Streetsblog Los Angeles

You know a city is getting serious about congestion mitigation when a new report comes out measuring how much gridlock costs the region.

In New York, it was the 2006 release of Growth or Gridlock, which pegged the annual price of traffic at $13 billion, that set off a public debate about congestion pricing that continues to this day. In London, the business group London First issued a similar report spurring Mayor Ken Livingstone to adopt a congestion charge. Now Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council has released "Moving at the Speed of Congestion" [PDF], which estimates that excess traffic costs the region $7.3 billion per year.

Chicago is already in the process of implementing performance parking and launching its first BRT routes (using federal funds that New York would have received
if Albany had approved congestion pricing). The new report indicates
that local policy makers will be urged to go further, perhaps in the
direction of congestion pricing, though not necessarily a London-style
cordon.

"The report shows that if we do look at pricing it has to be with a
regional focus, not just in the city," says Mandy Burrell of the
MPC. "There needs to be a menu of solutions that work collectively
across the region."

Read more…

The #4 Metro Bus Currently Rides Close to the Stadium, but There's Still the Walk up the Hill

The LADOT and the Los Angeles Dodgers have struck a deal to bring transit back to Dodger Stadium on game day.

Starting with the first game after the all-star break and continuing through the rest of the season, buses will run from ninety minutes before gametime until roughly 60 minutes afterward. Shuttles will run every 8-10 minutes. If those 25 cent fares for DASH buses seemed to pricey, there's good news. Because LADOT is using a charter bus service that doesn't have fare boxes, the service will be provided for free.  You can read the LADOT's full report here.

It's been almost 15 years since the Dodgers, the only team to be partially named after a mode of transit, lost their transit service and this deal between the DOT and Dodgers is no guarantee it's going to stay. The proposed service is a pilot program that unless it attracts 1,000 riders per game could be discontinued by next season. The Dodgers discontinued a Friday night only service that drew only 400 riders in 2004.

Read more...

As gas and oil prices continue to climb, a new report by Common Current ranks Los Angeles 12^th on a list of the 50 largest cities in providing alternatives to oil dependence. Because L.A. being ranked so close to the top ten seems a little high, we should note that the ranking is partially based on how much heating oil is used per capita.

According to Warren Karlenzig, author of "Major US City Preparedness for an Oil Crisis" the key to surviving an oil crisis is having alternatives to single passenger automobile travel.

"There are cities with less than 1-2% public transit commute ridership, compared to NewYork City, which has close to a 55% rate. It’s no mystery who will be feeling the pain of high gas prices the most. Some employers and potential employees considering relocating to the Sunbelt and other ‘car-only’ cities should take into account the total expenses such locations will have on their budgets and employees."

When asked specifically about advice for Los Angeles, Karlenzig urged Angelenos, "Do not let public transit slip through the cracks."

In addition to transit, Karlenzig urges cities to invest in zoning for more in-fill and mixed use development, develop policies that encourage car-pooling and working from home and better maintainsidewalks and bike facilities. Despite its high ranking on the list, all of these suggestions are something Los Angeles could more firmly embrace.

Common Current, is a privately held economic development consulting firm working with government, business and non-governmental organizations based in California.

Photo: ABC News

A new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the non-partisan research branch of the legislative branch of government, ranks each state in terms of their Greenhouse Gas emissions per capita (called GHG Intensity Levels) and releases a dire warning about how far we have to go to even come close to meet the goals set in the Kyoto protocol.

First, the good news. California compares well to other states when looking at GHG Intensity ranking 4th being Vermont, New York and Connecticut. However, before we start putting up the streamers we should note that temperature has a lot to do with GHG emissions as the states with the highest GHG Intensity are
Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana and Alaska.

All that being said, the report concludes we're a long way away from even being on the path to meeting the goals of the Kyoto Protocol or Governor Scharzenegger's emission reduction goals we're going to have to each reduce our personal emissions at a much faster rate than we already are.

Reducing GHG emissions in the United States would necessitate further declines in GHG intensity. Several legislative proposals in the 110th Congress would require GHG emissions to return to 1990 levels by 2020.40 To meet this objective, national GHG intensity would need to decline annually (starting in 2010) by 5.0%. As of 2003, the most recent data used by CRS, Californians were reducing their GHG Intenstiy by 1.9% per year.

Compounding the problem, California isn't maximizing its transportation resources. When government officials are promoting the newest popular road capacity enhancement project they often claim it will reduce congestion and thus reduce the amount of GHG's in the atmosphere. However, the CRS doesn't seem to think so. A search for the word congestion will have no hits in the report.

A new poll by Smart Growth America shows that nationwide the tide is turning against road widening projects and other forms of highway capacity enhancement. Just over one in five respondents thought that the best way to fight congestion was to add more lanes, while 3/4 of the respondents preferred more funding for transit and development patterns that favored walking and biking.

The survey, done annually by SGA and the National Realtor's Association, also showed growing concern about climate change and growing support for new ways to reduce greenhouse gasses. Just about 90% of respondents want to see communities built so people can walk more and drive less; cars, homes and buildings should be required to be more energy efficient; and public transportation should be improved and made more available.

Americans aren't completely ready to turn in their automobiles yet...84 percent voted against the idea of raising gasoline taxes to discourage driving.

For more, see the press release, graphs and tables, or questionnaire.

In 2005, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign released a report showing that heavy truck traffic in New Jersey would grow by 80% by 2020. The report's numbers were based on FHWA projections based on figures from 1998.

Since 2005, the FHWA has updated their projections, so I'm not reporting projections based on figures from a decade ago. Instead, I'm they're based on figures from half a decade ago.

To anyone that's spent any time on CA's highways, the numbers in these charts aren't surprising.


In 2002, truck's transported 1,208 million tons of cargo on CA's roads. That's more than three times as much commercial cargo as rail freight, air, water, pipelines and other sources combined. In short, there are a lot of trucks on the road.

However, the federal projections by 2035 are even more eye popping. The amount of truck carried freight grows by just about 150% to 3,063 million tons on CA's highways. Even worse news, the percentage of the total freight in CA that is carried by trucks increases to 81.3%. In short again, it's not just that truck traffic is growing...its actually growing faster than all other ways of moving commercial goods.

Given the recent disaster on the I-5, these figures should be even more alarming. It's easy to say that large freight trucks are generally involved in more fatal accidents, but more difficult to picture what a disaster similar to the one last week would look like if there were twice as many trucks on the road. Such a scenario, a truck losing control in an area with twice the truck traffic that currently exists, wasn't discussed in the press or mentioned by a government official.

Sometime in the coming weeks I'll look at how CALTRANS, SCAGS, and LA spend their transportation dollars in detail. However, given these figures, I'll make the fearless prediction that not much of it is being spent on rail freight projects, warehousing close to rail transfer stations or any other freight related project that isn't a highway widening.