The Forecast: More People, More Traffic, More Smog

Although a massive influx of people will settle in outlying regions such as the Inland Empire by the year 2010, most of them will drive to work in Los Angeles and Orange counties--meaning more traffic and more smog for the Southland, regional planning officials said Thursday.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG) also reported that the new century will bring a dramatic surge in apartment and condominium living, pressure to create new cities, a possible water shortage, a depletion of inner-city open space and a critical need for increased solid waste and sewage treatment facilities.

The SCAG report is a follow-up to a population forecast made last September that predicted that by 2010, a six-county Southern California region would grow by 43%, from an estimated 12.4 million to 18.3 million people. That report, however, had not projected where that growth would occur.

The earlier report also had not attempted to gauge the population growth’s impact on the region under study, comprising Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial counties. San Diego County, not a member of SCAG, was omitted from the findings.

SCAG researchers projected that the greatest volume of population growth will continue to be in Los Angeles County, which will grow another 1.8 million to reach 9.6 million by 2010. But Los Angeles County’s 23% population growth will be eclipsed by the booming Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, which are expected to grow by a whopping 166% and 128%, respectively.

In numbers, the two counties are expected to grow by 2.5 million people, representing about 42% of the projected 5.9-million population growth in the six-county region. Orange County is expected to grow by 50%, to 3.1 million from its current 2.1 million; Ventura County by 77%, to 1 million from 580,000, and Imperial County by 63%, to 165,500 from its current 101,700, SCAG reported.

Among the areas expected to grow fastest in the next 24 years are the San Fernando and east San Gabriel valleys and the Glendale-Pasadena area in Los Angeles County, southeast Orange County, Chino, central Riverside County and the eastern San Bernardino Valley.

“It goes without saying that the amount of growth we’re talking about, while offering many positive outcomes for the region, also offers the prospect that existing problems will worsen unless greatly strengthened mitigation programs can be developed and implemented . . . ,” SCAG President Jon Mikels told reporters.

One of those potentially worsening problems is increased traffic congestion due to what SCAG calls a job-housing imbalance. The imbalance will be most severe in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where the population is expected to swell to more than 4.3 million people by 2010, but where jobs will number only about 539,000.

As is the case now, most working residents of the Inland Empire will commute to jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties--except that there will be many more of these commuters by 2010, SCAG officials said. The consequences of the increased traffic and its effects on air quality are subjects of further SCAG studies. More than three-quarters of the labor growth in the Southland will take place in Los Angeles and Orange counties, according to the SCAG projections.

Other trends established in the SCAG studies of the six-county region included:

- Jobs. By 2010, the number will grow to 9 million, more than double the total in 1984, and most of these will be in service-related areas. Trade, manufacturing and government jobs are expected to follow as the most popular areas of employment.

- Housing. While increasing over the last decade by about 72,000 units a year, new housing is expected to jump to 109,000 a year, most of it multiple-family dwellings such as apartment buildings and condominiums.

- Water. Urban usage is expected to grow by about 30% by 2010, but SCAG--while offering a “worst-case” scenario in which a shortage could occur during a drought--said that current conservation efforts, as well as plans to increase desalination and sewage treatment efforts, should solve any possible shortage.