Why We Cant Get Traffic Relief
The Orange County Transportation Agency just approved its 30 year Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) and the Measure M renew (MM) extension component. The MM is planned to be on the ballot in November but to understand what you will be voting on you need to look at the entire LRTP. The LRTP can be summarized as wasteful and ineffective, letting motorist congestion increase by over 200 percent! Voting for Measure M means voting for increased traffic jams.
The reason the LRTP stresses the wrong issues is reflected in the comment letters OCTA has received from the public. OCTA hears mostly from special interests while 98 percent of the commuting public remains silent. OCTA received 28 letters on its draft LRTP. Only one letter complained that the LRTP does not make efficient use of its funding and does too little to relieve congestion and provide for a growing county. The other 27 letters complained about regulation and bureaucratic compliance, worried about a variety of real and imaginary environmental issues. Not that the environment isn't important, but extremism here is harmful. Some letters made recommendations for alternative projects only to keep improvements away from their own backyard. The general theme of these letters is anti-growth at the expense of planning to meet future county needs.
With this type of input why should one expect that congestion reduction would be the top priority with OCTA. It's not that OCTA has selected useless projects, rather it's that with all the anti-growth inputs they receive, they have to compromise and select poorer performing projects. The projects then end up not being the most cost effective from the standpoint of traffic capacity and congestion relief. It wastes taxpayers money.
The LRTP will cost $40 Billion of which the MM is $12 Billion. It allocates 40 percent of its budget for transit (buses and trains) to service two percent of the public and it will end up with a 206 percent increase in motorist congestion delay because motorist traffic is not addressed adequately. Furthermore the planned transit projects will only increase transit ridership share by about one percent of total trips.
OCTA is not giving the public all the information it needs. The current ballot measure specifies that 25 percent of funds be allocated to transit but this is misleading. The balance of the LRTP allocates 47 percent to transit for an overall allocation of 40. That's way too much considering that the forecast change in transit ridership share impacts only a small fraction of travelers. This will have a miniscule impact on traffic. Furthermore, 70 percent of the measure's transit funds are to expand and support Metrolink service that will handle only two tenths of one percent of travel trips. This is wasteful and ineffective.
The remaining 62 percent of funds are for traffic capacity improvement and congestion relief affecting the other 98 percent of travelers. Hardly a proper allocation.
With limited funds for roads, the new measure only adds a few lane miles here and there. For every percent increase in traffic growth, the plan adds a quarter of a percent in lane miles. Thirty five percent traffic growth, ten percent capacity growth. The result is projected congestion three times worse than today. For every minute you spend in traffic delay today, expect to spend 3 minutes in the future. Rush hour travel speeds will decrease by 25 percent. And the reason for this disastrous condition is too little of the funds are allocated to solving our main transportation problem.
The Measure M extension to be voted on this year will not be in effect for five more years. That leaves five years to fix all the problems with the total plan and this ballot measure. We should vote no on this version of the measure and send OCTA a message that we want a better traffic congestion relief plan.
David L Mootchnik
714 842 8766
Director, Southern California Commuters Forum