Commander Gridlock : Task Force Paves the Way as City Gears Up to Unclog Intersections

LAPD Cmdr. Jerry Bova was talking about little things. Little things that can ruin your afternoon at the downtown mobile command post where officers of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation are trying to deal with downtown gridlock.

At 3:40: Bus hits a pedestrian at 6th and Broadway. Police and paramedics respond.

At 3:50: Car fire at Olive and 4th. Police unit calls fire department.

At 3:55: Assault and battery at Olive and 5th. LAPD car unit dispatched.

At 4:10: Gridlock stopping east-west and north-south traffic at 7th Street/Olive/Hope/Grand. Three LAPD motor officers dispatched to clear intersections.

At 4:15: Broken-down RTD bus at 1st and Hill blocking cross traffic. Call to RTD for towing.

At 4:30: Two drunks fighting in the street at 6th and Olive. Two motor officers respond.

At 4:50: Stalled car needs a tow from 7th Street between Broadway and Hill. Call to towing service.

“It’s the little things that come up every day that mess up your whole plan,” said Bova, LAPD’s traffic coordinator and the man responsible for enforcing the new California gridlock law when it goes into effect Jan. 1. “And they come up every day. Tomorrow, there’ll be something different that happens.”

And Jan. 1, there’ll be something different for Los Angeles motorists who violate the new gridlock law by pulling into an intersection through which they cannot proceed without interfering with the cross traffic. Tickets.

In anticipation of the law, the city Department of Transportation is posting “Do Not Block Intersection” signs at 125 designated critical intersections throughout the city, mostly in the downtown area, Hollywood, the Westside and the San Fernando Valley.

A $53 Ticket

A ticket for the first offense at the marked intersections will be $53, and will be considered a parking, not a moving violation. Fines at unmarked intersections will be less.

But fines can get steep under the new state law, authored by Assemblyman Richard Katz. Drivers having three offenses in a year can be fined from $250 to $500 for the third offense, and possibly have their driver’s license suspended for up to 30 days.

On a recent afternoon, Bova, who has had his traffic coordinator job only since April, stood next to the dark blue police van that serves as the gridlock mobile command unit. It was nearing 5 p.m., peak time for the experimental Anti-Gridlock Task Force that Bova, his men and transportation officers have been overseeing before implementation of the new law. A 24-year LAPD veteran, the tall, soft-spoken Bova listened to the helicopter pilot flying overhead squawk locations of developing traffic snarls.

“It’s pretty quiet right now,” Bova said to motor officer Randy Wiggins, a member of the anti-gridlock task force since it began on Nov. 23. In the van, parked on the south side of Pershing Square at 6th and Olive, the two men checked locations on a large street map, then Wiggins got on the radio and ordered a motor unit to 7th and Olive where the intersection was beginning to clog.

The joint task force, which operates daily from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. has been working well, Bova said. “It’s an experimental program that ends Christmas Eve. We’ve never done something like this before, so we’ll be evaluating it to see how much impact we have had. Some of the things we’ve learned here we might use in the Valley or in Westwood.

“We have 28 extra officers, motor and foot patrol, assigned and DOT has about 40 traffic control officers,” he added. “The DOT helicopter is watching where the problems break out and then we can send someone there. The whole idea of this was to relieve congestion downtown during the holidays. There is a 15% to 20% increase in traffic down here over Christmas.”

100,000 Leaving Downtown

On any day, not counting the holiday increase, Department of Transportation’s principal traffic engineer Tom Conner estimates that 40,000 cars an hour leave the downtown area during rush hour. That, Conner explained, translates to 100,000 people trying to get out of downtown.

“The biggest problem is downtown because there are a lot of closely spaced intersections and if one backs up, it starts to affect the others in the central business district, from 1st to Olympic and Los Angeles Street to Figueroa,” Conner said.

“That is a little more than one square mile in area,” Bova added. “And that’s a whole lot of cars to move.”

As Bova spoke, he watched one of his motor officers hand out a jaywalking ticket ($10) to a pedestrian on the corner of 5th and Hill. However, Bova said, “The new (gridlock) law doesn’t apply to pedestrians. There are already existing pedestrian laws. You can’t cross on a yellow light or against a ‘Don’t Walk’ sign.”

In addition to trying to move traffic during rush hour, members of the joint task force have been handing out fliers about gridlock, hoping to educate the public before the new law takes effect. Written in English and Spanish, the flier begins with: “GRIDLOCK IS EVERYONE’S PROBLEM” and lists seven rules to follow to help eliminate traffic congestion.

Among the rules are cautions to pedestrians to obey “Don’t Walk” signs, to drivers not to park in no-parking areas or not to double park and reminders to turn from the proper lanes or not to turn if the sign says “No Turns.”

The last rule reads: “Don’t block the intersection. It’s the key to eliminating gridlock. (Starting Jan. 1, 1988, it’s the law.)”

“There’s no quick cure to this downtown traffic problem,” said Wiggins. “We are a community on wheels. But I really believe we’ve been very effective (with the task force).

‘Your First Fire Drill’

“When the new law comes in, if everyone really complies and thinks when he is driving, it will work,” Wiggins added. “It’s like your first fire drill in kindergarten. The bell rings and everyone wants to go out. Then the teacher says if you line up in twos, you’ll get through the door in 10 seconds, but if everyone rushes out at once, nobody will get out. It’s the same way with traffic. And we’re acting as the kindergarten teachers.”

Bova, 45, a native Californian who still lives at the beach near where he grew up, reflected on traffic in Los Angeles years ago. He cited the Red Car system, remembering that you could “travel all over Los Angeles on those cars.

“People used to be much more disciplined and courteous than they are now,” Bova added. “Our drivers now are not disciplined and not responsible. Everybody recognizes that there is gridlock. But they get a little too involved with that me-ism. Gridlock is frustrating and you can understand why people feel the way they do, but they have to get over that me business and be nicer to other people on cross streets.”

‘A Struggle for Space’

In the opinion of Dr. Ed Stainbrook, professor emeritus of psychiatry and human behavior at USC, “It’s really kind of a struggle for space. People have basically an anxiety about not getting stuck (in traffic), so they take every advantage to keep on going. There’s a certain kind of aggression, too. You’ve got the space and no one can take your place . . . There are more people, more interruptions and more stress. Therefore, there is more anger and aggression and less consideration of a person as a person. People just become objects in your way.

“It’s all part of the increasing urban congestion,” Stainbrook observed. “Gridlock is only one part of it. There are too many people competing for the same resources, the same space.”

Said Dr. Calvin Frederick, UCLA professor of psychiatry and a psychic trauma expert: “Us normal folks can get frustrated and angry over a situation like gridlock, but we recognize what we’re doing and it’s a momentary thing we can get over. . . . But then you have the people who shoot people on the freeways. That’s a different phenomenon. Those people are impulse-ridden and have a character disorder. They can’t tolerate the frustration, so they act out the frustration on society.”

Frederick said that he believes “the pressure of modern-day living, to get somewhere on time is part and parcel of our culture. It seems to be worse here. We tell people they have to climb ladders to succeed and get there before the other guy. Do the other guy before he does you. That takes its toll on society.”

Although Los Angeles admittedly has gridlock problems, it is not as bad as some other large cities. In a national 1986 traffic study, Los Angeles ranked below New York and Boston in daily traffic congestion.

The Worst Gridlock

“I still think we can get around as well or better in Los Angeles than in any other city,” said DOT’s Conner. “We keep our fingers crossed, but we’ve implemented lots of plans since that day in 1983.” Conner was referring to the worst downtown gridlock ever recorded in Los Angeles, Nov. 1, 1983, when it rained half an inch during the evening rush hour, and it took downtown motorists 30 minutes to go one block.

Since then, Conner said, DOT has installed a high-tech computerized system that enables the traffic engineers to view an electronic display board showing them where bottlenecks are occurring on the city streets surrounding the Coliseum. Located at the DOT control center five stories underground below City Hall East, the system was very effective during the Olympics, with engineers being able to regulate the length of red and green lights.

DOT is now building the “downtown phase” of that system. Called ASTAC, for Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control, it should be in operation by June, 1988. Similar phases are planned for Westwood, the Los Angeles International Airport area and Hollywood.

“One of the things that’s hurting us right now is all the construction going on downtown, MetroRail, street and sewer improvements,” Conner said. “As the congestion gets worse, people tend to be less courteous and assert their right of way. Their patience diminishes and people get real angry when gridlock happens.”

“We’ve found that the best way to educate the public is through enforcement,” Bova said. “In Los Angeles in the last seven years, every year that enforcement has been up (more citations given), fatal and serious injury accidents have gone down. When enforcement has been down, those accidents have gone up.”