|
Editor:
The
Times questions whether the Governor's congestion relief plan
will do much to relieve freeway traffic in the face of massive
population growth in the next two decades. In a July 16 article
the Times reported that the public transit projects and freeway
improvements funded under the Governor's plan will only boost
freeway speeds by 2-miles-per-hour on a countywide average.
That's
misleading. First, it's important to understand the Governor's
initiative was never intended to be a one shot cure-all for
LA's traffic. Metro believes it's a great jump-start for
easing traffic and it applauds the Governor for his leadership and
the Legislature for supporting his initiative. By his action, the
Governor also has raised public awareness of the importance of
transportation as a priority public policy issue.
Second,
the investment in additional freeway high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV)
lanes, new busways, and light rail will have a tremendous impact
in some of the region's busiest corridors.
For
example, the Governor's plan would offer significant travel
benefits to motorists who use the proposed HOV lanes along the
I-5, I-405, and I-10 freeways. During rush hours, average speeds
on these HOV lanes will be improved by 30 to 50 percent over what
traffic would be like in the year 2025 without the new highway
projects funded by the Governor's initiative.
The
Governor's plan also will bring expanded and faster transit
service to the transit dependent and others along the Pasadena,
Eastside, Exposition, Wilshire and San Fernando Valley transit
corridors. Light rail trains and rapid buses operating on
exclusive busways would average 25 to 30 miles-per-hour compared
to the 12 miles-per-hour that buses run today in these corridors.
Of
course, residents throughout the county will benefit mightily from
the Governor's initiative. For example:
Altogether,
motorists throughout the county each day will save 1.2 million
travel hours by these improvements. That not only benefits
commuters but it helps the economy, too.
There
will be a reduction of 86 tons of air pollutants a day. This
includes a reduction in organic gases and also oxides of nitrogen
and carbon monoxide that idling vehicles spew in the atmosphere.
More
than 100,000 new transit users will swap their cars, trucks and
SUV's for mass transit. As the 1984 Olympics demonstrated, it
doesn't take much of a vehicle reduction on the freeways to make
a difference in traffic flow.
As
the Governor has signaled by his initiative, more needs to be done
and is being done on a variety of transportation fronts. The
Metro's recently adopted Long Range Transportation Plan has
identified approximately $106 billion that will be spent in the
next two decades to squeeze more capacity out of the freeways,
better manage traffic on arterial streets, give motorists even
more viable public transportation options, ease truck and rail
traffic, build more bikeways and pedestrian improvements, support
ride-sharing and many other congestion relief programs.
The
Governor's congestion relief plan greatly advances these efforts
and also focuses public attention on a serious problem that is far
more complex than just looking at freeway speeds.
Julian
Burke
Metro CEO |
