Land Use – Why does Los Angeles has such an awful traffic?

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Last week I was in the Los Angeles metropolitan area for Thanksgiving. The city is gorgeous with astonishing art museums like the Getty Center and fantastic beaches like Venice Beach. It has the best Mexican food this side of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) and the most pleasant weather of any U.S city I ever been to.  However, L.A has a serious issue. It has one of the highest levels of traffic congestion in the world (McCoy, 2017). My first day in town my friends and I drove from the LAX airport to a quaint, small town called Idyllwild about 90 miles east. It took us 6 hours to get there on the freeway! I have never seen this much congestion in my life and I was raised in the vicinity of the Mexico City metro area which has 20 million inhabitants.  While we were stuck in traffic, I did some “smartphone research” and found that, not surprisingly, around two thirds of Angelinos commute using a Single Occupant Vehicle (SOV) and another 10% carpool to work; only a little over 10% use transit (Barragan, 2014). In comparison, Mexico City with its larger population and less than optimal infrastructure has a transit mode share of 70% (Deloitte Insights, 2018). It did not surprised me then that L.A, even with better infrastructure, has about the same if not much worse congestion than Mexico City. Los Angeles must make the automobile a less attractive option if it’s going to diminish or at least control congestion.  Currently, Angelinos love their automobiles and with good reason.  According to researcher Paul Sorensen (2009) there are two factors driving automobile use in Los Angeles. The first one is the fact that the city provides ample free parking almost anywhere in the city.  The second is that the L.A metro area is not based around a single dense business district but instead is polycentric having numerous business districts dispersed around a large area. I believe that the polycentric nature of Los Angeles is a complicated issue that will take decades to resolve and cannot be easily tackled, but when it comes to parking requirements the city can take action immediately. If Los Angeles does not scrap its minimum parking requirements automobile usage is going to continue to dominate, further deteriorating the quality of life of its residents. Los Angeles could take Mexico City’s example and eliminate parking requirements for new development, a move that not only will disincentivize automobile usage but also may help make housing more affordable (Marshall, 2017).
Written by: Santiago Espinosa Wild
Edited by: Lisa Wheeler


Bibliography:
1)     Barragan, B. (September, 2014). Here’s How Everyone in Los Angeles Commutes to Work. Curbed. Retrieved from: https://la.curbed.com/2014/9/24/10043486/heres-how-everyone-in-los-angeles-commutes-to-work

2)     Marshall,A. (2017). Mexico City is killing parking spaces. Pay attention America. Wired. Retrieved from: https://www.wired.com/story/mexico-city-killing-parking/

3)     McCoy, K. (February,2018). Yep, Los Angeles has the world’s worst traffic congestion – again. USA Today. Retrieved from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/06/yep-l/1088205001/

4)     Deloitte. Insights. (2018). Deloitte City Mobility Index. Retrieved from:
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/4331_Deloitte-City-Mobility-    Index/Mexico_GlobalCityMobility_WEB.pdf
5)     Sorensen, P. (2009). Moving Los Angeles. Access Magazine (35). pg. 16-24.  Retrieved from: https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2009/moving-los-angeles/











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