October 2010 Scribe Report
By Clinton Quan
ITE SoCal Scribe
The ITE Southern California Section monthly meeting was held on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at Capistrano’s Restaurant at the Radisson Suites Hotel in Buena Park. This was our first meeting in Orange County for the 2010 – 2011 year and it was presented by our Southern California Section President, Lisa Martellaro-Palmer. The topic of the meeting was “Congestion: How to Study It and Build Coalitions Towards Reducing It.”
Our first guest speaker was Mr. Richard Dowling. He is the President of Dowling Associates, Inc., which is a traffic engineering and transportation planning consulting firm based in Oakland, California with over 40 full time professional and support staff. Mr. Dowling’s presentation was on the Multimodal Level of Service in the 2010 Highway Capacity Manual. The Highway Capacity Manual framework is based on the National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report 616.
In California, starting on January 1, 2011, the “Complete Streets Act” states that agencies modifying the circulation element of their General Plan must provide for a “balanced, multimodal transportation network that meets the needs of all users of streets, roads, and highways, defined to include motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, children, persons with disabilities, seniors, movers of commercial goods and users of public transportation, in a manner that is suitable to the rural, suburban, or urban context of the general plan.”
The 2010 Highway Capacity Manual which is due out on January 2011 will include a Refined Signalized Intersection Method which adds bike and pedestrian level of service. It will also include a New Urban Street Method which has a new auto speed method and level of service and it will add transit, bike and pedestrian level of service.
Multimodal Level of Service is the degree to which the urban street design and operations meet the traveling needs of each user type. The philosophy is that each urban street right-of-way is shared by four major types of users which include automobile drivers, transit passengers, bicyclists and pedestrians. Bicycle performance is measured by bicycle delay and the bicycle level of service score. Pedestrian performance is measured by corner circulation area, crosswalk circulation area, pedestrian delay and the pedestrian level of service score.
Our second guest speaker was Hilary Norton. She is the Executive Director of Fixing Angelenos Stuck in Traffic (FAST), which is a non-profit, public-private partnership created to support and implement short-term traffic solutions to address Los Angeles County’s current traffic crisis. FAST’s goals include educating residents and employers the merits of short-term traffic solutions and encouraging transit use, building an active and engaged coalition of individuals to advocate for more federal and state transit funds and implementing high impact traffic reductions.
Some of FAST’s community partners include the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Business Council, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, Metrolink, the Music Center, the Petersen Automotive Museum, UCLA Transportation and USC.
According to the RAND Corporation, traffic is deteriorating the quality of life and is stalling L.A.’s economy. Angelenos spend an average of 70 hours a year in traffic for a total of 490 million hours in annual traffic delays. In addition, the average Angeleno spends an additional $750 a year because of poor road conditions, while the total economic cost due to congestion delay is $9 billion per year.
Some of the RAND Report’s recommendations include improving signal timing, creating a network of paired one way streets that will favor traffic in one direction, Traffic Demand Management (TDM) Programs, deep discounted transit passes, parking “cash out”, variable curb parking rates, high occupancy toll lanes, peak hour curb parking restrictions, dedicated “bus only” lanes and a region-wide bicycle network.
