Have you finally had it?

The MTA is about to begin studying two route options for Phase 2 of the Expo Line. For more details check out Steve Lopez's Sunday column and join the debate here.

Should the MTA use the Southernn Pacific right-of-way it already owns, which runs west from Robertson past Cheviot Hills and all the way to Santa Monica?

Or should it respect the wishes of homeowners in Cheviot and nearby communities who would prefer a southerly route along Venice Boulevard, north on Sepulveda and then west along the existing right of way?

To add your two cents, click on comments.

Comments

[larry gassan]

use the Cheviot Hills route. Why should everyone else suffer? Furthermore, the MTA does not owe a dime to any idiot who decides to skirt the barriers and park their car on the tracks, to be hit. I grew up in the midwest where grade crossings were common, and people got it when the lights start flashing....

[Joann Oestreich]

What happened on the northbound or southbound San Diego frewway on 3-24-08 near Santa Monica/ West L.A.

Thanks

[Christian Avery Bryant]

The traffic at Wilshire Blvd. and Westwood Blvd. in Westwood is life-threatening, especially for pedestrians. Since I started working at the Oppenheimer building in November 2006, I have been nearly hit (within a crowd, mind you, not on my own) on several occasions. I have heard stories from co-workers of seeing other people actually struck by cars running a red light, and I have witnessed just about every major accident to take place at this intersection this whole year during rush-hour. This is ridiculous. I have a newborn and I know there is no way I will ever bring my child into this area. On average, 12 cars run every red light, blocking oncoming traffic as well as pedestrian crosswalks. Many times, they are bumper to bumper. I saw a brave guy walk on top of a car hood once to get across (yes, a fight nearly ensued), but usually, we just stare and wait until the light changes again. I hate to vent like this, but this isn't just a complaint about inconvenience. This is truly a hazard and since November of last year, I've yet to see anything done about it - in fact, I believe it is getting worse. Thank you, and have a nice day.

[Nihar Patel]

I live in Hollywod, but would prefer the Expo line to go along closer to Venice Blvd. Let's face it, people in Cheviot Hills are not going to take the trains, and there's little reason to go to Cheviot Hills unless you live there. But Venice Blvd has not only a lot of vehicle traffic, but more of a potential for more businesses, bars, etc to congregate along.

[LAndrews]

Wasn’t that a great traffic jam last night! The 405 freeway was closed and the entire Westside of Los Angeles almost came to a standstill for half a day.

How many of you have even taken mass transit lately? Probably not many of you use it because we need a RELIABLE mass transit system before we can entice people to use it. The system is so unreliable and our time is so valuable we can’t use it. Even those of us who use it know that when our timing is critical we have to drive. We cannot count on the bus even showing up.

It seems my point was missed. (January 15, 2007 10:33 1. REAL TIME BUS SCHEDULE USING MOBLIE WEB) When we ride on the mass transit system we have to know when it will be there to pick us up and when it will probably deliver us to our destination. Hence my earlier suggestion that the already existing transponders on each bus allow the riders to track the bus arrival time at their bus stop (and project destination arrival times based on historical data, too). Transferring the bus transponder’s location to the Internet cannot be that expensive if they are using it to track each individual runner of the Boston Marathon.

We need to do something major! We need to get people out of their tin boxes. Maybe even have a day when no one is allowed to drive; only public transportation would be allowed. We all contribute to the problem so we all need to contribute to the solution. Right now it seems like people just want someone else to use mass transit but not them.

P.S. Does anyone remember when the 10 Freeway was down after the earthquake? The blue bus between Santa Monica and downtown made great time every day. The choice was to either take the bus that had part of the freeway to itself or be stuck in surface street traffic. Taking the bus was heaven.

[thomas cost]

Grandfather Clause all right a ways to the transit system during the Red Line existence. Extent the transit grid to include communities that now need service. If cities, counties, states and federal government can eminent domain for private interests, then it can be done for the public welfare.
A transit system is not for now, but the years ahead.

[marilyn wexler]

How about inexpensive parking lots, for all day parking, in Santa Monica, near Wilshire blvd. (fat chance according to todays front page of the Times). Then I could hop on one of the easterly Wilshire buses to commute to Bev. Hills like I do daily. I have tracked those buses while I commute, I always beat them to my destination, but I would allow for that if I needed.

[James Goodwin]

To decrease the bottleneck problem, we need to get people off the highway by improving public transit -- add enough small dial-a-ride or jitney size buses to allow service at least every 5 minutes, using the new large and articulated buses only during heavy load periods, and the public transit system needs to be to "all free always". The following is the rationale for this radical step.

In recent columns, you have addressed the traffic bottleneck and the problems of skid row, unemployment and crime. These have not been seen as related, but in fact, they are. My proposed measures to deal with the traffic mess also impacts the other issues.

It is important to assess the financial cost of the traffic problem, to see just how much money should be allocated to it. Since no traffic surveys seem to be taken on the road anymore, it is necessary to estimate the cost of gridlock. Even if the estimates are not perfect, they show the magnitude of the problem, and the amount that should be available to resolve it.

Assume conservatively that 1 million cars, in a daily commute, lose about 30 minutes each way compared to a smoothly flowing freeway commute, with one person per car (typical). That is a loss of 1 million man-hours per day. This is not merely painful; the time is not free or ignorable. Assuming an average wage of $20/hr (reasonable for those driving cars to work), results in a cost of $20,000,000 per day or $730,000,000 per year! This money should be considered as available to use for a solution, but our current defective accounting system only considers added costs, not benefits reaped.

The first step, I think, is to dramatically improve public transportation -- but the problem is to make it appealing enough to get people out of their cars. To do that, transport must be convenient, fast, safe, and cheap. Particularly, it should not take longer to use transport than it does to commute by car.

Subways and rapid transit are good options, but extensions are long term solutions. Many letters have suggested approaches (such as monorail construction, or population control) which require too long to implement, or behavioral changes (such as leaving two car lengths between vehicles) which are difficult to implement and of dubious value.

On the other hand, transit can immediately be made totally free. Then jitneys can be purchased and added to existing lines, while adjusting schedules to provide more frequent service. Routes can be added where possible to feed into rail stations. This would require, of course, hiring and training many new jitney drivers, creating many new jobs -- either for the homeless who know how to drive, or for others, freeing jobs which the homeless could fill. And every new job reduces costs related to joblessness.

With free service, the need to have expensive secure collection boxes, and the danger of fare theft would be eliminated, along with concern over honesty of the new drivers. Also, the cost and need for issuing and collecting Transfers would be eliminated. And the elimination of Fares and transfers would speed service by speeding passenger loading. With waiting time between buses reduced, smaller crowds at stops would allow small weather-protecting bus stations to be provided at reasonable cost. The cost for transporting families (now higher than by car) would be eliminated. The new system would make transit faster, more convenient, more user-friendly, and more appealing. It should be as region-wide as feasible.

Furthermore, pollution and fuel costs from large buses, unneeded and (as is often observed) nearly empty during slack periods, can be reduced.

These steps are not unprecedented. Portland and Seattle, among others, have, at times, free transit in center city; those systems are heavily used. Feeding buses into mass transit train and subway stations (European cities and New York have subways within walking distance) is used in Tokyo and elsewhere. Jitneys, along with full size buses and subways, are used in Korea. But "all free always" does seem new.

But would this work to get people out of their cars? Certainly not in all cases, but surely enough to get the freeways working again.

As evidence, I remind you of the opening of the Blue Line, from Long Beach to downtown LA. To induce people to try the "new" system, it was run totally free at first, followed by a period of low fares, finally reverting to the permanent fares. During the free period, the LA Times reported about 125,000 riders per day, compared to 25,000 per day when the standard fares were restored (it has since risen to about 60,000 per day). Thus 100,000 cars did not use the freeway (again assuming one person per car). At 12 feet per car, with two car length separation, 360,000 feet of freeway (700 miles) would not be used. Assuming an hour LA-LB drive time, and if this usage were spread over a 10 hour period, 70 miles of freeway would be unused -- about 1 lane each way from LA to Long beach -- just from the Red Line running at no charge. (Consider that the cost of the current 'stealth' widening of the 405 might have been avoided). "All free always" would make a rapid impact, and allow time to consider further solution components.

Travel patterns could then be surveyed, to develop bus service from collecting points to high volume locales, such as Hughes, USC, or UCLA. Buses could even stop in mall or supermarket lots, as in Hawaii. Adding the needed services could be done quickly. Then, long term improvements such as extending the Green line to the airport, or extending rail to the west side could be considered.

If the cost benefits, and not just the expenses, are considered, it is hard to see a down side to this approach.

[Dave Pierce]

The city councilpersons of LA, Culver City, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica should have the courage to halt ALL residential westside development until the infrastructure is in place to support both the existing and more traffic. Failure to do this simply degrades the quality of life for everyone living and working in the affected areas.

Begin by halting expansion of Playa Vista, the single largest contributor to additional westside traffic.
Dave Pierce

[tmarche1]

Try this out on the 10 FWY between Santa Monica Beach and Downtown
1) Build an elevated roadway for vehicles less than 2000 lbs. It shouldn't take a 10,000 vehicle to transport one person 180 lbs. A roadway for lightweight vehicles should be a lot cheaper than a standard roadway. Use for bikes, mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and micro-cars.
2) Limit vehicle widths to 55" and engine displacement to 1000cc. Motorists should get a lot better gas mileage. Traffic lanes could be 3/4 the size of current lanes.
If people on the traditional freeways could see the small vehicles racing past them, they are going to get a small speciallized commute vehicle!

[Nelson Lee]

Require orbanizers of major events such as Laker, Clipper, Kings & Dodger games to offer bus shuttles to the events like the Hollywood Bowl does. This will help unclog downtown traffic during the peak PM hours.

[Nelson Lee]

Turn all bus only lanes back into lanes for cars. Allowing cars on these lanes would be a more efficient use of the lanes than just allowing it for the use of a few buses.

[Nelson Lee]

Add extra lanes on Lincoln Blvd during peak hours by eliminating street parking. Do not give this extra lane for a bus only lane. The bus only lane is causing a disaster on Wilshire Blvd.

[Allen of Porter Ranch]

How about one-way freeways?
Most of the freeways that criss-cross the metropolitan area are parallel to each other. Why not make parallel pairs one-way in each direction? The Pomona Fwy (60) can be westbound only and the San Bernardino Fwy (10) can be eastbound only. All 10 or so lanes will be in one direction. The same goes for the 101/118 and 110/710 pairs.
Thank about it.

[HAPYTRVLER@AOL.COM]

The simple solution to all the traffic congestion is just that----simple.
Ban all to the big rigs-truck off the roadways and freeways between
the hours of 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM----Monday through Friday.
A total ban----no exceptions......This will solve all the problems...
Let the big rigs make deliveries at night or early morning......

SIMPLE IS BEST..............THE HAPYTRVLER

[Cary Adams]

We all know the long term solutions to traffic. But a short term solution might be gas rationing. Just as during World War II, everyone in the Greater Southern California region gets gas rations cards for each month. No card, no gas. A formula could be determined by how much driving one does, ie. home to work. Now wouldn't the auto and gas companies just go crezy!

[George F. Taylor]

Improve the traffic flow on Venice or Washington from the West Side to downtown by eliminating most left turns. An example of this strategy is 19th Street in San Francisco. It links the Golden Gate Bridge and I-280.

[JP Blanchard]

The Solution: LAMDA (LA Metro Dirigible Authority)

Enough of groveling in the asphalt in search of a way out of our gridlock woes. To shake off the shackles of noise pollution, air pollution, high blood pressure, overcrowding, excessive isolation, and repeated missing of dinner, look skyward. The time has finally come to fill the LA horizon with airships. Yes, 5-10-25-even 50-passenger blimps. Forget those images of burning zeppelins. Today's dirigible's use laughably safe helium for their lift. Low-noise, environmentally-friendly propellers move them swiftly over truly-free "airways". And thanks to ubiquitous cellphone and internet, it would be a snap to implement an infrastructure for getting passengers to their destinations without the 20th Century-hassles of "mass transit". Imagine, you know you'll be leaving work in about ten minutes, so you just send a TXT message to LAMDA with your departure location, destination, and estimated departure time. The LAMDA ATC (Air Traffic Controllers) TXT you back a departure location near you. And what are these impromptu launch pads? Look around at all the wasted roof-top space in this city! From the tops of parking garages, to the suddenly-empty parking lots, there will be Blimp-ports galore before you know it!

Look at most of out travel: it's routine. Taking the kids to school, going to work and back, running errands to the same grocery store, etc. In a fraction of the time it takes to update our address book, we could each probably enter over 80% of our transportation needs into our computer. It would be simple, then, for the LAMDA computer to simply organize individual departures, routes, and times to come up with little blimp-pools to get neighbors ride-sharing through the air. You wouldn't even have to talk to your neighbors to figure it out! (But who knows, after the first few rides, you just might...)

A sky-ful of color-coordinated airships, all different sizes, carrying relaxed Angelenos like so many swirling pigeons. Beady-eyed dreamers, young and old alike, staring down on a city of interconnected greenbelts, bike paths, and streams where once there was only concrete and automobiles. Or maybe the sides of the blimps are all leased out for advertisements, to finance the free bikes available to LAMDA riders... that is, all of us!

[John]

Simple solution: make it illegal to circumvent traffic by using an exit lane and merging back in at the last moment.
When people go around the line in that way, they have to force their way in, causing everyone to stop. Conversely, people will stay in the through-lanes on the 101 West and only merge into the line for the 405 south at the last moment. Again, everyone must stop for them.
If the CHP could discourage this by handing out tickets, LA commuters would save countless hours.

[D. Porter]

I know this is focused on traffic and airing our frustrations about it. However, given that freeways define LA and that traffic will continue to get worse before it gets better, can we at least CLEAN up the freeways! The 405, 10, and the 101 are absolutely filthy!!

[Hansford Rowe]

The most obvious problem with highway congestion is seldom addressed. If people would use the highways efficiently, the current highway system would be perfectly staisfactory. Require drivers to follow the laws and keep to the right except when passing. Drivers in the left lane impede traffic cutting down efficient use of the highway. We have names for them: SATR's; Self Appointed Traffic Regulators; LLL's: Left Lane Lovers; UI's: Uninformed Idiots, but, sadly, they are unable to hear the comments made by other drivers. If Traffic Officers would enforced the law and ticketed these SATR's the highways would soon become less congested. It is that simple.

[April Holmes]

Thank you, Steve, as always for pointing out what should be obvious to our local government officials. Traffic is a problem on the Westside (as it is in many other parts of SoCal). MTA already owns a route that's ready for development and would cost less than any other option, but they're not using it. It's deplorable.

How about taking a lesson from the NRDC? I'm on a listserv for them. I get an email every week or two that asks me to read up on an issue they're working on and then forward a form letter to my senator/congressperson. My information is already in the system so if I agree with the statement all I do is enter my email address and hit send. I've been reading your column for years and if there was an easy way to send your words to our councilmen and women, to the mayor and to our supervisors in large volume, I think we might just make a dent. Think about it!

[Walter Siembab]

Mr. Lopez, thank you for encouraging public dialogue about this important subject. Of course the problem is deeper than traffic congestion -- air pollution, green house gasses and dependence on fossil fuels are also serious concerns. So while the symptom in the case of your blog is congestion, the underlying “disease” is the complete dependence on an unsustainable, unhealthy, expensive system of mobility that affects not only Los Angeles but virtually every metropolitan area in the world

You have probably observed that most people want things to improve dramatically but they are unwilling to accept any real change as part of the deal. Let’s just make Pico and Olympic opposing one way streets so that our Westside to Downtown commutes can proceed with minimal impact on our routines. Or let’s apply yesterday’s solutions, only in greater quantities such as building light rail everywhere. Buying electric-gasoline hybrids is slightly more innovative but wide scale deployment is waiting for what I call the “electric Corvette” – an alternative fueled car with high performance characteristics. so that drivers can still commute from Riverside to Santa Ana in great comfort and at high speed. Still, new technology is at least forward looking.

But the point is that any real “solution” may include familiar elements but will necessarily break new ground. What we need is a new system of mobility, a whole new paradigm. Anything less is wishful thinking.

Surely the new system will involve new technology but not as a stand-alone fix but in a novel synthesis with elements of the existing system. It will involve reforming existing institutions so they take on new roles while also developing some entirely new institutions. And, to be successful, it must deploy quickly and affordably because the problems (including a stable, inexpensive oil supply as well as congestion) are worsening, seemingly at an increasing rate. Thanks in part to the Iraq adventure, the Federal capital to invest in new solutions will be less available in the future than it has been in the recent past, so expensive new infrastructure cannot be part of the solution.

Here’s the outline of a specific innovative system of mobility I have been developing and testing for the past 15 years. New technologies are at the core but they are shelf-ready not requiring speculative R & D like the current hybrid movement. Neighborhood vehicles (NV) such as the GEM and including personal transporters (from Segways to traditional bicycles) are currently available in the market place and ready for deployment at a fraction of the cost of hybrids

Their limit is they are short range, low speed vehicles unsuitable for many of today’s driving trips. But today’s distances are long because of the wide geographic dispersal of residential origins and the myriad of destinations. In order to make NVs an effective part of the new system, destinations must be brought closer to origins.

“Smart growth” advocates have exactly that in mind as they favor higher density, compact mixed-use development that will be pedestrian friendly and transit compatible. It’s a nice idea but it would take billions of dollars and 20 to 30 years to implement at the scale needed, may be politically infeasible – and, according to preliminary research findings from a SCAG funded study I am directing under contract to the South Bay Cities Council of Governments, density and proximity may not work out as planned.

However, it is possible for the first time in history for a myriad of destinations to appear “virtually” inside every single neighborhood in Los Angeles County, and inside many homes as well – and at lower cost than one mile of under-ground rail construction. One simple example is the decades-old system of ATMs (a network access device). ATMs allow customers to conduct certain banking functions in a 7-11 convenience store. With a touch tone phone, other banking functions can be performed from home. The computer makes even more banking functions possible without going near a bank. And so it could be with a wide variety of the functions to which people now travel.

The missing component is broadband networks and all the applications that they can carry. As expressed by, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab, the “transmission of place is now possible” (see Being Digital, page 165). In other words, with existing network technology and modernized institutional practices, it is possible to move many functions (online shopping, distance education, tele-medicine, e-government, digital entertainment, etc.) onto the network and then make those functions appear at strategically located network access points.

The underlying truth, not well recognized, is that the demand for automobile travel is caused by the business practices of public institutions and private businesses, individual households just follow the rules. Most organizations require that their workforce assemble in central locations and their consumers travel to their retail outlets, from the mall to city hall. Certainly this will always be so for some – hospital surgical staff must attend to patients in the hospital. Although even in health care, the phenomenon of decentralized clinics has been growing for years.

The point is to push the envelope of modernizing traditional business practices by comprehensively moving functions onto to the network in order to see how close these functions can be brought to residential neighborhoods. The target should be 2 to 3 miles, about the reasonable range of NVs. Public transit service can be redesigned to support the new patterns of travel demand.

In LA., the LACMTA would need to see itself as a transportation company that embraced “access” as well as “mobility” strategies. With the rights of way owned by the LACMTA and the 88 cities of the County, a high capacity network could be very quickly and affordably built through a public-private partnership. Bricks and mortar access points that I call “Network Stations” would be developed initially at transit stops and subsequently in regional centers, village centers and eventually neighborhoods as places where virtual services are delivered. Network Stations would be programmed to import the functions needed by the constituents of each neighborhood thereby adding virtual functions to existing face to face functions at any given place.

Is this science fiction? Not at all. Ironically, the LACMTA funded a demonstration of exactly this strategy in the mid-1990s in Compton under the name Blue Line TeleVillage Demonstration Project. Despite what essentially was a successful “proof of concept,” the MTA abandoned the idea. Currently there is a similar demonstration project underway in the Southern Suburbs of Chicago under the name the Riverdale e-Village Demonstration Project. And a regional strategy based on these concepts was completed and published as the “Hudson County Cyber District” (County of Hudson, New Jersey) by a consulting team led by the design firm of Wallace, Roberts and Todd.

As a bonus, the same infrastructure developed to support a new transportation system would also explicitly support equitable economic development since Network Stations provide public access to the means of production and distribution in a networked information economy. They would be, in effect, little economic engines available to all motivated to use them. .

The strategy, to which I now refer as “making suburbs smart” is complex. I have described it here only in outline. The documents to which I have referred can be found on my Web page at www.siembab.com. I am in the process of updating the content of that site but I hope that you and your readers will find the core ideas interesting. Despite the popular sentiment, we can’t really “go back to the future” – and we have the means to move forward.

[George Szabó]

Here's a simple idea that if given some deep consideration could work with no money invested. What if every car on the road maintained two car lengths in front so that others could easily merge on and off the freeways. Like a zipper we'd not skip a beat. The freeways do not need any more W I D E N I N G This would take a little campaign whereby every DJ and Newsroom personality would offer a little comment somewhere in their schedule. ''And remember, leave space so that others may drive''. or ''remember to zip it up''.

[T. Horowitz]

Will Rogers had it right. 1st you do not let any car on the road until it is paid for.