A Los Angeles Plan to Reshape the Streetscape Sets Off Fears of Gridlock

[cpzilliacus]

N.Y. Times: A Los Angeles Plan to Reshape the Streetscape Sets Off Fears of Gridlock

This city of fast cars and endless freeways is preparing to do what not long ago would have been unthinkable: sacrificing car lanes to make way for bikes and buses.

The City Council has approved a far-reaching transportation plan that would reshape the streetscape over the next 20 years, adding hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes, bus-only lanes and pedestrian safety features as part of an effort to nudge drivers out from behind the wheel.

Not surprisingly, in the unofficial traffic congestion capital of the country, the plan has set off fears of apocalyptic gridlock.

"What they're trying to do is make congestion so bad, you'll have to get out of your car,"  said James O'Sullivan, a founder of Fix the City, a group that is planning a lawsuit to stop the plan. "But what are you going to do, take two hours on a bus? They haven't given us other options."

For Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Mobility Plan 2035, as the new program is being called, is part of a larger push to get people out of their cars and onto sidewalks that began with the expansion of the mass transit system championed by his immediate predecessor, Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

The salad days of driving here – when, so the saying went, it took 20 minutes to get anywhere in this city of 500 square miles – are gone, Mr. Garcetti said, and he has encouraged residents to instead stay local and shop at nearby businesses.

"The old model of a car-centric, different-neighborhood-for-every-task city is in many ways slipping through our fingers whether we like it or not,"  Mr. Garcetti said. "We have to have neighborhoods that are more self-contained. People want to be able to walk or bike or take transit to a movie."

The plan to remove car lanes offers a test of just how far public transit and pedestrian culture have come in Los Angeles: Forty years ago, when state officials turned one lane of a freeway into a car-pool lane, commuters revolted until a lawsuit undid the change.

Now, there are 87 miles of subway and light rail across the county, with five projects underway that will add 32 more miles. And ride-share services like Uber have helped make getting around without a car far more plausible.

[ARMOURERERIC]

Except the state is doing all it can to take out Uber

[JNorton]

It's more a cliché than reality that L.A. is totally car obsessed: Many cities are more car-centric than Los Angeles, e.g. Houston or Kansas City, which have a much larger ratio of freeways to population than L.A. To see crowds of people pouring out of Metro stations onto the busy sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood confuses many out-of-towners who "never dreamed" that L.A. has a rail transit system.

[The Ghostbuster]

I'm sure few people will do as the mayor says. They will expect the other drivers to do it for them.

[Henry]

Those fears will be confirmed anyway, because there are very few cities that have worse gridlock than L.A., with the rare exceptions being Washington, DC and Atlanta.

[ARMOURERERIC]

I'm sure few people will do as the mayor says. They will expect the other drivers to do it for them.

Which is why SB 350 is being debated, they may notlisten to the Mayor, but they will sadly have no choice when it becomes a $600 state fine.

[The Ghostbuster]

I don't expect the fines to be enough. If this bill is enacted, I predict there will be a big fight between commuters and the government.

[myosh_tino]

That transformation is already under way in the San Francisco Bay Area so to speak.

Up here, taking away traffic lanes in favor of buffered bike lanes has been dubbed "Road Diets" and naturally it's caused a rift between drivers, bicyclists and neighborhoods.  Drivers hate them because vehicular throughput is being decreased.  Cyclists love them because it's safer and it promotes being environmentally responsible.  The neighborhoods like them because it has the appearance of "calming" traffic.

There are four pretty prominent road diets in the San Jose area.
* Hedding St between 1st & 17th Sts (San Jose)
* Pruneridge Ave between Pomeroy and Tantau (Santa Clara)
* Lincoln Ave between Paula and Minnesota (San Jose)
* Moorpark Ave between Williams and Saratoga (San Jose)

Hedding Street was transformed from a 4-lane road with on-street parking to a 2-lane road with buffered bike lanes and no on-street parking.  The resident's reaction was mixed as they liked the traffic calming effect of removing 2 lanes but not the loss of on-street parking.  Interestingly enough, about a mile east of the diet, the road was widened from 4 to 6 lanes to accommodate a future BART station.

Lincoln Avenue, located in the Willow Glen business district, was transformed from a 4-lane road with on-street parking to a 2-lane road with a two-way left turn lane, bike lanes and on-street parking.  Business owners weren't particularly pleased with this diet as many feared that congestion would keep people away.  I think the jury is still out on this one.

Moorpark Avenue was the most recent road diet.  It transformed from a 4-lane road with on-street parking to a 2-lane road with a two-way left turn lane, buffered bike lanes and on-street parking.  According to readers writing into Gary Richard's Roadshow column at the San Jose Mercury News, traffic was absolute hell in late August with school starting (there are 3 schools in the area, DeVargas Elementary, Strawberry Park and Mitty HS).

The least complained about diet was Pruneridge Avenue as it's passes through predominately residential areas.  Things may get interesting here when the new Apple campus opens.

Another concept riling drivers is Bus Rapid Transit or BRT which dedicates a lane in each direction to buses only and gives them priority at signals like light rail.  A BRT line is already under construction on Alum Rock Avenue that's supposed to link east San Jose to the downtown area but construction issues have plagued the project and it's behind schedule.  There are also plans to run BRT along El Camino Real from San Jose to Palo Alto but it has run into some stiff opposition from a couple of cities.

[JNorton]

Regarding the nay-sayers: some people just can't imagine a city--or world--different from the one they currently occupy. For cities to become more livable, sustainable and civilized, changes that are necessary, e.g., road "diets" or special bus lanes, may cause short-term disruption, but the long-term value is what matters (and this opinion is not from some upstart urban hipster but from a 76-year-old suburbanite).

[AlexandriaVA]

Quite often, roads that are being dieted were over capacity in the first place. And once you have more road than you need, nearly anything else, such as a bike lane, sidewalk, or parallel parking is a better use.

I think everyone would agree that you should have as much road as you need, but nothing in excess.

Also, there's a phenomenon which I don't have statistics for, but just my own observations, is that quite often a community will oppose road diets based on their own perceived inconveniences, but then the changes turn out to be not a big deal and the residents wind up liking it. Sort of like with roundabouts - people instinctively don't trust them because they're different, but once they find out they're safer and more efficient, they accept them.

[myosh_tino]

Quite often, roads that are being dieted were over capacity in the first place. And once you have more road than you need, nearly anything else, such as a bike lane, sidewalk, or parallel parking is a better use.

I think that's why the Hedding Street diet generated so much angst because of the loss of on-street parking in favor of a buffered bike lane.

Regarding Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on El Camino Real, the cities that are against the dedicated lanes are concerned that...
* Traffic will shift off of El Camino and onto lower capacity city streets
* Businesses along El Camino will suffer (i.e. loss in sales tax revenue for the cities)
* ALL intersections must be signalized meaning that lesser uncontrolled intersections and left-turn pockets into shopping centers would need to be closed off.

Oddly enough, this has kind of pitted two county agencies against one another.  The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) are the ones pushing for the BRT but the county's Roads and Airport division, that oversees the expressway system, has expressed concerns that BRT's priority at intersections would conflict with signal coordination on San Tomas and Lawrence Expressways leading to increased delays on those major arteries.

[TheStranger]

Another concept riling drivers is Bus Rapid Transit or BRT which dedicates a lane in each direction to buses only and gives them priority at signals like light rail.  A BRT line is already under construction on Alum Rock Avenue that's supposed to link east San Jose to the downtown area but construction issues have plagued the project and it's behind schedule.  There are also plans to run BRT along El Camino Real from San Jose to Palo Alto but it has run into some stiff opposition from a couple of cities.

In San Francisco, there are proposals to add BRT to Geary Boulevard (a former streetcar corridor until the mid-1950s) and Van Ness Avenue (pretty much the segment that is US 101).  To some degree Market Street has unintentionally ended up as a BRT corridor east of 10th Street, as non-taxi/non-transit/non-bike traffic is no longer allowed eastbound and non-taxi/non-transit drivers crossing Market from Hyde Street east to 3rd Street can no longer turn into either direction of Market as of August 11th.

[myosh_tino]

Another concept riling drivers is Bus Rapid Transit or BRT which dedicates a lane in each direction to buses only and gives them priority at signals like light rail.  A BRT line is already under construction on Alum Rock Avenue that's supposed to link east San Jose to the downtown area but construction issues have plagued the project and it's behind schedule.  There are also plans to run BRT along El Camino Real from San Jose to Palo Alto but it has run into some stiff opposition from a couple of cities.

In San Francisco, there are proposals to add BRT to Geary Boulevard (a former streetcar corridor until the mid-1950s) and Van Ness Avenue (pretty much the segment that is US 101).  To some degree Market Street has unintentionally ended up as a BRT corridor east of 10th Street, as non-taxi/non-transit/non-bike traffic is no longer allowed eastbound and non-taxi/non-transit drivers crossing Market from Hyde Street east to 3rd Street can no longer turn into either direction of Market as of August 11th.

I can see adding BRT to Geary but adding it to Van Ness?  That's not going to go over too well with commuters trying to head north out of San Francisco.  Taking a third of Van Ness' capacity away just so locals have a bus to ride seems to be outright lunacy.  The only way this would go over with commuters is if Golden Gate Transit's buses are allowed into the BRT lanes.

[hm insulators]

I see an effort to recall the mayor and a bunch of the city councilpeople if they try to pass this piece of garbage. Or at least a referendum.

[Rothman]

Regarding the nay-sayers: some people just can't imagine a city--or world--different from the one they currently occupy. For cities to become more livable, sustainable and civilized, changes that are necessary, e.g., road "diets" or special bus lanes, may cause short-term disruption, but the long-term value is what matters (and this opinion is not from some upstart urban hipster but from a 76-year-old suburbanite).

I see blind adherence to these principles very damaging in the short and long terms.  Having taken every one of my graduate electives in regional planning, it is astonishing to me how unfriendly policy proposals for sustainability are for families.  Imagine trying to buy and carry enough food for a family of four on public transit.  Imagine trying to run kids around for their extracurricular activities (including on weekends) on transit.  That's not anything but creating a nightmare.

Here in Albany, my wife and I took advantage of public transit.  We live near the "new" BusPlus line.  CDTA calls the 905 line BRT because it stops at few stops than the former local lines between Albany and Schenectady.  So, because the monthly pass was indeed cheaper than driving a car back and forth between our home and downtown Albany and paying for parking, my wife took the bus.

The cost benefit was the only benefit.  The added prices were:

• An hour-long commute when the drive would be 30 minutes.
• Sitting next to the untouchables on the bus, including those that smelled like urine and other bodily fluids
• Being unable to do much of anything off the bus line, or even on it.  The time to travel on it was simply too great if you had to stop, run errands, and then get back on.
• Grocery shopping was out of the question
• Any need to transport our children around was left up to me, since I had a car

We made do, but our car was definitely necessary.

That said, my wife just got a much better job that is essentially off the bus line with free parking.  Sure, theoretically she could still take the bus and transfer lines, thus extending her commute to about 90 minutes or more and making it far too unpredictable to be feasible, but she doesn't look back at her commuting-by-bus days very happily.  Great money-saver when it's really convenient (i.e. living and working right next to the line), but any slight change in location causes cars to win the cost-benefit argument.

I'm not against public transit, but when people start talking about it as a substitute for car travel rather than a complement to it (as it actually operates over the long term), it makes me reach for my revolver.

[mrsman]

I am concerned about the LA plan.  I'd like to see details to know which streets would be affected and how.  For some corrdiors this may work, but they can't take a lane off of every major street in LA.  That would be unwokable.

[TheStranger]

I can see adding BRT to Geary but adding it to Van Ness?  That's not going to go over too well with commuters trying to head north out of San Francisco.  Taking a third of Van Ness' capacity away just so locals have a bus to ride seems to be outright lunacy.  The only way this would go over with commuters is if Golden Gate Transit's buses are allowed into the BRT lanes.

The 47/49 Muni routes are pretty packed most of the time (along with the parallel 19 Polk) - Gough Street southbound though is already pretty bad at rush hour and not much of an alternative for southbound US 101 car commuters.

Here's more on the project, which indeed would cover all but 3 blocks of the US 101 segment of Van Ness/South Van Ness (and would be used by both Muni and GGT):
http://www.sfcta.org/delivering-transportation-projects/van-ness-avenue-bus-rapid-transit-home

[The Ghostbuster]

Will this proposal go through? I thought Los Angeles was congested enough already. But maybe I am wrong.

[JNorton]

Why do people get so tied in a knot about reserving a lane for Rapid Bus Transit when only, what?, 1 tenth of 1% of L.A.'s street space would be involved? Come on folks, start looking beyond the post WWII mindset, when the urban areas were designed and developed with the expectation that everyone would use a car for everything.

Los Angeles has the best-designed and most comprehensive freeway system on the planet, but it can't be expected to do all the transportation heavy lifting. For all practical purposes, it's at capacity and no space or money is available to enlarge it. So innovative ways to get around the city--ways not dependent on the automobile--are the only hope.

In the long run, the motorists and those able to use other forms of transportation, will all be better off for it. So sarcastic naysayers--give the future a chance.

[Rothman]

Why do people get so tied in a knot about reserving a lane for Rapid Bus Transit when only, what?, 1 tenth of 1% of L.A.'s street space would be involved? Come on folks, start looking beyond the post WWII mindset, when the urban areas were designed and developed with the expectation that everyone would use a car for everything.

Los Angeles has the best-designed and most comprehensive freeway system on the planet, but it can't be expected to do all the transportation heavy lifting. For all practical purposes, it's at capacity and no space or money is available to enlarge it. So innovative ways to get around the city--ways not dependent on the automobile--are the only hope.

In the long run, the motorists and those able to use other forms of transportation, will all be better off for it. So sarcastic naysayers--give the future a chance.

Let the BRT lane just be another general purpose lane.  There's the additional capacity that you say can't be had.

[JNorton]

Most of you guys are too young to remember this, but I was there: The most convincing argument presented to people living in built-up areas through which the new freeways were to run was that the surface streets would again belong to the neighborhoods. As you can imagine, people living near the freeways were up-in-arms about having huge highways pushed through their neighborhoods, but the promise that through traffic that clogged streets like Olympic and Sunset boulevards would be diverted to the new freeways helped carry the day. Surface streets, we were assured, would revert to local traffic only. It might be useful to remember that promise when getting bent out of shape about a bus or bike lane. 

[Rothman]

Most of you guys are too young to remember this, but I was there: The most convincing argument presented to people living in built-up areas through which the new freeways were to run was that the surface streets would again belong to the neighborhoods. As you can imagine, people living near the freeways were up-in-arms about having huge highways pushed through their neighborhoods, but the promise that through traffic that clogged streets like Olympic and Sunset boulevards would be diverted to the new freeways helped carry the day. Surface streets, we were assured, would revert to local traffic only. It might be useful to remember that promise when getting bent out of shape about a bus or bike lane. 

I don't see how that promise relates to bus/bike lanes.

[lordsutch]

Unless you're running 1-minute headways like Sao Paulo or something, that BRT lane is going to be empty a lot of the time. And while you can maybe make the argument that you're nonetheless adding a certain number of butts-per-hour to the road's throughput, the people sitting in traffic looking at empty lanes most of the time aren't going to buy the argument. While you can boost the utilization a bit by allowing taxis, airport shuttles, and carpool vans and the like to use the infrastructure too, it's at the expense of the BRT becoming a less reliable option.

From an "optics" perspective, it's one reason to prefer rail. At least fewer people are sitting next to a dedicated LRT right-of-way thinking "why can't I get on the tracks and get to my destination." Although at the same time rail loses flexibility over BRT.

[mrsman]

Most of you guys are too young to remember this, but I was there: The most convincing argument presented to people living in built-up areas through which the new freeways were to run was that the surface streets would again belong to the neighborhoods. As you can imagine, people living near the freeways were up-in-arms about having huge highways pushed through their neighborhoods, but the promise that through traffic that clogged streets like Olympic and Sunset boulevards would be diverted to the new freeways helped carry the day. Surface streets, we were assured, would revert to local traffic only. It might be useful to remember that promise when getting bent out of shape about a bus or bike lane. 

I don't see how that promise relates to bus/bike lanes.

THe most recent fights over the Rowena Ave road diet may give some insight.

Rowena Avenue is a relatively short street in the Silver Lake area.  It used to be 2 lanes in each direcgtion between Hyperion and Glendale Blvd.  It was reduced to one lane in each direction (with left turn lanes and bike lanes) to reduce speeds in the area after a fatal accident on the street.

Well, naturally this reduced speeds but also caused the street to be more congested causing many drivers to use even smaller parallel side streets to get by.


http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2015/05/is-silver-lakes-rowena-road-diet-a-disaster/

So if we build a freeway to unclog an arterial, that may work for a little while, until the freeway gets clogged.  The arterial also gets clogged.

Now take a lane away from the arterial.  The arterial will still be clogged and  it will drive traffic to more of the residential streets.

[Rothman]

Most of you guys are too young to remember this, but I was there: The most convincing argument presented to people living in built-up areas through which the new freeways were to run was that the surface streets would again belong to the neighborhoods. As you can imagine, people living near the freeways were up-in-arms about having huge highways pushed through their neighborhoods, but the promise that through traffic that clogged streets like Olympic and Sunset boulevards would be diverted to the new freeways helped carry the day. Surface streets, we were assured, would revert to local traffic only. It might be useful to remember that promise when getting bent out of shape about a bus or bike lane. 

I don't see how that promise relates to bus/bike lanes.

THe most recent fights over the Rowena Ave road diet may give some insight.

Rowena Avenue is a relatively short street in the Silver Lake area.  It used to be 2 lanes in each direcgtion between Hyperion and Glendale Blvd.  It was reduced to one lane in each direction (with left turn lanes and bike lanes) to reduce speeds in the area after a fatal accident on the street.

Well, naturally this reduced speeds but also caused the street to be more congested causing many drivers to use even smaller parallel side streets to get by.


http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2015/05/is-silver-lakes-rowena-road-diet-a-disaster/

So if we build a freeway to unclog an arterial, that may work for a little while, until the freeway gets clogged.  The arterial also gets clogged.

Now take a lane away from the arterial.  The arterial will still be clogged and  it will drive traffic to more of the residential streets.

Oh...so you think a BRT lane will alleviate congestion?  Have to disagree with you there.