Long Range Transportation Plan Video
Part 1 (3 minutes)
Part 2 (3 minutes) | Version en Español
The Purpose of the LRTP
What drives the plan
The Challenge
Part 3 (2 minutes)
Part 4 (2 minutes)
Part 5 (2 minutes)
Part 6 (2 minutes)
Part 7 (3 minutes)
Part 2 - Video Transcript
Metro is charged with developing a long range transportation plan for Los Angeles County. We’re currently updating our plan for 2008. The draft 2008 plan looks ahead through the year 2030, about 20 years. The reason why it takes so long to develop a plan is that the projects we’re developing take time to build. Generally it takes between 7 and 10 years to develop a major highway or transit project, so you can see why we need to look so far ahead.
The draft plan identifies projects we think we can fund and it also identifies projects we would like to fund if we had more money. It’s a performance based process and that just ensures that we get the most benefit for the money invested.
The plan has four major themes; the first theme is mobility, getting the most mobility from our transportation system. Secondly we look at the environment, how do the transportation projects we develop affect the environment, including reducing global warming and improving air quality. The third theme is goods movement which is a critical issue in Los Angeles County given that Los Angeles has two of the busiest ports in the nation and not only do the ports serve Los Angeles but they serve the rest of the nation as well; about 40% of the goods leaving the ports actually leaves the region. So that means we have not only heavy congestion from truck traffic on our highways but community impacts and safety issues as well. And the fourth issue is funding; the question that we have is “Can we fund what we need to do?”
What are some of the challenges that we face in developing a long range plan? Well clearly we have a lot of people in Los Angeles County, we have 10 million people today and we’re expecting 2 million more people over the next 20 years. We clearly have complicated travel patterns; we have people not just coming down town and going home every night but we have people traveling in all direction all day and if we don’t do anything we know that stop and go traffic will just get worse and worse in Los Angeles County. Our current average speed during commute periods is 30 miles an hour today and that will decline to 20 miles per hour in 20 years. And our rush hour which actually lasts three to four hours in the morning and three to four hours in the evening will continue to get longer; people will start leaving earlier and coming home later to avoid the peak period.
So in short we’re trying to address these challenges to maintain our quality of life.