Solutions for Olympic-Size L.A. Problem

Los Angeles is well on its way to getting a real downtown, but it is a downtown without much future unless its inhabitants do a lot more about what it takes to get there and to get out.

Moreover, the business community must play the biggest part in dealing with the situation.

The problem is that buildings keep going up but freeway capacity stays the same. Metro Rail is only a limited answer and isn’t in the immediate offing. It isn’t likely that government action--diamond lanes, one-way streets and the like--can do much. Except for Metro Rail, there isn’t much public funding available to subsidize transportation improvements.

Yet for all the “isn’ts,” there is an answer at hand, one remarkably ignored. Employers that draw the great bulk of the people into the downtown area can have an effect. It will cost them something, but it will cost far less than doing nothing at all.

What is required of the business community is some effort to reorganize operations just enough to take the edge off traffic and thus begin a process that could lead to even greater improvements.

The steps are fairly simple: Adopt more staggered or flexible working hours. Change truck delivery schedules. Provide incentives to employees to leave their cars at home. These are steps employers willingly took during the Olympics, and with some success.

The Olympics period remains a fond memory to commuters, a period in which a very small shift of traffic away from peak periods turned freeways from rush hour parking lots into high-speed arteries. The freeways carried up to 5% more cars than usual, but the time spent creeping along at less than 35 m.p.h. was slashed by up to 86%.

According to a Times survey at the time, about a quarter of all employers altered hours during the Olympics, and about half of them said they could do it regularly. More than 20% shifted truck shipments to off hours, and about half said they could have continued doing so.

Permanent Programs

Some companies have permanent programs to encourage bus ridership by subsidizing bus pass purchases. A few maintain car-pooling vans. But few have put all of the Olympics-period efforts together in a concerted drive to change commuting habits.

There are several reasons for this inaction. One is simply a lack of flexible thinking. Another is the car-bound habits of the corporate leadership. The executives figure that no incentive program will change their own habits, so why push a program on others? A third reason is fear of higher operating costs.

What finally will change this attitude is the recognition that costs are going to be pushed up far more by commuting bottlenecks in the years ahead. Frustrated employees will turn against downtown, and once again companies will be forced to look outside the downtown area for locations where they can attract the white-collar help they require.

Why wait for that day? A real effort now would immediately alleviate the traffic problem and could lead to continued improvement. If companies were to increase the incentives for taking the bus, public authorities would be encouraged to improve service. Potential bus riders wouldn’t be discouraged by sitting--or standing--on clogged freeways.

The range of steps open to employers is broad. In addition to staggered hours, they can give employees more opportunities to select their own hours. They can look hard at going to longer days and shorter weeks. The cost of such changes could be offset by the effect of making jobs more attractive and making hiring that much easier. Given the vast changes in the work force--two-career couples, more working mothers, more elderly workers--such changes are probably coming anyway.

Employers can back up their bus pass subsidies with higher parking charges for those employees using company-subsidized lots. Car-pooling is required during periods of high air pollution in the city now. Companies should adjust the hours of individual employees to fit car-pooling opportunities.

A great city needs a downtown, but wouldn’t it be something if this city got one and nobody could get there?