genec

https://www.signonsandiego.com/news/s...1n22trans.html

His plan will be carried out over the next ten years, cost 223 BILLION and reduce cogestion by a whopping 18%... Maybe.

Read the article, but bottom line is that the same tactics have been tried in Houston and Phoenix, where the result worked for 10 years... until of course the population caught up. Road engineers realize that these methods only deliver limited results...

So why not come up some other alternative? How many times does "widening the freeways" have to fail before we open our eyes to the fact that if everyone drives a large empty metal box around, there is only going to be so much room availble?

I wonder if there is some other way to spend 223 BILLION to ease hiway congestion?

sbhikes

In Santa Barbara we have this argument every day. They want the freeway widened between Ventura and Santa Barbara from 2 lanes to 3. One side says that won't help. The other side says it will obviously help. One side says the money'd be better spent on light rail. The other side says nobody would use it because they wouldn't have their cars at the other end to get from the train station to their jobs.

I'm pretty certain that either they will widen the freeway or they'll do nothing but they'll never build any decent alternatives. And that 223 Billion? Just giving the people what they want, I'm afraid.

Karst

Everyone complains about the traffic.
Doing "something" is politically an easy thing to go for, even if real solutions are not feasible.
Money spent provides jobs and profits for construction companies.
Companies find ways to lobby for the work and find ways to funnel money to the politicians to get these projects going.

That is what it is all about. Real solutions? No way...

Of course, adding lanes overall will not help much or even for very long, since population size keeps increasing---but finding ways to remove some of the major bottlenecks would help, at least locally. Trouble is, when a bottleneck is removed, the traffic just gets quicker to another bottleneck.



It is really hard to be optimistic about it; I've yet to see anyone with real expertise come forward with physically tenable solutions that have much political and economic chance of success.

unkchunk

It's probably the harsh Californian climate that makes people drive cars so much. One could understand a state like Texas with so many cars. But a progressive free thinking state like California? Nope. It's gotta be the harsh climate. I read that California can get over 450 inches of snow per year. Who am I to complain when compared with my current mere not even a complete inch on the ground. Nope, it's gotta be the harsh California climate.

scottmorrison99

One problem here in California is that access for pedestrians and cyclists is lacking in many areas. Frontage roads along freeways get abandoned and fall into such disrepair that they are unridable, or as is the case on one local frontage road they are broken up and fenced off, making access to other nearby cities(or sometimes parts of the city you are in), inaccessible. Many riders are afraid to cross narrow overpasses with no pedestrian or bike lane provisions to cross highways. Some destinations require going miles out of the way to get some place, because cities here are designed for a car culture ONLY. I know that until I started commuting I would have never considered riding some places that I take for granted now. I think the "Governator" should spend some of that money on bicycle access, but I don't hold out hope that a Governor that drives a Hummer H1 will even consider that. The fact that every one of the things he tried to pass in a recent special election that he brought about ought to give him a clue.

unkchunk

Yeah, when will Arnold get a clue. I mean, what's the point of having a single party completely dominate the state legislature when some B actor can walk in a screw up the whole thing.

sbhikes

I know you're just being funny, but actually the climate is quite harsh here. Just last year the city of Santa Barbara was completely cut off from the outside world for a couple of weeks. The only way to get here was by plane or boat. The rain was so heavy that it washed out highways in all directions. Highways were either covered in mud (and even a small town was buried in mud) or they simply were eroded underneath and washed off a cliff. Temperatures are not extreme on the coast. Instead we have flooding, mudslides, and fires to deal with.

I've always been impressed with the good quality of the asphalt in other places, including places that see ice and snow. Santa Barbara County has the worst condition of roads in California, and California has the worst condition of roads in the nation.

I suspect it would take 223 billion to repave the 101 in LA County alone.

entropysix

Word to that. I'm still amazed at how long they let the road leading into UCSB degrade (for a while it seemed like each side of the road was just like two parallel lines of potholes).

I can see how many people are kinda scared to cross the freeway, the bridges here (in Goleta) are not very accomodating for anything other than cars. Try my best to pick times when most people aren't on the road to get across the bridge over at the end of Hollister (two lanes, no marked bike path).

cyclezealot

Last year Arni was into cutting the transportation budget. Now, he reverses himself. I say traffic congestion is lousy for a good business climate. But, builing roads only encourages them and ends up only spreading about more congestion... Look at what has happened to Oceanside , Ca since CA 76 was widened.
Alternative transportation is a part of the solution or else don't bother. and then many pols go for highway construction. after all, highway contractors are major political lobbyists/donors.

chicbicyclist

I still cannot believe they are not taking public transporation seriously. One of the hindering factors of public transit here is that they are so sparse, you are way better off driving a car. It results in a catch-22. The public would be more adamant to fund public transit because of the percieved wisdom that not many people use, etc, etc.

Travelinguyrt

And how is this gargantuan spending outlay to be financed??

Why higher taxes for Californios of course, they don't like it move to NV or OR.

chicbicyclist

Would you rather it be called a "fee" rather than taxes, like they did on Virginia? At least, they are being upfront about it.

LittleBigMan

In Atlanta, too.

My take on this is that unless new road accomodations are made, a city will lose it's appeal and will cease to grow, which will have a negative impact on it's economy (and tax base.) Cities seem to be competing for ever-expanding populations (and consumers) by expanding their transportation networks.

The way they sell it to those of us who already live there is to tell us they want to "ease congestion," which is only half true. Ultimately, they really want to accomodate more people, because that means more people to spend their money in that city. That, of course, leads to more congestion...

AndrewP

This is like getting bigger pants as a cure for obesity. What is needed is a way of structuring cities so the workplaces and shopping are close to the residences.

genec

Bingo! +1

cyclezealot

This past fall I have spent in several European cities. I was delighted to see the buses of Lille full, bike lanes in use; and the traffic moving. Rush hour. On the downtown city streets, you can hardly notice an uptick in traffic volume.
We were in Paris for New Years'. The mayor of Paris, France is very anti-car. There is evidence of car lanes that has been converted to bike lanes. We need him as governor of California. Paris' mayor accuses the auto of destroying his city, so our Parisian friends tell us. What a relief it is to jump on the subway over be stalled in traffic.
but, the irony, the commuter trains about Los Angeles are at full capacity during rush hours. those commuters know it is more productive to read/work on PC's over cuss at stalled traffic on the I-5.

scarry

Reducing congestion by building more lanes is like solving obesety by getting bigger pants.

They should try patching the potholed lanes we have before building more.

budster

+ another 1

You said it perfectly.

cyclezealot

My prediction. American cities are planned so poorly in terms of livability, fuel efficiency, congestion. I say within 50 years many of our non-workable cities will be downsized, maybe even abandoned and more workable cities re-built adjacent those non-functioning units.

IBreakCellPhone

I don't think things will look like you think they will look like. If I were predicting, I would suspect that things would look a lot more like Los Angeles does today. There's not really a strong idea of centralization, of a downtown business district that most people go to work in. As I understand it, there are pockets of jobs and pockets of residences scattered throughout Southern California. Would those of you who are natives agree with this?

Now, were I REALLY predicting, I think you might see people living closer to their jobs as the economic pressure of higher energy prices makes a house that's close to your job more and more attractive. You might see more of a trend of residential, commercial, possibly light industrial, and retail be more intermixed. Oh, the horror for the zoning freaks out there. Leave out heavy industrial because nobody likes living close to noisy factories, kind of like how nobody likes living next to noisy airports.

I think all this should (and more likely) will be done by market forces, as opposed to top-down regulation.

cyclezealot

My fear. American cities have been developed in a totally unlogical,user unfriendly way. Too late to put in the transportation systems vital to efficient movement of people. Might be easier to abandon them and start anew. Seems LA has pockets of communities that its' inhabitants gravitate to. Such as NOrth Hollywood or Westwood. But, overall, it is a lonely commuter type town.

atbman

They're knocking down my house to make way for the road they have to build to take the traffic generated by people who have to travel further to work because their homes were knocked down to make way for the traffic generated by...
Blues

genec

Classic. +1

jyossarian

Why spend $223B on a state that's gonna fall into the ocean anyways? As for urban sprawl, I envision the suburbs becoming cities that displace the cities they were meant to be an escape from. Meanwhile, the old cities will become gigantic gang hangouts.

dan828

Sounds nice, but real estate in California is so out of control that $500,000 will get you a house about 50-100 miles away from a job that pays you enough to afford a $500,000 house. Hell, I've been interviewing people for positions at my company that are commuting an hour to an hour and a half each way for $15/hr because there is no way they can afford to live in the towns they work in. It's not like they could bike to work.