she said.
O’Connor believes that traffic congestion is one of the primary problems plaguing Los Angeles County.
“We’re at a tipping point in terms of keeping the flow going when the capacity is building up,” she said. “We’re even reaching capacity on our high occupancy vehicle lanes, the carpool lanes. Even those are starting to slow down.”
She lead the committee in studying how cities around the globe tackle congestion issues, focusing on the pricing put into effect by Chicago, London and Stockholm. O’Connor hopes that while L.A.’s model will draw inspiration from these cities, its solutions will be all its own. She explained the plan, which involves making one lane on a particularly crowded freeway into a toll lane guaranteed to run between 45 to 55 miles per hour.
“This would control traffic in a more sophisticated way,” she said. “People would choose to pay because they know it would mean getting to their destination faster. They’ve tried this around the world and data shows that you get more efficiency out of the roadway.”
“But,” she cautioned, “it’s not just about charging people and giving them the lane in return. It’s also about where the money goes. Revenues raised in that corridor need to be reinvested in that corridor, not diverted into the big, general pot of money.”
The money generated, she says, would go toward addressing issues of equity, because not every Angeleno will be able to pay the fast lane fee. With the new revenue, the MTA could purchase buses that would get to drive in the fast lane, or finance a light rail project parallel to congested freeways. These two suggestions would aid both traffic and air quality, she said.
O’Connor mentioned other ideas the MTA is toying with, including upping the number of people that make up a carpool from two to three and creating a system in which MTA riders can earn fast lane coupons for when they use an automobile.
Congestion pricing, being a relatively new concept, has met its fair share of criticism, but O’Connor feels that this is a natural obstacle the MTA can overcome.
“As human beings, we sometimes push forward new ideas, but sometimes we push for no change,” she said. “It’s yin and yang. It’s human nature.”
She likened it to finding old letters to the editor in Pasadena complaining about the installation of the town’s first stoplight, illustrating society’s natural resistance to even the best of new ideas.
“I knew forming a committee on congestion pricing would be very important,” O’Connor said. “The board just voted 13 to zero to accept the plan and move forward, which I don’t think would have happened without our due diligence in getting the concerns out there.”
The other new committee she helped form is the Sustainable Climate Change task force, which addresses issues “near and dear” to her heart.
“Metro has done a number of good programs, like investing the research and development to run their buses off of Compressed Natural Gas, but we hadn’t looked at the issue comprehensively and thinking about what to do as an agency to have a more systematic plans,” she said. “We want to be the most sustainable organization we can be.”
The committee recently nudged the board to approve the Sustainability Implementation Plan, which would mandate more oversight and accountability on environmental issues. They hope to create management systems with international standards of raising environmental consciousness, integrate more solar and renewable energy on site and target “the little things,” such as plastic disposables in the MTA cafeteria.
“I formed the committee to address the big picture as California moves toward implementing AB32, the Global Solutions Act,” O’Connor said. “How are we dealing with our greenhouse gas emissions? In California, 40 percent come from transportation, and most of that comes from people moving around in their single occupant cars. We’re producing the answer: public transit. We help people reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by giving them transportation options that aren’t onerous but a high quality experience.”
No longer chair, O’Connor plans to devote her energies to heading the sustain-ability committee this coming year. She has already begun this work by giving a presentation last month at the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) Rail Conference on MTA’s Sustainability program. Later this month she will travel to Chicago to present during APTA’s national Sustainability Conference.
“Since I don’t have to run to Downtown L.A. three times a week. I get to choose what I do more,” she said. “And this is what I choose to do.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 11, 2008. Read the original PDF.