$714 Billion Southern California Transportation Plan: Reason Foundation

[andy3175]

Synopsis: http://reason.org/news/show/southern-california-mobility-plan

Southern California Mobility Plan: A long-range plan to reduce traffic congestion, improve transit and fund infrastructure across Southern California

Full Plan: http://reason.org/files/southern_california_mobility_plan.pdf

This report gets into a quite a bit of detail on specific improvements to transportation systems of all types. Here's an example of what it proposes for the East Los Angeles Interchange, where I-5, I-10, US 101, and CA 60 meet (page 38-39):

The I-5 at I-10 interchange is located east of downtown Los Angeles in the central part of the region. The interchange is unusually complex and stretches more than a mile from north-south and ½ mile from east-west. The interchange includes two additional expressways: US 101 and SR 60. AADT are 260,000 on I-5 south of the interchange, 233,000 on I-5 north of the interchange, 300,000 on I-10 west of the interchange and 210,000 on I-10 east of the interchange, 190,000 on SR 60 and 200,000 on US 101.

I-5 at I-10 is one of the most complicated expressway interchanges in the country. Fixing this bottleneck requires many steps and some minor expressway widening. First, add one lane to the ramp connecting I-5 north and I-10 west and move the merge to the right side of the expressway. Add one lane on I-5 north from the I-10 west off-ramp to the I-10 east offramp. Move the I-10 west merge at I-5 north to the right side of the highway. Add one lane on I-5 south from the I-10 west off-ramp to the I-10 east on-ramp. Widen the ramp from I-5 south to SR 60 east and move the merge to the right side of the  highway. Widen the ramp from I-10 west to I-5 north to three lanes and widen the ramp from I-10 east to I-5 south to three lanes and move the merge to the right side of the highway. Widen the ramp from SR 60 west to I-5 north to two lanes. Widen the I-10/US 101 connector from three lanes to four lanes in each direction.

There is discussion about an express lane network, new toll roads (including 710 Gap, High Desert Corridor, and surprisingly, a tunnel extension of CA 2 to connect with I-110 southwest of downtown LA), and adding grade separations along certain arterials. The transit system, including bus rapid transit and rail systems, is discussed in Part 9. It will take some time to analyze all the ideas presented in this document.

[ARMOURERERIC]

There always seems to be a push to widen I-8 to 6 lanes from San Diego to El Centro, since the feds will pay for most of it.  Since 8 is my back property line, I would be curious if this is one of their items.

[Anthony_JK]

I assume that since this is Reason's plan, all of the new lanes are toll-based, or converting freeways to tollways??

[The Ghostbuster]

Yes to Anthony_JK's question, except for the conversion of existing freeways to tollways. I've read the report and I think it is a good one, although I think the area will be lucky if even one of those new tunnel proposals are built, not that I wouldn't support them.

[MaxConcrete]

Here is another commentary with a synopsis
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2015/11/23/can-los-angeles-solve-its-traffic-problem-by-building-more-roads/

I've given the report a quick reading with a focus on the highway elements. It is very detailed with reasonable numbers to support its recommendations.

It's good to have a report to draw attention to the fact that the current long term focus on transit and changing people's lifestyles will have little or no impact in reducing traffic. On the other hand, I see very little in this report as feasible. Even in Texas, tolling is losing political support, and there never was much support for tolling in L.A. County. A massive toll-oriented plan with "relatively high express lane tolls" is probably a nonstarter.

In my view, SoCal will be fortunate if the I-710 tunnel (or tunnels) actually get built. What are the chances of additional tunnels? Probably close to zero. This is the first proposal I have seen for the cross-mountain tunnel (Santa Monica to San Fernando Valley) and the downtown bypass tunnel. Very intriguing, but I think a big change in the political climate would be needed to even start studying those projects.

I think the most feasible proposals in the plan are the interchange improvement projects. Perhaps this report will get some of those improvements in the planning pipeline.
 
 

[Occidental Tourist]

I agree that operational improvements to interchanges are desperately needed, but in reviewing Reason's plan, they seem to be divorced from the reality of the current system, current rights-of-way limitations, conforming with Caltrans own engineering guidelines for ramp radii, etc.

For example, they recommend increasing the number of lanes on the interchange from the the 110 north to the 101 north from two to three, and the same thing from the 110 south to the 101 south.  The problem is that the current footprint of the Four Level Interchange doesn't allow for expansion of these two interchanges to three lanes.  In fact, even at two lanes wide, the two interchanges are still substandard curves for purposes of modern Caltrans specs because there's no room under the bridges to "smooth them out."  You'd have to essentially demolish and rebuild the entire interchange because the support bents for the upper roadways are too closely spaced together to permit a widening.  The proposal also ignores the fact that the northbound Hollywood Freeway doesn't have capacity to accept an additional lane from the 110 north.  The current interchange with two lanes is already over capacity and incorporates an additional traffic lane from the 110 south and a through lane from the 101 north and squeezes those four lanes down to two through multiple lane merges.

As another example, the Reason Plan proposes operational improvements for the 10/605 that completely ignore the ongoing construction of a flyover ramp from the 605 south to the 10 east to address half of a weaving merging problem in the existing interchange design.  I don't know how you legitimately estimate the costs of proposed fixes to a transportation system if you don't even have up-to-date information about recent changes to the system that have added capacity or placed additional engineering barriers in the way of your proposed fixes.

Given the real world impracticalities of what Reason is proposing, I think their cost estimate must be highly suspect.  It appears somebody in an office in DC simply looked at a map of California "expressways" and drew a wish list on it of what they'd like to do without having sufficient information about the actual conditions on the ground and whether those changes aren't cost-prohibitive given the conditions.

[mrsman]

I agree that operational improvements to interchanges are desperately needed, but in reviewing Reason's plan, they seem to be divorced from the reality of the current system, current rights-of-way limitations, confirming with Caltrans own engineering guidelines for ramp radii, etc.

For example, they recommend increasing the number of lanes on the interchange from the the 110 north to the 101 north from two to three, and the same thing from the 110 south to the 101 south.  The problem is that the current footprint of the Four Level Interchange doesn't allow for expansion of these two interchanges to three lanes.  In fact, even at two lanes wide, the two interchanges are still substandard curves for purposes of modern Caltrans specs because there's no room under the bridges to "smooth them out."  You'd have to essentially demolish and rebuild the entire interchange because the support bents for the upper roadways are too closely spaced together to permit a widening.  The proposal also ignores the fact that the northbound Hollywood Freeway doesn't have capacity to accept an additional lane from the 110 north.  The current interchange with two lanes is already over capacity and incorporates an additional traffic lane from the 110 south and a through lane from the 101 north and squeezes those four lanes down to two through multiple lane merges.

As another example, the Reason Plan proposes operational improvements for the 10/605 that completely ignore the ongoing construction of a flyover ramp from the 605 south to the 10 east to address half of a weaving merging problem in the existing interchange design.  I don't know how you legitimately estimate the costs of proposed fixes to a transportation system if you don't even have up-to-date information about recent changes to the system that have added capacity or placed additional engineering barriers in the way of your proposed fixes.

Given the real world impracticalities of what Reason is proposing, I think their cost estimate must be highly suspect.  It appears somebody in an office in DC simply looked at a map of California "expressways" and drew a wish list on it of what they'd like to do without having sufficient information about the actual conditions on the ground and whether those changes aren't cost-prohibitive given the conditions.

Agreed.  If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that the people at Reason were inspired by FritzOwl.

[nexus73]

Seeing someone completely rebuild the 4-Level would be quite the deal.  How would it be done so traffic is able to flow to some extent that is not completely unreasonable?  That's the $64 question which occurs to me.  Pretend that money is not an issue since this proposal is already figured at 3/4 of a trillion.  What's another chunk o' change going to matter?  LOL!

Rick

 

[The Ghostbuster]

I would agree it is ambitious, and some portions of the plan may be impractical. However, with big problems, sometimes it doesn't hurt to think big.

[nexus73]

I would agree it is ambitious, and some portions of the plan may be impractical. However, with big problems, sometimes it doesn't hurt to think big.

Bingo!  I like the way you think :-)

Rick

[RaulMtz]

What LA essentially needs to do is complete its freeway network. There are tons of gaps in the grid that if they were present, many freeways would be unclogged. I'd propose the following shown in this kmz file for google earth:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8as5cyno9xfr2u/Southern%20California%20Freeway%20Network%20Completion%20Plan.kmz?dl=0

One way to get some of these done is with tunneling options, like the Reason Foundation's plan proposes. Australia and New Zealand have been doing that during the last 10 years in order to get their freeway networks complete.

[The Ghostbuster]

Although I am not religious, amen!

[hm insulators]

I spent the better part of an hour reading all these possible construction projects, but I think a lot of it is pie-in-the-sky thinking. Many of the arterial improvements call for the removal of parking lanes. Parking space is inadequate in L.A. as it is; you're going to remove hundreds of thousands of parking spaces?

The tunnel under the San Gabriel Mountains will probably be a non-starter; the people living in multi-million dollar homes along and near the Hillard Avenue/Palm Drive corridors will see to that.

[The Ghostbuster]

It seems to me that getting any improvements (no matter how minor) to a big city's freeway system is pie-in-the-sky. As for parking space, check Reason.org and put 'parking reform' in the google search box. That should come up with some of their ideas about dealing with parking issues.