Drivers Slow to Embrace Freeway Ramp Meters

Like traffic jams, SigAlerts and smog, meters controlling access to freeways have become part of the Los Angeles commuting landscape over the past decade.

As the red and green lights have spread to almost every major freeway in Southern California--including six in the San Fernando Valley area--traffic engineers who once criticized the meters have come to praise them.

Even elected officials who used to win votes by damning the meters now view them as a necessary evil.

It’s not so, however, with many of the drivers forced to wait in lines created by the meters.

An Engineer’s Folly

Many remain convinced that the meters are a traffic engineer’s folly, that they make commuting more time-consuming and agonizing without offering any benefits.

Interviews conducted at congested freeway on-ramps in the Valley indicate there is widespread skepticism about the meters. And there is some hostility.

“If they’re so good, how come the freeways are still crowded?” demanded Paul P. Yetter, a Sun Valley industrial-equipment salesman who said he waits at an average of five meters a day.

“If I could add up and save all the time I spend in those damn lines waiting for the green light,” he said, “I know I’d be better off than any speed-up that Caltrans says I’m getting from these things.”

A ‘Difficult’ Sell

Felicia Archer, information officer with the state Department of Transportation, has sought to explain the benefits of ramp meters to many complaining motorists, and has found it to be “a very difficult task because you are explaining a systemwide benefit to an individual. It’s hard to show a motorist how he fits into the big picture.”

Said Paul Fowler, traffic engineer for the Automobile Club of Southern California: “A lot of people will never understand them because from their individual perspectives, there appears to be no benefit.”

Part of the problem faced by apologists for meters is that for some motorists, particularly those traveling short distances, there is little or no benefit.

Traffic engineers say meters are desirable because they help keep a freeway as close as possible to its maximum carrying capacity--the greatest number of cars that can pass a given point in a particular time.

Capacity at 40 M.P.H.

At 35 to 40 m.p.h., a freeway reaches that capacity, which Caltrans considers to be one vehicle per lane every two seconds.

Below 35 m.p.h., a freeway’s carrying capacity drops dramatically as cars begin to brake, said Gary Bork, Caltrans’ Southern California chief of traffic operations.

At 20 m.p.h., there is a 25% drop from maximum capacity. When traffic becomes stop and go, the drop in capacity is 50%.

The capacity also drops, although less dramatically, at speeds above 40 m.p.h. as the spacing between cars increases, traffic engineers say.

By controlling access, meters keep a freeway at maximum capacity longer, the engineers say. And, when traffic volume begins easing, meters help return a freeway to its maximum capacity as soon as possible.

Short Commutes Discouraged

But, for a motorist traveling only a short distance on a freeway, a three-minute wait at an on-ramp in many cases will outweigh any benefit the driver might obtain from a smoother-flowing freeway.

In response, Caltrans officials note that a secondary aim of ramp metering is to discourage use of the freeway for short trips.

“The person who makes a long trip is the one who benefits most from ramp metering,” said the auto club’s Fowler.

Ramp meters were pioneered more than 20 years ago in Detroit in controlled tests, traffic specialists say.

In studies conducted and paid for jointly by the federal government and about a dozen states, a modern freeway was simulated to test the then-unproven thesis that controlled access improved overall traffic flow.

Although the tests indicated meters worked, Fowler said many traffic engineers remained unconvinced.

The auto club was “skeptical for a long time, and followed closely early use of meters in Chicago and other cities,” he said.

“Eventually, as study after study showed their worth, we came to the conclusion that ramp meters were of proven value in reducing congestion.”

Despite Los Angeles’ reputation as a trend-setter in transportation, the first ramps were not installed in Southern California until 1968, when several meters were placed on the Hollywood Freeway in Hollywood.

By that time, meters were in general use in Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit and several smaller cities, said Fowler.

Late Starter, Now Leader

Los Angeles, though a late starter in ramp metering, has in the 1980s forged “way ahead of all other cities in their use,” said Bork.

Part of Caltrans’ motivation for embracing the meters was a drying up of freeway construction funds that began in the late 1970s, forcing planners to turn more to devices for squeezing additional traffic onto existing roadways.

Except for the San Bernardino Freeway and part of the Pomona Freeway, most of the busier freeways in Los Angeles County have been metered, Archer said. Most meters operate only during rush hour.

Over the past 17 years, Caltrans has experimented with many meter settings.

Most meters are now set for five- or six-second intervals between green lights, Archer said.

The maximum interval allowed between green lights is 20 seconds “because, above that, you get a sharp increase in noncompliance,” she said.

The goal is to limit overall waits in line to three minutes, but Archer acknowledged that some motorists wait longer.

“If it’s more than three minutes, that’s the signal to us to reevaluate the meter to see if something can be done,” she said.

Remedies that have been used include speeding up the meter or adding a second access lane with its own meter and light.

The most controversial meters are those teamed up with car pool bypass lanes, called “diamond lanes.” They allow vehicles with two or more occupants to enter the freeway unimpeded by any signal light.

Although Caltrans continues to add bypass lanes wherever space allows, they appear to have done little to end Southern California’s one-man, one-car tradition.

West Valley Councilwoman Joy Picus, who supports ramp meters and car pools, said she counts about eight solo cars for every multiple-occupancy car getting on the Ventura Freeway.

“I don’t know why more people don’t join pools,” she said. “I see so many waiting when it would be so easy to bypass the lines by forming a car pool.”

Besides tempting solo motorists to illegally use the bypass lanes, diamond lanes create controversy among transportation planners because they use up valuable space that often is needed for solo cars inching toward the green light.

Back-Up Causes Congestion

When the back-up leads to congestion on nearby streets, Los Angeles city traffic officials often get involved.

Philip Aker, the city’s transportation planning coordinator, said that, although city traffic engineers endorse ramp meters, there is a “certain amount of pushing and shoving” between city and Caltrans officials over meters that cause lines of cars waiting on surface streets.

At the request of city engineers, Caltrans is considering converting diamond lanes at the Van Nuys Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Avenue on-ramps to the Ventura Freeway to conventional metered on-ramps.

Archer said that, even as Caltrans has moved methodically toward installing meters throughout Southern California, “there have been times when we were forced by unusual circumstances to fold our cards and take down a meter.”

Recently, a meter was dismantled in the South Bay area after motorists waiting to get onto the San Diego Freeway spilled onto surface streets and ignited protests from merchants.

Also, a meter for downtown motorists entering the Harbor Freeway at 3rd Street was taken down “when it was concluded that there was so much congestion that traffic provided a natural meter,” Archer said.

Among motorists lined up one evening rush hour at the Balboa Boulevard on-ramp to the westbound Ventura Freeway, only a handful expressed unreserved support for the meters.

Typical of a broad segment of opinion among those interviewed was Dawn McCrea of Westlake Village, who said she was “anything but crazy about the meters, but I assume they must do some good or they wouldn’t be here.”

Supports Meters

Creighton Stephens, a lawyer who said he is “usually very impatient,” nonetheless expressed support for the meters as he inched his Porsche 944 toward the signal light.

“I’ve watched them for some time, and while I hate waiting in line, I have observed where they help the freeway keep moving along, so I’m all for them.”

On the other side of the opinion spectrum was Bob Slater of Agoura, sweating in a Volkswagen Beetle as he slowly moved up the line in 100-degree heat.

“You can’t get on the freeway without a hell of a long wait, so I ask, ‘How can they be working?’ ” he demanded.

Bork, of Caltrans, is resigned to the fact that a significant segment of the public will never be persuaded the meters are beneficial.

“You could turn them off and show people the difference,” he said, “but that would be dumb, because there is so much documentation as to their value.

“I wish it weren’t so, but some people are never going to be convinced.”