TICKET TO RIDE

the Surface Transportation Policy Project's SoCal newsletter

October 1997 Volume 1 Issue 4

Readers: In some European cities 20 percent of trips are made on foot, 20 percent are on bicycle, 20 percent are by transit, and 40 percent are by car. In Southern California 98 percent of all trips are by car, and 2 percent are by transit. Wouldn't you like to be able to choose not to drive?

FUN FACTS:

• Mom and Pop stores return 60 percent of profits to the community; franchise stores return 20 percent; big-box retailers return 6 percent. (From Dan Burden's Livable Communities workshop.)

• Parking is free for 99 percent of all auto trips in the U.S. (1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey)

And Short Cuts

ISTEA FLOOR FIGHT LOOMS

The House has approved a six-month extension of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) but the Senate shows no sign of backing off its plan to bring the "ISTEA 2" reauthorization bill (S1173) to the floor for debate this week. While Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) is faced with juggling a tight floor schedule including campaign finance reform debate in time for adjournment in early November, Senate leaders have reportedly convinced him to press ahead with ISTEA 2 by promising swift action on the floor.

However, a protracted debate seems increasingly likely, with 30 pending amendments many of which are controversial. STPP and other environmental organizations are preparing for some of the most important environmental votes in the Senate this year. Among them: making highway widenings eligible for air quality funds; gutting the federal environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); delaying implementation of the proposed stricter air quality standards; and prohibiting the EPA from withholding federal highway funds for regions that aren't meeting National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

Coverage of the Senate floor ISTEA debate should be on C-SPAN2 beginning October 8.

SHUTTLES TO REPLACE BUSES?

In the rounds of meetings and workshops preceeding the scheduled October 9 release of its draft Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), the staff of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) has been discussing a transit restructing proposal that would double regional transit ridership by 2010 by replacing poorly performing bus lines with 8,302 smart shuttles. It's a plan, SCAG officials have said, that would take the region two-thirds of the way toward conformity with federal clean air standards, enable the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to meet the Bus Riders Union Consent Decree, increase service to communities in need as well as accommodate the welfare-to-work population, and leave money to spare.

However, the plan seems to have been held up due to political problems -- perhaps due to the fact that it would halt the MTA's rail construction program -- and the release of the draft RTP has been postponed pending further review.

In order to come up with the plan SCAG identified 118 centers with high population densities, made sure they were served by bus and rail, replaced bus lines with fewer than 10,000 boardings a day with smart shuttle service, rerouted extra buses to overcrowded lines, and voila! Restructuring would reinforce another RTP staff suggestion: a Livable Communities Initiative encouraging transit-oriented development at these population centers.

The restructuring plan had included additional rail service but no new rail lines -- no eastern or western subway extensions, no Valley line, maybe no Blue Line to Pasadena. Instead it proposed 12 exclusive busways.

A little perspective: "Doubling transit ridership" in SCAG parlance means doubling transit's share of work trips, now 5 percent. (Transit's share of total trips is just 2 percent, and would increase to 2.5 percent with restructuring.) And operating smart shuttles could cost a lot more than operating bus systems. Would these be minimum-wage driving jobs? Would union contracts be broken?

Would members of the Regional Council actually vote for a plan that spends so much on transit? Would the county transportation commissions and agencies really implement it? Would MTA board members be willing to give up slated rail projects? Would the federal government still provide the region with funding even if it wasn't used to build the subway?

COURT COULD FORCE BUS SPENDING

The MTA's bus service has declined precipitously since ridership peaked in 1985 at 500 million riders following three years of reduced 50-cent fares. Fares have since climbed to $1.35, the bus fleet has been reduced from 3,000 buses in 1984 to 2,100 buses today, and ridership has declined 20 percent -- despite the fact that the population who needs bus service has increased significantly. Worse yet, 1,200 buses are 12 years or older and need to be replaced, which means that breakdowns, road calls and missed runs are up -- and more people are left waiting on the corner as overcrowded buses pass them by.

The Bus Riders Union (BRU) Consent Decree required the MTA to put an additional 152 buses on the street during the first year of the decree. Whether the agency has done that is a matter of dispute to be resolved with the decree's first "hard measure." By Dec. 31 the MTA is supposed to have reduced its load factor from 1.45 (which means 22 people are left standing on a bus that seats 43) to 1.35 (15 left standing) during peak travel times. The BRU, as well as the MTA, is keeping count, and NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund attorney Connie Rice, who handled the BRU suit, says she'll be "stunned" if the MTA makes this first "trigger." In which case the court has the power to order the agency to reprogram funding.

BUILD THE 710 AND THEY'LL COME

Southern California has more freeways than anywhere else in the world and more congestion. That's because we can't build our way out of this problem, and adding capacity only makes matters worse. But despite studies that prove this empirically, Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration are advocating spending $226 million a mile to build the $1.4 billion six-mile 710 "gap closure" through El Sereno and South Pasadena -- the most money ever spent per mile of freeway.

Numerous analyses in California have demonstrated that highway expansion increases vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled, and consequently vehicular emissions. It's called the universal Law of Traffic Congestion: Traffic expands to fill the space available. In "Do New Highways Generate Traffic?" (Access, UC-Berkeley, 1995) Mark Hansen concludes new highways generate "substantial new traffic in metropolitan regions" -- with a 1.0 percent increase in lane miles inducing a 0.9 percent increase in VMT within five years. "With so much induced traffic, adding road capacity does little to reduce congestion," concludes Hansen.

Studies of induced traffic in England prompted what the London Times called a "radical reassessment of the government's road-building program." The government's Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment decided in 1994 that all new road projects had to be reassessed in the context of the additional traffic they would induce. As stated in the August Economist, "The old myth that the best way to deal with congestion is simply to build new roads has been thoroughly discredited."

Which is to say that Caltrans will plow through several historic districts, displace more than 900 homes and destroy more than 6,000 trees to ease congestion for maybe five years -- meantime providing for an increase in traffic over the entire system. There are better ways to spend $1.4 billion.

STARTING DOWN THE WRONG ROAD (from a Rick Cole Pasadena Star-News op-ed)

Caltrans has broken ground on the long-awaited $700 million extension of the Foothill Freeway (210), an alternative route promising relief to commuters stuck in gridlock on the 10. NOT. Writes Rick Cole, "The rationale for spending lavishly on new freeways is always to relieve congestion on existing routes." But it won't, because . . .

"First, people will begin to change their behavior. If it only takes 20 minutes to get there, why not drive to Ontario Mills instead of Montclair Plaza? Suddenly a little bigger house a little further out will seem a lot more appealing. A job that was too far away becomes worth the trip . . .

"Second, cities begin to change as well. Land that no one would buy now becomes prime sites for building homes. Land next to freeway offramps now becomes hot locations for new shopping centers, car dealers and entertainment complexes. In competition with this booming new development, many older neighborhoods and commercial areas will decline as they are bypassed by `progress' . . .

"It happened with the original San Bernardino Freeway. No longer stuck on Foothill Boulevard, motorists could zip along on the new freeway. New houses and malls and offices sprouted along the way. Older areas declined. Over time, the freeway filled up with traffic. Now the same cycle will begin all over again at an initial cost to San Gabriel Valley taxpayers of $350 each . . .

"Since cities are used to prostituting themselves for every spare dime of sales tax revenue, there will be enormous pressure to promote garish new development along the new route. That, in turn, would kill what is still healthy on Foothill Boulevard, dragging down the adjacent residential areas . . . If they start now cities can take an alternate approach by improving Foothill and their historic town centers to withstand the outlying competition . . ."

Rick Cole and others tackle the fate of commercial corridors (like Foothill Boulevard) in the South Bay at a Local Government Commission workshop October 9. Call LGC at 916-448-1198.

POTHOLES AND POLITICS

STPP and the Environmental Working Group have released a report called "Potholes and Politics," detailing how state departments of transportation are choosing to spend flexible funding on building new freeways -- like the 710 and 210 -- instead of repairing existing ones. This decision costs California motorists almost $1.2 billion a year -- for added car maintenance and wear and tear -- six times the amount of federal highway funds spent fixing those same roads. Driving on distressed pavement cost L.A.-Long Beach-area drivers $676 million from 1992-1996, or $1,831 over the 12-year life of a car -- compared to a national average of $420.

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act dedicated increased funding for road repair in the Interstate Maintenance and Bridge programs, but the Senate's ISTEA 2 reauthorization bill would abolish these funding categories. We need a "fix-it first" policy to ensure that we protect the enormous infrastructure investment we've already made. Visit http://www.ewg.org to read the report.

L.A.'s MEAN STREETS

Now the L.A. City Council's Transportation Committee is trying to solve the case of L.A.'s disappearing crosswalks, rubbed out at the rate of 160 a year for 20 years. An L.A. Times story about one such crosswalk in Santa Monica prompted a flurry of stories in the N.Y. Times, Boston Globe and on NPR's "All Things Considered," reinforcing L.A.'s image as a "car-crazy" city where pedestrians are just "traffic flow interruptions" (according to the Highway Capacity Manual for traffic engineers). The Daily News says that L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon, the new chair of the Transportation Committe, wants a formal review of the city practice of not repainting crosswalks at unsignalized intersections after streets have been repaved.

In order to increase the safety of pedestrians both Santa Monica and West Hollywood are considering installing lights embedded in the road that flash when a pedestrian enters the crosswalk. The cost is $20,000, compared to $80,000 for a traffic signal.

OF FOOD AND CARS

From "Food Access for the Transit-Dependent" by Robert Gottlieb and Andrew Fisher in the UC Transportation Center's quarterly journal Access (Fall 1996): "Adequate nutrition is commonly seen as a social welfare issue unrelated to transportation. So transportation planners have largely ignored the special needs of transit-dependent persons to access food. . . An effective transportation system does more than simply provide safe roads for automobiles. It affects people's standards of living by facilitating access to jobs, stores, schools, parks, airports, and other desired destinations. Without the means to travel -- whether by private vehicle or transit -- people cannot enjoy the most basic opportunities and resources, including the simple convenience of shopping at a supermarket or farmers' market . . .

"Between the 1960s and 1980s there was a mass exodus of supermarkets from the inner city to the suburbs. This trend followed the ubiquitous outmigration of the middle class and changes in the retail food industry that triggered intense competition. In L.A. the number of chain markets in inner-city locations shrank from 44 in 1975 to 31 in 1991. . ."

STPP, the Community Food Security Coalition and UCLA/Occidental Community Food Security Project are forming a partnership to address the food-transportation connection. For more information contact Initiative Coordinator Cynthia Pansing at 310-458-4216 or cynthiapansing@compuserve.com.

NO SUCH THING AS FREE PARKING

California's beleaguered parking cash-out law -- passed in 1991 to give commuters an incentive to walk, bike, carpool or take transit -- has survived a repeal attempt in the Legislature thanks to Senator Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), chair of the Committee on Environmental Quality. And since the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 has changed the federal tax code so as to make parking cash-out programs enforceable, the state should begin enforcing it. UCLA professor Donald Shoup suggests that the Air Quality Management District begin requiring employers submitting submit trip reduction plans to meet the law's requirements.

The measure was enacted so as to level the playing field between the car and alternative means of transportation: The free parking that employers offer as a tax-free fringe benefit can amount to $150 or more a month and acts as a huge incentive to solo driving. (95 percent of all commuters park for free; 91 percent drive to work, 92 percent of them driving solo). Why encourage solo driving? Why not offer at least the same incentive to those who don't drive?

Shoup has just published an evalutation of eight parking cash-out programs in L.A. For the 1,694 employees studied, the solo driver share fell from 76 to 63 percent, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled for commuting -- the equivalent of removing from the road one of every eight automobiles used for commuting to the firms studied. The companies studied praised the cash-out option for its simplicity and fairness and said it was a popular fringe benefit costing only $25 more per employee per year. E-mail Shoup@ucla.gov for more info.

FERTILITY DRUG FOR CARS

Equally compelling is Shoup's article on minimum parking requirements in the UC Transportation Center's journal Access (Fall 1997). Determining these requirements is a crude art, he notes, with urban planners simply counting cars at existing land uses and identifying "peak demand" as the minimum required.

These requirements sever all links between the cost of providing parking and the price paid, which means that people own and use cars as if parking costs nothing, thus contributing to congestion. Planners respond by restricting new development to reduce traffic, and by forcing developers to subsidize automobile use through minimum parking requirements. Writes Shoup, " . . . cars have replaced people and buildings as zoning's real density concern."

Shoup cites a study showing that when minimum parking requirements were levied in Oakland construction costs rose 18 percent, housing density fell 30 percent and land values fell 33 percent. Shoup notes cities rarely reduce parking requirements for low-income housing even though the poorest 20 percent of the population owns only one car for every three people, while the richest 20 percent own a car per person. "The cost of parking a car was incorporated into the cost of renting an apartment, making cars more affordable and housing less affordable," writes Shoup.

Parking requirements create especially severe problems in older commercial areas as in South Central where lots are narrow and it's difficult to both build a store and provide parking. "As a result much commercial land remains vacant, and adjacent neighborhoods lack retail outlets, even grocery stores. In effect planners seem to consider no shopping better than shopping without ample free parking."

BIKE SHORTS

The California Bicycle Coalition has just e-mailed the news that Governor Wilson signed AB1020, increasing annual allocations to the state's Bicycle Lane Account from $360,000 to $5 million over the next seven years -- out of Caltrans annual budget of $6 billion. Congratulations bike advocates!. . . . . L.A.'s Critical Mass effort doubled in size last month, as 27 cyclists crowded the right lane of Wilshire during rush hour September 26, blowing whistles and swapping bike-commute horror stories. Says organizer Mike Garcia, "It's about creating an active forum for commuting cyclists, exchanging ideas about surface transportation issues, and physically showing that bikes belong on the road." Riders biked from Westwood to Santa Monica. The next ride falls on Halloween. For more info call 213-935-8099 . . . . . From the L.A. Weekly's annual "Best of L.A.": "Best Why Aren't There Hundreds of These" L.A. River Bike Path -- Any flat, safe, fairly scenic stretch of ground reserved just for bicycles is good news in this town where biking can be as fun as trying to cross the freeway on foot.

And Short Cuts

The California Senate stages a hearing on Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa's (D-L.A.) bill addressing our No. 1 air pollution problem -- diesel fuel. AB1368 is viewed by many as the most significant piece of clean air legislation since the Clean Air Act itself. October 15 at 10 a.m. at the MTA. . . . . . The N.Y. Times reports that the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey shows that the number of cars has grown six times as fast as the human population since 1969 . . . . . Dan Burden, former bike and ped coordinator for Florida, has staged his enormously popular traffic- calming workshop in 294 cities since he retired last year. At a well-attended Local Government Commission workshop in Santa Monica September 25 he discussed how a street will make or break a local economy. What's a good street? One that's full of people and that fulfills humankind's primal needs by providing security, comfort, ambiance and a sense of theater. And you traffic engineers thought it was about increasing levels of service for cars! . . . . . Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus has won the American Public Transit Association's Outstanding Achievement Award for an unprecedented third time. The Big Blue Bus maintains one of the highest firebox recovery rates of any operator in the region, meanwhile maintaining one of the lowest fares in the country -- 50 cents. On-time performance exceeds 90 percent, and 98 percent of riders surveyed rated bus service as adequate or better while more than 84 percent rated service as good or very good . . . . . Coming up: the Local Government Commission's "The Road Less Traveled" 4th annual Western States Conference on Land Use Planning in downtown L.A. November 14-15; call 916-448-1198.