Los Angeles’ Transit Problems

C. Kenneth Orski, in his article (Editorial Pages, Sept. 5) “Metro Rail’s Future Fades, but L.A. Area’s Doesn’t,” noted that it’s not a calamity for the Los Angeles region if Los Angeles does not get its subway. “Over the short run,” Orski says, “conditions will most likely remain unchanged,” and “in the longer run, growth patterns, location decisions and travel habits are likely to respond to changing transportation conditions, just enough to maintain congestion levels at the margin of ‘tolerability.’ ”

To expect that the population and business development changes currently under way in Los Angeles will not soon create major transportation problems as a result of the increase in cars alone is an unrealistic understanding of how to get around in Los Angeles. To view the future of Los Angeles in terms of people’s transportation habits changing sufficiently to keep congestion at a “tolerable” level demonstrates a shortsighted grasp of the complex transportation needs that Los Angeles will be expected to respond to in the future.

Congestion in the downtown Central Business District is a serious problem now. In 1980, the Central Business District, a 3.4-square-mile area, employed approximately 230,000 people. Current estimates show an increase of 10,000, and by 1990 new developments will add an additional 77,000 people, bringing the downtown employment population to 317,000--a 38% increase over 1980.

Can the downtown area stand a comparable increase in vehicular traffic--either cars or buses--to accommodate this influx on a daily basis? Quite simply, no!

Additionally, as Los Angeles County’s population increases, where will all the other people go to live and work? Existing business centers such as Westwood and Century City are already becoming congested at a very rapid pace, and when they become overburdened, Los Angeles’s future employees will move on to other locations such as Warner Center and repeat this unstructured transportation response to job needs and living requirements.

The questions that actually need answering are: How will Los Angeles serve the transportation needs of its residents without further abusing an already overburdened infrastructure--its streets, highways and freeways? And, how will the area respond to its future transportation needs as an international city serving the Pacific Rim countries and hosting millions of visitors?

If we are to exert some modicum of control in structuring our future transportation facilities, we must begin constructing that response now.

People concerned about Los Angeles County have provided a plan that addresses Los Angeles County’s needs over the short term and allows for future development that deserves public support and implementation. This plan, a 150-mile rapid transit system, stretches throughout Los Angeles County and includes the Metro Rail subway as the backbone of a system that has extended light-rail systems connecting to it at various points.

Similar to a caterpillar with its many legs, the Los Angeles County rapid transit system does not consist of just one system, nor will it function effectively if incomplete. Contrary to a popular misconception, the Metro Rail subway is not the “whole story” of the rapid transit system. The Metro Rail is a supportive component that links a broad network of bus and light-rail feeder lines. The Metro Rail system is essential to the L.A. rapid transit plan because it has the capacity to absorb large numbers of passengers from other sources and transport them in and out of areas already densely populated and highly developed without interfacing with surface traffic since it is a subway system.

Let’s face the facts--realistically. Would we all have been better off without the Pasadena, or other freeways, as Orski suggests? Can the residents of Los Angeles really believe that Los Angeles County will stop or reverse its growth pattern? Or does Orski believe that we aren’t living at the edge of “tolerability” right now when we sit through traffic jams going from the San Fernando Valley to downtown or when we are just trying to get out of the downtown area itself?

For residents who have long since realized that Los Angeles is no longer part of the wide-open West, that the city has waited 20 years too long, who wish to move into the future in a thoughtful, prepared manner, it will be a calamity if a comprehensive rapid transit system is not constructed.

JOSEPH R. CERRELL

Los Angeles