Southern California Commuters Forum
Board of Directors
One
Dear Board Member;
The Southern California Commuters Forum (SCCF) is a group of independent citizens who are daily users of the transportation system provided by the LA MTA. As such, we have recently reviewed the last LA MTA Long Range Transportation Plan and wish to make the following comments to the LA MTA board of directors.
The LRTP states that with the plan, average highway speeds will drop from an unattractive current 35 mph to a dismal 20 mph. This can only be described as a plan for disaster. We therefore find the LRTP to be wholly inadequate to meet the needs of the LA region.
Several major studies continue to rate the LA region as having the worst congestion in the nation. The LRTP not only does not address the issue of improving this situation, but predicts commute traffic will deteriorate by a whopping 49 percent. We wonder how the board can consider this plan to be anything but a failure.
We note that the impacts of the traffic predictions on the
community are not
addressed. We believe that the impact of
slowing from 35 to 20 mph will be catastrophic to the business, commercial and
social life of the region. The impact of
such a critical infrastructure loss
cannot
help but reflect in an unsustainable economy.
We note that while the report describes growth in commuting
transit share from 8.5 to a 14.7 percent (which prediction we doubt), the
report ignores the fact that two thirds of the projected 35 percent growth in
travel will be born by automobiles. But only 12 percent of funds will be allocated to these two thirds. We also note that commuting (to work) represents
only a third of total traffic and that for total traffic the transit
share is much smaller. If
congestion will last all day, counting only commuters is deceptive.
We note that over 87 percent of the expected funds to be spent in the next 25 years will be spent on transit. For every dollar intended for transit only 12 cents will be spent on highways and arterials. This imbalance flies in the face of the opposite statistic; for every transit rider there are 12 auto riders.
National highway and transit statistics show that investment in road and highway expansion is more than 20 times more cost effective than transit in terms of transportation (person-miles) per public dollar. In other words, for a given limited availability we could, on the average, buy 20 times more benefit in terms of congestion, travel-time, and associated air quality investing in roads and highways than with transit.
We note the discussion on the so called promise of a smart
growth policy. We observe that the projected transit share would approach that
of .
We believe in reducing building restrictions to allow the market to operate:
but not in forcing the market to a questionable end.
Since about 1992,
We do not believe the LA MTA has adequately considered other
alternatives, particularly those based on significantly improving and expanding
the road network. What, we ask,
would be the outcome if 87 percent of
the transportation funds went to highways and 12 percent to transit. Your first
reaction may be that such a move would be enormously disruptive. But we do not
believe you have properly considered the disruptions that will be caused by 20
mph speed or heavily forcing a smart growth policy.
We reject the baseless "conventional wisdom" that “we can’t build more
roads”. We can, ROW has a high price, but that price is on the average
significantly less in dollars, acres, and disruption
than the cost of equivalent
transit capacity.
We urge the LA MTA to reconsider its current plan and address the issue of what it would realistically take to provide a satisfactory transportation system for the future. We believe that such a plan could only be achieved by first correcting the lopsided allocation between transit and rods.
Sincerely Yours
G W Egbert
17333 Tramanto
Pacific
[AJM1] Ref: www.urbantransport.org/ costcomp.pdf