Rush Hour in LA is 5 to 9

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rush hour in Los Angeles lasts from 5:00 until 9:00 -- that's 5:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. And this is coming your way. Especially if you live in a large city, where studies show delays already devour 47 hours of your life every year.

But not if Mark Pisano can help it.

MARK PISANO, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION: We need to think differently how we grow and develop.

FOREMAN: He runs a southern California association, working to make bad traffic better.

PISANO: Each city cannot be an island unto themselves. They're now impacting on their neighbors. And furthermore, within large cities, the communities are impacting one another.

FOREMAN: At first glance, solving L.A.'s problem of too many people, about 18 million, and too little highway, would seem to be simple.

Solution one -- add more lanes. But experience has shown when highways expand, businesses and neighborhoods expand right along with them, eating the extra roadway as fast as it's built.

Solution two -- encourage carpools. Good idea. Problem is, carpool lanes are faster. So drivers think they can live further from their jobs. That promotes sprawl and ultimately more cars coming from afar.

Solution three -- more public transit. Another nice idea, but in most cities, the number of new buses and trains it would take to make a difference is staggering.

Just ask Planning Director Hasan Ikhrata.

HASAN IKHRATA, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSN. OF GOVTS: Out of 48 million daily trips...

FOREMAN (on camera): Forty-eight million daily trips?

IKHRATA: ...we have in this region, we have about 2 percent in the public transportation.

FOREMAN (voice-over): So what can work? Well, traffic planning experts say, maybe this -- more planned communities built around jobs. Houses, shopping and recreation, all in one relatively small place. Maybe this -- more driver education.

(on camera): This allows people to test things that previously they could never test. Right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.

FOREMAN (voice-over): They want commuters to see what computer models now show so well. How even one car stopped by an accident or a poor maintenance can have an enormous impact.

PISANO: About 50 percent of our congestion could be solved if we had drivers doing everything perfectly.

FOREMAN: That's right, 50 percent of congestion could be ended, not with better roads, but with better drivers.

And maybe this -- they want you -- business people, commuters, casual drivers -- to pay more for the congestion you cause through toll roads, fees on new housing developments or shopping areas. They hope this, along with soaring gas prices and tedious traffic jams will finally convince you to change the way you live.

IKHRATA: They have to live in more dense areas around transit stations. They have to use transit.

FOREMAN (on camera): Yes, but I don't want to do that. Nobody wants to do that.

IKHRATA: And I contend that if people try, they might like it.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Or maybe not. As it is, over the next 20 year, L.A.'s highways are expected to pick up another 6 million drivers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...will start to slow here just south of the 134 and from that point stay slow...

FOREMAN: Tom Foreman, CNN, Los Angeles.


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/15/ltm.03.html (and scroll down, after you've indulged in the earlier story: SCHNEIDER: That's right. These polls -- there were three polls that have been taken since the elimination of al-Zarqawi. Was there any effect on the president's job ratings? Well, in a word, no, not really)

There were enough cars on the highway to make you think it was two in the afternoon!

:headbang:
rocknation

No matter how much they complain, they reject every solution.

Having moved to a small town after a lifetime of living in million-plus cities (including Los Angeles), I can just say that all the time I used to spend in traffic made me a different person. I can't believe I tolerated it.

I could ride my bicycle from one end of this city to another in about an hour. There are three excellent, cheap, clean subway lines, 3 or 4 elevated train lines and buses everywhere else. Tons of things in walking distance and nobody minds living high density.

Because I live in Fukuoka, Japan. The phobia Americans have of living near others, and the pathological need for a fence and a patch of grass is slowly ruining the beauty of America.

Japan is the size of California, but 70% of it is forested mountains, even though there are almost four times as many people here as in California. Because people here have organized into high density cities. And despite what you've heard about "rabbit hutch" Japanese apartments (and there is some truth to that in the center of Tokyo or Osaka), the average Japanese home or condominium has grown significantly over the last few decades. The one we live in is about 1500 sq. feet, and it's a 5 minute walk from one of the major subway and train stations - and there are much bigger ones available now.


But whatever. If having a stucco palace in a sea of identical stucco palaces is worth a 50-minute one-way commute and all that wasted gas and lost time with your families, go for it.

At least New Yorkers get it.

Still, many people move inland in search of affordable 2,500 sf (at least) homes, burdening the fragile water supply.

One good thing that came with the increase in gasoline price is that so many people have started using public transportation that there are shortage of buses in some places.

And yet, California is the poster place of how the oil and car companies created this by promoting the "car culture" at the expense of public transportation. There are many who remember the trolley that used to run in LA in the 50s.

And then, when 20 years ago - or so- LA decided to invest in a network of trains and subways, one line stopped just one mile short of LAX. Why? Who knows?

I agree it should have, but it takes 3 hours to get from LAX to downtown LA on public transport. If you're not starting and ending right near a subway line (which serve a very limited area), public transit is pointless in LA. Although so is driving. I don't get how people do it.

No way are business travelers - the ones who would be interested in getting from LAX to downtown quickly - going to take a train through every neighborhood Dr. Dre ever rapped about. Not without bodyguards.

I definately agree about the subway/train, though. My brother and sister took a trip out there and discovered the Red Line subway worked really well for getting from Hollywood to Downtown. Stations were clean, well maintained, and very heavily policed, even if no one - and I mean no one - checked tickets.

Bus service just stank, and the Blue and Green lines both ran through areas that quite simply aren't safe for most people. The closest Blue Line stop to USC, for example, is in a very poorly maintained, overwhelmingly Hispanic area. From what they described, I would not take that stop except in broad daylight during rush hour. That's from the perspective of my brother and sister, both of whom lived in some really crappy neighborhoods off of college campuses when they went to school. They're not easily scared or prejudiced or racist, and they said they certainly did not believe the stop to be safe.

They also had to walk over a mile to get to the USC campus from where Blue Line stopped.

And even the Red Line sucks if you want to go somewhere other than North Hollywood (!) after reaching the H&H center (Chinese theater, Walk of Fame, very upscale mall, etc). Brother and sister wound up walking 1 3/4 miles from the H&H center to the place they wanted to look at in West Hollywood.

If everyone who moved to LA from somewhere else and then complains endlessly about traffic went back to where they came from, the roads would be clear.

congestion? can we say STUPID?

I live in a medium-sized metro area, that has, without a doubt, some of the WORST public transit I have ever seen, and sprawl that is amazing. I keep pointing out to the morans who run the system that if they actually HAD a decent system, with frequent enough buses that ran where they needed to, a good deal of the congestion could be eased.

the morans on the city council paid $500,000 to an outside consulting firm to tell them how to ease the congestion on the east-west corridor. after six months, this was the answer: make the roads wider. I pointed out that for $50,000, I could have told them the same thing after spending a week in europe. of course, I also pointed out that the half mil could have bought 3 buses, and paid for the drivers for a year, which also would have done a bit to ease the congestion, WITHOUT scads of new construction. geeeeeeee. . . . .

it doesn't help that the city and county government here have always been owned by the developers and bankers and realtors.

Telecommuting is a huge way to save road space. Telecommuting centers are a great idea. They reant computers, networks, and office space to people who can then ahve office services available, but who are connected to some remote central office. The guy in the next cube would likley be working for another company doing the same thing.

Or just telecommute from home. People are willing to do this. The probelm is the employers. They need to change their worldview and their old fashioned need to 'police' their employees.

This would require a whole new mindset, not only about the work setting, but the way employees are supervised and the way their productivity is measured.

And not all jobs lend themselves to telecommuting. But where they do, it is the right thing for many people.

to India.

... some of them have, to be sure. But that is not all of them and surely it is no reason *not* to telecommute, now is it?

One of the really nice things about living in Manhattan is that there's no need for a car, except to bug out on weekends or vacations. I rent a car for those occasions.

When one considers the savings in commuting time, combined with the cost of a vehicle, including insurance and maintenance, and a garage -- it goes a long way toward paying the high cost of living here otherwise. That doesn't even include the grief of car ownership and daily commutes.

And, we don't consider this much, but driving all the time is a fairly dangerous activity.

No car hassles.

However I couldnt imagine paying the rents that are involved in living there.

I could proably buy a new luxury car every year and throw it away for what it would cost to replace my living space there.

I agree on the dangers of driving. For most of us, its easily the most dangerous thing we do.

If you want to bitch about the fact that you live 25 miles from work, be my guest, but if you reject all the solutions, you're going to find that the only person in the room who is going to listen to you bitch about the traffic is yourself. Get a clue, Americans.

people who hit their brakes to change lanes cause a huge percentage of the back-ups...when you change lanes, you should be looking forward and accelerating, not looking back and braking.
and btw- when entering an expressway, by the time you get to the end of the entrance ramp- you should be going as fast as the traffic on the highway.

people who can't merge in traffic piss me off.

Minneapolis is notorious for having problems with merging. In most cases if you are on the slow lane you are expected to ease on the pedal to let others merge, or, if you can, to change lane. But in Minneapolis drivers will actually accelerate than let you merge.

I had one case, at a very bad location without a real merging lane at the end of a ramp, on a Saturday morning, when I literally sat there waiting for an opening. And, no, I am not going to take a chance at accelerating knowing that I may end up being hit by some asshole who thinks that I should not merge in front of his car.

the kind of people who sit at`the end of a ramp, waiting for an opening are some of the biggest problem morans out there. if you can't merge properly- do everyone else a favour, and please stay off the roads.

Getting stuck at the end of the ramp onto a highway is incredibly dangerous.

Both for the driver, the folks on the highway and any poor sap who's also trying to get on the highway behind him.

In the last 10 years, I've almost hit a couple of these folks when they decide at the last minute to jam the breaks in fear, while I'm hitting the accelator to get on (behind them).

and the cars are flying at 60 MPH I am not going to jump at them head on.

I don't this when there are a 100 ft of merging lane. I will gladly invite you to come over and see how well you will merge there. Make sure you have adequate insurance first.

merge. My family lives there. My sister said this a few years ago, and I was surprised by it. So I started paying attention, and frankly, I've never observed it.

Maybe my perspective is a bit different since I now live in So. Cal. (although I don't have a car and only drive when I rent or take a friend to airport) where everyone drives far more aggressively than in Mpls. But I don't think it's generally true that the Mpls. traffic doesn't allow people to move or switch lanes.

and never had a problem with merging. Of course, there you'd had five lanes in each directions. Mpls grew enormously but in most cases there are only two lanes in each direction. Only recently have they added a third lane to the 94 that encircles the metro area.

There were some studies that showed that Mpls has a very high incidence of merging related accidents. They thought that one reason was that it does not say in the driver's manual to change lane to allow merging! Really.

Also, I did not know. You are expected to change lane when there is an emergency vehicle on the shoulder.

usually - although not every day and rarely in the heaviest rush hour traffic - instead, right before it gets completely nut-so (from a Mpls perspective!)) and I still haven't observed it. But maybe I just am oblivious - although I always signal my intent and merge safely. Nothing irks me more than not signalling a lane change or a turn and that's why I asked my sister why she didn't.

I love driving in Mpls. People drive a safe speed on the side roads (and the speed limits are not ridiculously high). People are polite and overall, it's a far less stressful experience (even in the winter). I love that freeway traffic doesn't move at 75-80 with some idiots going more than that.

Mpls along with Seattle was in the top 5 cities for polite drivers in a recent report.

Weren't the merging related accidents attributed mainly to having far too many entrance and exit ramps over short distances due to freeway planning before traffic got so bad? I thought that's what I had read in the strib. Hwy 100 in particular used to be horrible, although with the 394 expansion, they fixed a lot of the worst ones; I think there are just a few south of the 394 interchange that are still really bad - you're dumped into a 100 foot (if that!) space through which you're supposed to merge into traffic and other cars are supposed to exit. I guess if someone divided accidents between high density on/off ramp areas and low density, whether on/off ramp density affects merging accidents could be evaluated.

I read "Less Than Zero" about twenty years ago, and I still remember that line ... especially when I was in LA (technically, Beverly Hills) last year. I live in Silicon Valley, where by comparison the traffic is sane.

...then bitch that a new trolley line is going to let "inner city hobo blackies ride up here and kidnap our kids!!!" :eyes:

NIMBYs deserve their long traffic delays.

And so few criminals in the past have been able to get their hands on a car...

:eyes:

The subway/train in LA is bizarre. The Red line is just fine and heavily policed, but the Blue and the Green go through some seriously dangerous areas.

Everyone in this state is in such a fucking hurry that traffic accidents happen around the clock and back up traffic on the freeways for miles on end.

Or any urban area for that matter. I find traffic maddening enough to deal with on my commute to my 100,000 population urban area nearby. No way in hell could I live in a major urban center and deal with all of that traffic, noise, pollution, people.

Happy as hell to be out in the country where a traffic tie up is some critter crossing the road.

People in city's spend 47 hours of their life each year in traffic, but people in rural areas spend 47 hours of their life each year tuning into NASCAR so they can watch traffic on their TV.

>people in rural areas spend 47 hours of their life each year tuning into NASCAR so they can watch traffic on their TV.<

I'm not a NASCAR fan. I enjoy the fresh air and the quiet.

Julie

Lucky me. :)