CONGESTED LOS ANGELES Prepared For: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council City of Los Angeles Prepared By: Jacki Murdock Transportation Analyst LADOT December 11 th, 2011
Outline What causes congestion? Congestion in LA: How bad is it? Where are we headed? What should we do about congestion?
What causes congestion? Allocating scarce road space when too many users want to use the same space at the same time. Limited capacity Peak hours Growth Concentrated areas of activity Identifying the actual problem: Peak travel demand exceeds capacity (Downs, 2004) Recurring congestion and random congestion
Causes of Congestion Activities concentrated in space and time Images: http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/9/10/fly-the-friendly-skies-at-lax-tips-to-travelling-like-a-star.html, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1039402-power-ranking-every-nba-arena, http://webpages.charter.net/arargueta/subpages/education.htmlhttp://www.museumexpo.org/aam2010/public/mainhall.aspx? ID=159&sortMenu=102000, and http://atumbaga.bol.ucla.edu/
Causes of Congestion-Growth Nationally, vehicle demand greatly outpaced transportation investments. Growth in VMT has outpaced population growth Population growth contributes to congestion because Source: Sorensen, 2009
Other Causes of Congestion Incident is any nonrecurring event that causes a reduction in roadway capacity or an abnormal increase in demand. (Downs, 2004) Bottlenecks This is less of a concern, but how we respond effects congestion http:// equaljusticeandlaw.wordpress.com/ 2012/07/20/
Congestion in Los Angeles Los Angeles is performing much worse than the national average In fact LA ranks number one for travel time index and annual hours of delay Percent and Hours 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10-1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Travel Time Index Congested System (% of lane-miles congested) Annual Hours of Delay (during peak periods) Annual Hours of Delay: National Average Congested System (% of lane-miles congested): National Average Travel Time Index (time for congested trip/ time on same route without congestion) Travel Time Index: National Average Source: TTI, 2011
Congestion in Los Angeles Demand growth greatly outpacing capacity growth. Source: TTI, 2011 Daily Vehicle Miles (in thousands) and Lane Miles 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 - Vehicle Miles of Travel and Lane Miles in Los Angeles, Years1982-2010 (TTI, 2011) Daily Vehicle Miles of Travel on Freeways Freeway Lane Miles Daily Vehicle Miles of Travel on Arterial Streets Arterial Streets Lane Miles 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 Source: TTI, 2011
Congestion in LA- How bad is it? Congestion imposes costs on: Individuals Time wasted Reliability Businesses Deliveries and service calls Inventory management TTI estimates truck congestion costs are 2 and a quarter billion a year (2010) Total: $10.9 Billion in 2010
Congestion in LA will likely get worse Projected population growth Six million more residents in the SCAG region by 2035 (SCAG, 2008) Projected growth in number of single person households Smaller households More trips Projected growth in port activity and related travel
What to do about congestion? Real question: What to do about demand for roadways exceeding capacity? Option 1: Add capacity Option 2: Pursue Smart Growth Option 3: Price roads Option 4: Congestion
Option 1: Add Capacity Transit or highways Benefit: short term congestion relief n Short term because of triple convergence (Downs, 2004 and Duranton and Turner, 2011) n From other routes n From other times n From other modes Costs: n Extreme financial and political costs n 405 widening: $1 Billion n Displacement n Construction
Option 2: Build Smart Growth Design communities to decrease VMT (SB 375 ) Benefits n Small reduction in per-capita VMT n But increase local VMT, which increases congestion n More travel choices and housing choices Costs: n Long term investment n No change in congestion n Note: building Smart Growth may still be justifiable, but not on congestion grounds.
Option 3: Price Roads Using prices to change the behavior of a few motorists n To different routes n To different times n To different modes Benefits: n Methods: n Congestion pricing on a highway n HOT Lanes n Cordon pricing Reduction in congestion Revenues Costs Politically difficult SR 167 in Washington Source: environment.fhwa.dot.gov
Option 4: Continued Congestion Congestion is a solution to the problem of demand exceeding limited capacity. n Waiting in line Benefits n No need for new capital investments Costs n Risk slowing economic activity n Environmental costs
Recommendation: Increase travel options HOT lanes n Introducing congestion pricing one lane at a time Public transportation Truck only toll lanes Increase capacity in critical corridors Address incidents and accidents quickly Avoid congestion backlash Don t claim a project will reduce congestion if it won t. It s about managing congestion
Sources Barth, Matthew and Kanok Boriboonsomsin. 2009. Traffic Congestion and Greenhouse Gases Access, 35. Downs, Anthony. 2004. Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Duranton, Gilles, and Matthew A. Turner. 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities." American Economic Review, 101(6): 2616-52. LAMTA (undated) Metro Fact Sheet: I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvement Project http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/i405/images/i405-project-benefits-fact-sheet.pdf SCAG. 2008. Regional Comprehensive Plan. Southern California Association of Governments. <http://www.scag.ca.gov/rcp/index.htm> Sorensen, Paul. 2009. Moving Los Angeles, Access, 35: 16-24. < http://www.uctc.net/access/35/access35_moving_los_angeles.pdf>. Texas Transportation Institute. 2011. Performance Measure Summary - Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana CA <http://mobility.tamu.edu/files/2011/09/losan.pdf The Tioga Group, Inc. and HIS Global Insight. 2009 San Pedro Bay Container Forecast Update.