LADOT's Allyn Rifkin is Not Counting on a Silver-Bullet Fix to LA's Traffic Woes

Allyn, congestion in Los Angeles and other metropolitan regions of California is bad enough to make us all complain loudly. Do you think we are getting to the point where commuters will be willing to depend less on our automobiles?

People are changing their behavior when there are good alternatives. For example, we are encouraged by the number of people who have chosen to take alternate forms of transportation to downtown.

Are enough people riding buses to have a meaningful affect on congestion?

No, but try to remember the congestion we all experienced during the periods when the transit system was closed down. The real problem is that transit ridership does not appear to be keeping up with the amount of population growth we are experiencing in Los Angeles. The regional transportation plans are predicated on maintaining per capita ridership. This would require a significant increase in bus systems.

Los Angeles is just one city in a very congested region. Given that, what is the Los Angeles Department of Transportation's (LADOT) core mission with regard to alleviating congestion?

LADOT is responsible for operating and planning for the City's streets and local transportation services, including 6,400 miles of streets, 4,200 traffic signals and the Commuter Express and DASH transit lines. We also provide service to over 70,000 seniors and disabled residents through a CitiRide program involving taxicab scrip and other paratransit services. We also manage 115 public parking lots and direct traffic during emergencies and at special events such as the Academy Awards and the Los Angeles Marathon.

Our mission has a number of components. The first is safety. Safety is our utmost concern. We are particularly proud of our initiation of the Watch the Road Campaign, which is aimed at increasing public awareness of the effects of poor driver behavior. Your readers can find out more at www.watchtheroad.org.

With respect to the City's streets, we get numerous requests for traffic improvements, and put the highest priority on those affecting safety.

An equally important part of our mission is to alleviate congestion and improve mobility on our City streets, while being concerned with quality of life and economic development.

In the primary campaign a number of mayoral candidates put forth plans for alleviating traffic congestion. Did you think there were some good ideas? Is the department already doing some of what was suggested?

Some of the proposals could be called "legacy improvements" meaning that they include extensive improvements for which there is currently no funding, but they provide a vision for the future. Proposals for introducing a high-speed rail system to Los Angeles would fall into this category. It's a vision for the future, but would require many years and a great deal of regional cooperation.

There are more implementable things that we are already working on. For example, we are working with MTA to create the rapid bus program - a rapid transit system on tires, and we are improving our computerized traffic signal system with features that would track the rapid buses and give them assistance where needed.

We already coordinate traffic for some 2,000 special events and constantly make changes to the traffic signal system. Improving traffic flow is very much the focus of the department.

With regard to traffic demand management strategies like tolls or limiting parking to encourage people to use mass transit we would look to our elected officials on these issues.

What about policy? Is LADOT the manager of the streets and taxicabs, or are you a think tank for what the mayor and the council's positions ought to be regarding the regional, state, and federal transportation programs?

We, along with other agencies, do provide information regarding policy into the legislative process. For example, we have worked with the Los Angeles City Planning Department on the City's Transportation Element of the General Plan, which has extensive policies on the City's support for smart growth. We work in cooperation with MTA on its long-range plan and with SCAG on their regional transportation plan. So, we have a role in providing some thoughts and facts and figures. That role is important but overshadowed by our core service to operate and maintain the City's streets.

Given the department's focus on streets, how do you balance the needs of pedestrians and the desires of residents to create a sense of place and community? How has this balancing act changed over time?

Well, I think we now recognize the balancing act. For example, in the development review process, we are working with the development community to assure adequate pedestrian connections and sidewalks along with general circulation needs. We also are concerned that new development does its fair share to improve mobility and leverage developer contributions with regional and state funding sources. A good example would be the five transportation specific plans for the city, where we have paid particular attention to pedestrian and neighborhood programs as priorities for transportation improvements. These specific plans also include an assessment to developers of traffic impact fees to fund those programs and to serve as the local contribution to regional funding programs to get some of the more comprehensive transportation improvements implemented.

We did an interview with Roger Snoble of the MTA last month in which he lamented lack of state and federal transportation funds, particularly of Prop. 42 funds. Has this dynamic affected the priorities of LADOT?

It has made it tough to get a lot of things implemented. What we have to do is be smarter about our investment goals. We have to identify and prioritize the most cost effective solutions and try and get those programs funded.

Give us an example of what is smarter.

Well it may be smarter to focus on mixed bus/automobile use of the city streets, combined with programs to focus development along transit corridors, than it would be to build a high speed rail system out to the suburbs. High-speed rail to the suburbs would just result in more urban sprawl. We have to work with MTA, the main funding broker in Los Angeles County, to come up with priorities that would focus investment and operations in smart land use, while still trying to look at the long-term vision.

Given that city streets are already crowded and significant population growth is expected in the next twenty years, will adding buses really alleviate congestion?

It improves mobility. We can't continue to widen streets and freeways without affecting quality of life. We are getting to the point when we have to emphasize certain goals like increasing bus service. For example, we have experimented with a dedicated bus lane on Wilshire Boulevard, just west of the 405 Freeway. We are looking at that closely to see if we can give mass transit an advantage on the arterial street system, and at what cost.

What have you learned?

We've learned that while there are significant benefits to the transit riders, there are also short-term congestion effects as motorists try to adjust. We are investigating these effects and exploring changes to the program . We are working closely with MTA to optimize the program before we try this in other areas.

A lot of candidates running for mayor in this last election realized that there was gridlock all over the city as they tried to move around the city. If you look forward in the next five to ten years, do you see any relief for the congestion we have?

I think we have the tools to provide relief. It just depends on whether or not the solutions are palatable to our communities. For instance, we can find some relief by limiting on-street parking on priority streets, but people would have to accept the idea that, in exchange for a street that would move, they would lose parking. I don't think the public has embraced this idea, but in order to keep traffic moving in the city, it may be something we have to consider.

What is the latest news on the synchronization of traffic lights in the city?

Your readers should know that we started synchronizing our traffic signals in 1984, during the Olympics. That program got national recognition, but it is twenty years old. It started around Downtown and the Coliseum, and we alleviated congestion as a result. In the 1990's, we improved the logic and the sophistication of the system so that now we have an Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS) that is being implemented throughout the city. About 72 percent of the signals in the city are part of the computerized traffic signal system.

We are still working on improving the system. One recent improvement is that we can give the transit system priority for the traffic signals. We are also considering changes that would get information from the signal system to the motorists so they can make informed decisions about their travel routes.

SCAG and other groups have advocated for neighborhood shuttles – like DASH – and more taxicab service to move people close to their homes, once they get off rail or other buses. Could you discuss how DASH and cab service are part of the multi-modal system of transportation in Los Angeles?

We are really proud of the menu of public transit services that the DOT provides in compliment with the MTA's regional service, and Metrolink's inter-regional service. We hope to improve the integration of service with MTA as they go through the regional restructuring study of their bus system.

DASH is specifically designed to serve intra-community transit trips, and provides direct access to schools, communities, shopping centers, etc. DASH also links riders with regional rail and bus services.

Currently, LADOT operates 27 community-based DASH services, along with six weekday and three weekend routes in the Downtown Los Angeles area. DASH ridership reached 27 million passenger trips in 2003-04. That was a 17 percent increase over the previous year and a 33 percent increase over two years ago. Because of the demand for DASH services, we initiated a Community DASH Need Assessment Study, which is almost complete. A goal of this study is to develop a prioritized list of new Community DASH services to be implemented by the City.

If you had an extra $100 million dollars to work with in DOT, what would your priorities be?

Well, while $100 million probably sounds like a lot, the transportation program needs are in the hundreds of billions of dollars. At today's costs that amount of money could fund a couple of freeway ramp improvements.

Given our strategic needs, I would first allocate extra money to safety and for traffic management. It would mean more resources to respond to traffic congestion emergencies. Second, I would use funds for our mass transit systems, and third, I would use a portion of the money to develop longer-range capacity enhancement programs in cooperation with the county and the state.

The Mobility 21 effort brings together the leadership of MTA, the chamber of commerce and others to develop transportation priorities that are communicated to the state and federal governments. What has been DOT's experience with Mobility 21? Does that effort reflect DOT's priorities?

One of the things I need to mention is that, while the city of Los Angeles has about four million people living in it, our daytime population is much, much higher than that because of the number of people who commute to and through Los Angeles from outlying areas. So, the congestion problem is very much a regional problem.

DOT recognizes that we cannot solve the congestion issues alone and we have continually been looking for ways to partner with our regional funding partners. Mobility 21 is the latest effort in that regard. We have been really supportive of Mobility 21, and we agree with the priorities that they have set. Their priorities are our priorities.