CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BOTTLENECK REPORT: TRANSIT ONLY A PARTIAL TRAFFIC FIX”
Many of America’s worst traffic bottlenecks are holding up
commuters for hours each week even where there’s plenty of mass transit nearby.
That’s the upshot of a new report titled “Unclogging America’s
Arteries,” which offers a few nostrums that don’t really figure to solve the
problem anytime soon. (http://www.highways.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/unclogging-study2015-hi-res.pdf)
The most prominent conclusion of the study is that 11 of the
nation’s 16 worst bottlenecks are in California, the vast majority in Los Angeles
and Orange counties. That won’t surprise commuters accustomed to putting up
with parking-lot scenes on I-405, U.S. 101, I-110 and I-10 in L.A., but it
might surprise San Francisco drivers to learn that the 1.9-mile stretch of I-80
approaching the Bay Bridge from the south and west wastes more time for more
people than all but 11 others nationwide.
It may be more surprising to learn
that crowding and delays on I-405 in Orange County are far worse than in New
York’s Lincoln Tunnel, costing drivers and their passengers 7.1 million hours
of waiting time yearly, more than double what Manhattan and New Jersey folk
spend hung up in the always-jammed tunnel system under the Hudson River.
Similarly, it will probably stun the
tens of thousands who commute daily on Houston’s Katy Freeway, I-10’s Texas
iteration, to learn they’re not even in the top 50 when it comes to wasting
time. That almost has to be an error of omission.
One remarkable thing about all this is
that more than a dozen routes listed among the nation’s most crowded (a stretch
of Chicago’s I-90 ranks No. 1) run near and parallel to mass transit.
Theoretically, then, it’s possible to bypass the frustrating waits by riding
trains or busways.
Thus, many commuters frustrated by
Bottleneck #7, the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley portion of Los
Angeles, could be riding the Metro Orange Line nearby instead, but don’t.
The same for drivers tied up on
I-110 near downtown Los Angeles, who could be on the Metro Gold or Blue lines.
Or plenty of drivers on that often-congested stretch of skyway in San
Francisco, many of whom could ride BART.
One lessen here, then, is that mass
transit doesn’t solve all congestion. Just look at the I-10 between downtown
Los Angeles and the city’s Westside, where commuters sit and wait while trains
zip unmolested along the almost parallel, mostly completed Metro Expo Line.
Altogether, California drivers last
year wasted more than 47 million waking hours waiting in traffic along the
state’s 15 most congested routes.
The federal planners who put out the
new report appear to have few viable ideas for getting stalled traffic moving.
They call for “cost-effective, high-impact” investments to improve traffic, but
quickly add that “There is no silver bullet for addressing it.”
Among their low-cost suggestions are
expansion of the 511 telephone traveler information system, and offering
advisories that suggest alternate routes via radio stations and message signs.
All those techniques already exist on many of the super-crowded California
stretches, but they have not gotten traffic moving.
The
planners also suggest using smartphone apps like Waze that let drivers reroute
around the worst jams. Those apps have been known to infuriate residents in
once-quiet neighborhoods that now see heavy traffic sent their way by the
robotic voices of modern cellphones.
More managed lanes, like the toll
lanes already used on some of California’s (former) freeways are another
recommendation.
But the bottom line solution appears
to be both simpler and more complex than anything traffic authorities and their
planners can do: To move faster, drivers will have to start leaving their cars
behind in mass transit parking lots and letting train operators do the driving.
As long as the vast majority of
motorists are unwilling to do that, bottlenecks will be the rule, not the
exception in the most populous, most congested parts of California.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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