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

-
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/











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The worst congestion in the world

-
Image
While I was going to school at UCLA, the car-culture was very apparent to me. The city also felt incredibly spread out, and it would sometimes take me more than an hour by bus to get downtown. I did not own a car the entire time I lived in LA, and I felt very limited. I quickly became bored with Westwood, the neighborhood that UCLA is in, and the only neighborhood that was within walking distance of my apartment and I had to rely on my friends to drive me to the beach or other neighborhoods. I was surprised when I read in Sorenson’s article, “Moving Los Angeles”, that despite Los Angeles reputation for sprawl, it is actually quite dense when compared to the nation’s 14 largest metropolitan areas. In class, we talked about how Los Angeles is the only major city that has become denser since the 1960s. Los Angeles is not as dense as New York City, but it is quite dense at a regional scale. The suburbs are denser on average than suburbs in other cities. Reflecting on this more, I realized...
Read more

Uh oh. Does Vision Zero Reinforce White Supremacy in the United States?

-
Many US cities, including Portland, have adopted Vision Zero strategies as a response to pedestrian and bicyclist traffic safety needs. Vision Zero, a traffic safety approach which originated in Sweden, is a program that aims to ultimately reduce the number of traffic-related-deaths to zero (Vision Zero Network 2018). The program’s approach is multifaceted, using public education, street design, legislation and law enforcement to reach its desired outcomes (Elevbakk 2007, Trujillo 2014). Sounds like a win-win, right? Ah, but let’s not forget our mantra of equity: “who gets what when and why?”. There is often more to the policy than we see at first glance. Indeed, Vision Zero does have its critics. Critiques of Vision Zero focus on concerns related to equity – including issues related to location of infrastructural improvements, and racially biased enforcement of traffic related laws (Bliss 2016). In cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, mobility justice groups have raised c...
Read more

The age of automation

-
Image
Cities across the nation, including Phoenix, Boston, and San Francisco, have already begun allowing transportation network companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, to test out new autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. However, after the March 18 Uber crash, which resulted in the death of a woman, many cities put a halt to the testing. Despite this incident, cities have not terminated their plans to introduce self-driving vehicles onto their streets. Some cities, including Boston, MA, are gradually introducing AVs, starting with small driverless zones. Philadelphia, PA, has established a rigorous testing process. AVs must meet important standards, such as emergency braking and basic driving capabilities before the vehicles are released to the streets (Krauss, 2018) . Many cities are still excited about the potential benefits of AVs. The Boston municipal government argues that the introduction of AVs could lead to improved accessibility for people living with the aging population and ...
Read more