traffic

Ever watch the movie The Italian Job? The re-make with Mark Whalberg with the Mini Coopers. Remember the scene where the "real Napster" shuts down the state of the art control room of Los Angeles traffic control center? The whole city is paralyzed from the disruption. It is that critical to the functionality of the city.

The never center is the most technologically advanced in the world. One would assume that they would be analyzing all of the data they collect to identify problem areas, track traffic patterns, see where growth is occurring. Wrong. They collect the data and then discard it days later. LAT:

The data beep and shine on screens in a state-of-the-art traffic control center that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. The information -- Wilshire Boulevard jammed in Westwood, Broadway wide-open through downtown -- is used to adjust the timing of traffic lights, easing the flow of vehicles through the city's busy streets. The data are instantly placed on the Internet, available to commuters and traffic reporters.

But although the sensors and computers collect massive amounts of data about traffic patterns and congestion, they do little to help engineers plan for the city's growing transportation needs -- or determine how development is affecting traffic.

That's because the city does not save the information for more than a few days, using it only to direct traffic in real time by adjusting the speed at which lights turn from green to amber to red.

Because the information is discarded, it cannot be used to determine over time where traffic is increasing -- or by how much.

In fact, city officials said they don't have traffic counts for some of the city's busiest intersections -- and can't say how much congestion has increased over the years

The lack of traffic data is becoming more of a vexing issue at City Hall and in L.A. neighborhoods, especially in the midst of a building boom that has increased both residential and office development.

How short sided was it to put all of these fancy systems into place and then not invest the relatively small amount of money into data capture and analysis? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Loss of good data is among the most frustrating things for a political organizer like myself. People bend over backwards to make sure information in voter files from campaign make it back into the main system. To think that Los Angeles would not have kept that invaluable data is mind-blowing. Once lost, there is no way to get it back.

It would cost about $1 million to get a system up and running, but the expert are saying it would not be fully installed until 2011.

The only way to know what projects to tackle first to alleviate the backups is to have good data, especially historical data. The sooner they have it up and running the better decision can be made.

It's of badge of honor really, well except for the millions of Los Angeles residents who sit in traffic for an average of 72 hours. The good news, if you can call it that is that it is not getting any worse according to this particular study. However, there is some controversy over the accuracy of the statistics and their importance. LAT:

But the findings of the Texas Transportation Institute were immediately challenged Tuesday by some experts who warned that the study significantly underestimates the severity of the region's traffic congestion.

The intense debate over statistics reflects the enormous influence of chronic traffic congestion on the lives of Southern Californians and the tough policy decisions that must be made to combat it.

The Texas report says motorists in Los Angeles and Orange counties spent an average of 72 extra hours in rush-hour traffic in 2005, the subject of the current study. That's one day shy of two full workweeks a year and is 20 hours more than in 1985. The delay represents the difference between how long it takes to travel during peak periods compared with hours when traffic flows freely.

"L.A. is still the king of congestion," said David Schrank, co-author of the institute's Urban Mobility Report.

Is there a crown that comes with that title? I mock, because well, it is such a huge issue. There is no easy solution. Like the times says, there are only tough decisions to be made. It is important that pressure continues to be brought to bear on those in power to fix it and that a bright light shines upon their decisions. Traffic congestion alleviation is crucial to the quality of life of Californians.

More on the controversy over these statistics:

But Ikhrata said "the average is misleading" because between 2000 and 2005 "our congestion increased tremendously." He said using an average delay per year for a region as vast as Los Angeles and Orange counties does not reflect the experience of motorists, particularly in highly congested corridors.

Martin Wachs, a transportation expert at Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, agreed that average delay is not the best measure of what motorists are experiencing. "I am not interested in arcane indices," Wachs said. "I am interested in travel time."

"Traffic congestion is worsening gradually and steadily in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and most other large American cities," said Wachs, who headed the transportation research centers at UC Berkeley and UCLA for decades.

Whether it is terrible and getting worse, or just plain awful, it is unacceptable.

The $42 billion in bonds that the voters passed last fall were merely a down payment on a long list of deferred transportation projects. The battle over the first $4.5 billion turned into an exercise of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" as eugene notes. That was inevitable. The fights between inland and costal, north and south will continue as the rest of the funds are doled out. The fund will be empty soon and there will still be projects that need to be completed. California has been underfunding its infrastructure for decades. Clearing that backlog will be expensive and take many years.

Here is Walters in the SacBee:

When California more or less stopped building infrastructure, especially highways and water facilities, three decades ago on the mistaken assumption that its growth was slowing (an "era of limits," then-Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed), the state had about 22 million people. Now it has more than 37 million and is adding human beings at the rate of 5 million-plus a decade.

Both transportation and water officials are blunt about needing infinitely more money -- perhaps 10 times as much in the case of highways -- to do what's required. And in his State of the State address in January, Schwarzenegger called for doubling up on last year's bonds during the next couple of election cycles as part of a long-range infrastructure improvement program that could reach a staggering $500 billion.

Not all of the infrastructure are roads and mass transit, only about $140 billion. You know...chump change. From yesterday's LAT:

The commission staff estimates that California requires up to $140 billion in highway and mass transit improvements to keep the state moving.

According to Caltrans, the percentage of highways in the state deemed congested rose from 32 to 43 from 1992 to 2002. Caltrans defines congestion as rush-hour traffic that moves at 35 mph or less.

At about the same time, the state's population grew by 21% while the number of miles in the highway system rose by only 3%.

Our budget is already structurally imbalanced, so there is not exactly a bunch of money laying around to spend. There are three ways this could go. Arnold wants to borrow. Democrats generally prefer to raise taxes. Republicans want to privatize everything. Or I guess there could be a fourth, which is doing nothing. That is what we did to end up with this backlog in the first place. Somehow I dont think that is the best option.

Expect a lot of public debate on the issue. Despite what Arnold thinks, the public won't put up with putting everything on the state's credit card that he supposedly cut up years ago.

George Skelton gives us a recent history lesson on the transportation bond campaign and the bait and switch done to the voters who approved the borrowing.

They were all but promised 405 congestion relief in TV and radio ads last fall. Schwarzenegger, Villaraigosa and Nuñez cited the Sepulveda Pass as a prime example of a bottleneck that could be loosened by the bond. In L.A., the 405 was a poster freeway for the bond campaign.

The MTA was pushing hard for the carpool lane, a necessity to get transportation commission project approval.

When it didn't show on the commission staff's list of recommended projects, officials offered lame reasoning. Mainly, they expressed "confusion" over when the project would be ready to build. They wanted only projects ready by 2009 and thought the 405 couldn't start until 2011.

They didn't do their homework. This project had been fast-tracked by the governor and Legislature. Construction could start in 2009. Indeed, if it isn't begun by then, the project could lose $130 million in federal funding. L.A.'s bond money request is for $730 million.

" 'Confusion.' That's what bugs me," says new Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the budget subcommittee on transportation. "Pick up the phone. 'Hello, MTA, when is the project scheduled to start?' How long does that take?"

The Schwarzenegger Administration is really falling down on the job here. The transportation committee looks increasingly incompetent. And LA officials have had to resort to aggressive tactics to be able to get the funding they were promised in the first place.

When something doesn't go L.A.'s way, it flexes its muscle. That doesn't win friends and may even stir up old hatreds. But occasionally it's OK to be a bully, especially when someone's holding back your rightful share of bond money.

It didn't have to come to this. Like Feuer said, they could have simply picked up a phone and called. Arnold could have exerted his influence earlier.

I wonder who is going play the hero in all of this? It seems pretty evident that the 405 funds will appear. Nobody other than the commission staff seems to be fighting it. Not that their chances would be good given the star power in favor of it.

Right. Tell me if this makes any sense to you, because I am still scratching my head.

The voters passed billions of dollars of funding for state transportation projects. After years of underfunding, there are way more projects that need money than can will get it. Luckily, there is a commission set up that gives recommendations on where to spend all that dough. Arnold appoints the members of that commission. They made their preliminary recommendations and shockingly urban areas like LA and SF are grossly underfunded. Even though LA has 28% of the state's population, 33% of its traffic congestion, but it would only get 12% of the initial $2.8 billion.

So, yesterday we had the strange site of Arnold issuing a press release in the middle of the debate about all of this to a commission he appointed. More than a dozen LA elected officials made the trek up to the Capitol to lobby for more funding. They were particularly concerned with the omission of new carpool lanes for the 405.

Then the mayor headlined a parade of elected leaders urging commissioners to rethink their spending priorities as they weigh the first installment of an overall $19.9-billion transportation bond that was approved by voters last November.

Villaraigosa and nine other officials — including state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) — addressed the commission.

"We always talked about the 405 as a high-priority project," Villaraigosa told the commission. "We were very concerned and very chagrined that the staff did not recommend this project."

It wasn't just the local elected officials in the chorus of those objecting. They were joined by some heavy hitters.

By the end of the day, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had piled on, adding their voices to the chorus calling for the commission to re-examine its allocations.

"I strongly urge the commission to reconsider the projects on the … list for funding in this initial round of programming," Schwarzenegger wrote to commission Chairwoman Marian Bergeson, a former state education secretary and senator from Newport Beach. "There are significant projects omitted ... that I believe should be reconsidered."

At the top of Schwarzenegger's list was the 405 Freeway.

Yes, Arnold was lobbying his own commission during the day of the debate. I smell something fishy. There should have been plenty of opportunities for Arnold to make clear his priorities to the commission, prior to the release of the preliminary recommendations. Issuing his objections during the middle of the debate was a very high profile way to get his voice heard, an overly dramatic one. I can't help but think that he is trying to pay lip service to LA and SF.

Todd has more here, and notes that only one of the nine commission members comes from LA.

Just in case you needed a numerical explanation of why there is so much traffic in California, the Legislative Analyst's Office just released some figures. From John Meyers:

One good example, lifted right out of the first pages of the LAO report: from 1990 to 2003, California's population increased by about 21%... travel on the state's highway system rose by 26%... while highway lane-miles only increased 3%.

Also interesting is the LAO's analysis that aside from LA, the Bay Area, Orange, and Ventura counties, highway capacity increases have been almost "nonexistent" in some parts of the state. That's significant when measured against the list of the three areas with the highest population growth in the 1990-2003 period: Sacramento, Bakersfield, and Riverside-San Bernardino.

And one final piece of not-so-good news: congestion on urban freeways costs Californians at least $16 million per day in wasted time and excess fuel.

I bet you are thinking about your commute home today and looking oh so forward to it.

"Every person must live their lives as a model for others."

That quote by Rosa Parks is on the wall of LA transportation chief Jamie de la Vega's wall. He drives a Hummer. When I was a silly teenager, I coveted the Hummers that sat in the parking lot of my nearby dealership. Then I grew up and realized the havoc that they wreck on our environment and roads. I guess de la Vega doesn't care.

Like Lopez says:

It's like having a surgeon general who smokes unfiltered Camels while snacking on Cheetos.

That snark is the result of being told that the Hummer was off limits for their interview. He got into it with de la Vega's staffer. This is both priceless and sad.

Szabo, meanwhile, looked like he might have some kind of a breakdown. He argued that de la Vega's vehicle is not the largest in the Hummer line.

"It's smaller than a Yukon," he said.

Wonderful. So is the Queen Mary.

The polar caps are melting, we are at war in the oil fields and Mr. Transit is driving a hog that says who cares

That is some pretty poor spin. It is about as laughable as the governor's consultants saying that his town hall meetings are open and accessible to the general public.

At least the Democrats in Sacramento are (mostly) leading by example. A number of them have chosen hybrids as their state vehicle. Clearly, de la Vega has not gotten the memo. Perhaps this bit of bad press will help him see the error of his ways. After-all, the most famous Hummer owner in the world (Arnold) has either sold or stored his fleet.

The thing that sticks in my craw the most about all of this is del la Vega's attitude. He is obviously embarrassed and knows he is doing something wrong. Otherwise, he wouldn't have his spokesman spinning like a ferris wheel so he doesn't have to answer pointed questions. Either step up and defend having a Hummer, or ditch the thing for something more sensible. Maybe he should read that quote on his wall to help him make up his mind.