LA maps out sweeping transportation overhaul (opens in new tab)

Good for them. But sadly, people who live there are habituated to driving from everywhere to everywhere simply because home, workplace and "third places" (shopping,recreation,entertainment,etc) are 10's of miles apart from each other.

When the sprawling highways were put in, nobody ever considered that everybody would get sick of driving all the time and that each highway widening project would precipitate even more driving and ever-increasing congestion.

Fortunately, there are some compact mainstreet communities in the LA area. These are excellent candidates for complete streets and biking infrastructure. If this can nucleate in some communities more folks will gravitate towards communities with less driving. That will be a very "long game" process however.

A known localized metric, level of service, is in the works to be superseded by a regionwide metric, vehicle miles travelled. The level of service is an intersection, corridor, and roadway metric that can be quantified and is was to replicate. Vehicle miles traveled is a poor way to compare where money should be spent to make an impact, but it does provide political cover for CALTRANS to not have to address critical problems, instead, they are perfectly happy to allow drivers to cut through local roads.

The article demonstrates the reality versus pie in the sky comparisons with level of service versus vehicle miles traveled: The emergency vehicle response will have a more difficult time in the new mobility plan.

Also, this reporter is on board for the plan, just wish he would do a little more due diligence; what will a 170% increase in bicyclists look like on roadways: 100 to 270 bicyclists on a corridor does not justify removing a vehicular lane which can transport 880 vehicles. Walking up by 38%, walking is a localized transport method and does not address long distances, transit use up 56% with 147,000 current riders brings the 2035 value up to 230,000 individuals, or 90,000 less trips. With a 10 million population and an estimated a population of 2.5 million between 18 and 64 and an estimated 75%, my estimate, you get 1.9 million drivers per day. With 1.9 million trips, 90,000 does not make a significant difference.

> First it was a ban on plastic bags. Then came the workplace prohibition on e-cigarettes.

And now they're adding bus and bike lanes? God, what a repressive shithole.