TRAFFIC IS GOING TO GET WORSE BEFORE it gets better. While there are opportunities to reduce congestion in the short term, the experts say as long as there is growth, we’ll never do away with congestion.
“Gridlock in Los Angeles" was the subject of a recent RAND Corporation Policy Forum. Martin Wachs, RAND’s director of transportation, space and technology program; Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Richard Katz, former state Assemblyman and member of the governing board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority made up the panel of experts.
“Congestion is a byproduct of economic and social success,” said Wachs. Expanding population and commerce, a stagnation of the present infrastructure, a robust tourist industry, dramatic increases in truck traffic and an undeveloped mass transit system contribute to the problem. The economic cost to the region is billions of dollars.
Yaroslavsky and Katz both pointed out that a reduction of a small percentage of vehicles can substantially reduce congestion. Changing when we work, shop, play and go to school might be enough to reduce congestion in the short span. State holidays and Jewish holidays are lighter traffic days facilitating faster travel times and fewer backups.
Despite building new subways, transit lines and freeways, ultimately growth in population, commerce, tourism and other factors will lead to more widespread, and longer periods of congestion, they predicted.
Wachs explained that over time, people will leave earlier and/or later to “beat the traffic”— thus spreading rush hours to 10 to 12 hours a day. They’ll also adopt alternate routes or shortcuts, thus spreading congestion. Alternate means of transit such as car-pools, busses or subways also become congested over time. When an improvement is implemented — such as a new freeway lane or mass transit line — congestion is reduced until people revert back to their old habits. Over time and with growth, the congestion is recreated.
The overwhelming cause of congestion is development and growth — and it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s sprawl or high density development. Yaroslavsky said that it was imperative that developers pay for traffic congestion mitigation including, updating traffic lanes, freeway ramps and intersections in addition to paying for transit stops.
In Los Angeles, developers are required to do extensive street improvements such as indenting curbs in front of their properties to accommodate parking. Larger developers are also required to provide road improvements, update intersections and modernize traffic signalization.
Santa Monica required the Water Garden developers to enhance intersections and traffic signals around their development some 20 years ago. Today, all too often local developers are just asked to contribute to public housing and other pet “social causes” instead of updating traffic infrastructure.
Here, deliberately reduced street capacity exacerbates congestion and uncoordinat-ed traffic signals create bottlenecks on almost all our major thoroughfares. In fact, all the “traffic calming” that the city has done and is contemplating — including on Ocean Park Boulevard — means more congestion and more vehicles diverting into residential neighborhoods.
Both Los Angeles and Santa Monica are looking for ways to better evaluate traffic impacts due to new development.
Santa Monica’s traffic methodology has been consistently criticized for being unrealistic and out of date. Recently, the Planning Commission was especially critical of traffic studies for a proposed five-story, mixed-use development at 525 Broadway in Downtown. Commissioners said the project would generate much more traffic than the developer’s traffic studies and circulation plan indicated it would.
Another problem concerns proposed developments with high traffic impacts on intersections owned or controlled in part by Caltrans. Changes to these intersections would require Caltrans approval. And, because Caltrans has no review authority over projects, negative traffic impacts could be significant. Creating turning lanes or changing the phasing of signals could negatively affect traffic flowing in other directions, creating more delays, congestion and ultimately more fuel consumption and additional air pollution.
There’s no quick fix, but some think that mass transit is the answer. But, RAND’s Wachs points out that New York, Paris and London have excellent mass transit systems and still have humongous congestion.
Unfortunately, the obvious answers of reducing development and implementing a more efficient traffic flow to alleviate congestion here in Santa Monica is about as likely to happen as the members of City Council sprouting wings and flitting off to Nirvana.
Bill when he isn’t stuck at a red light.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 6, 2007. Read the original PDF.