Mia Sullivan
Staff Writer
Widening the 405 Freeway to add carpool lanes through Sepulveda Pass has been discussed since 2003. Although the project is scheduled to begin in 2009, because it has taken the California Transportation Commission (CTC) until now to find the funds. Who knows how long it will take the government to put this plan into action, let alone finish it. It could take years of congested traffic to erect a negligible traffic improvement, and money could be better spent elsewhere to improve transportation on the West Side.
The CTC originally suggested that $2.8 billion be spent in 2007 on transportation improvements statewide. Wednesday, however, the commission increased this figure to $4.5 billion, likely caving to pressure from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and city officials. City representatives also convinced state officials to allocate more funds to improve the L.A. County transportation system, arguing that the initial 12 percent of transit dollars allotted was insufficient for an area holding 28 percent of the state’s population. Widening the 405 Freeway through Westwood and the Sepulveda Pass (just north of Westwood) is the top priority on the county’s transportation-improvement agenda.
According to an article in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, “most of the increase in funding— approximately $730 million— will go for carpool lanes on the 405 Freeway, a project that failed to make a list of 43 highway and road projects deemed eligible for funding from Prop. 1B, the transportation bond measure that voters approved in November.”
This article also characterizes northbound 405 Freeway as one of the country’s most congested freeways. An article published in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 20 says the 405 carpool lane project would fill the ‘missing link,’ by creating continuous carpool lanes from Orange County to the northern end of the valley.
Congestion on the 405 Freeway is certainly a problem. Scvresources.com describes traffic on the freeway as “the 24 hour rush hour.” But widening the freeway by one lane will most likely not ebb the flow of traffic. Although this change may temper traffic, it will not remedy the problem.
The benefits of this project are uncertain. The process will be long and inconvenient for commuters, and experts estimate it to cost close to $1 billion. Thus, the perceived costs may outweigh the potential benefits. Before this plan is put into action, California should explore its other transit options.
In 2006, Villaraigosa was really pushing for a “subway to the sea” as he called it. It would be an extension of the Wilshire line by 13 miles in three phases, first to the Fairfax district, then Westwood and ultimately Santa Monica, according to an NBC article published on Feb.15, 2006. This project is estimated to cost $4.8 billion— $300 million a mile. Villaraigosa stated that an east-west subway was necessary for freeway decongestion.
According to Villaraigosa, the Wilshire Boulevard corridor is the most used corridor in Los Angeles in terms of east-west traffic on the West Side. He also said that a subway in this location would transport more people than any other subway in the United States and that it would be “the most cost effective public transportation investment.”
If Villaraigosa characterizes a $4.8 billion project estimated to span at least 10 years as extremely cost effective, this option might be worth looking into. Although building a subway would probably be more than six times more expensive than expanding the carpool lane, in the long run, it may be the more beneficial option. While Los Angeles County probably does not have the funds to pay for such an expensive project presently, it can be paid gradually over the next decade.
Since the CTC allocated $730 million to Los Angeles County this year, if the county receives the same amount of funds for transportation over the next 10 years, it will have more than enough money to cover the costs of the subway to the sea. Concentrating resources on the subway would probably mean forgoing the widened freeway. This is an opportunity cost that will be beneficial to the county’s transit system in the long run.
Los Angeles has the worst traffic of any city in the United States. Adding one lane to the 405 freeway is not going to change that. Plus, a wider freeway potentially means more cars, which may increase delays and pollution, exactly what California does not need. The best solution is to try to get cars off the freeways by building a subway to the sea.
03-01-2007