Birth of a Traffic Jam : It Starts Late in the Day, and Spreads Rapidly in Widening Circles to the Sound of Horns

It is 4 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles.

At the corner of 5th and Hill streets, a pebble has been dropped into a pond, so to speak. And the ripples continue outward.

It is beep and creep in a city where the only colors that count are red, amber and green.

It is temper time.

It is, in fact, a traffic tie-up, a typical mess on the streets--and this is a look at how it starts, and stops.

The location is fitting. The Hill Street blues have resulted ever since November, 1986, when 12 blocks of that heavily used thoroughfare were converted to one-way southbound to allow construction of Metro Rail stations at 1st and 5th streets.

Fifth Street westbound is a crucial link from downtown to the freeways, feeding directly onto the Harbor Freeway, northbound and southbound, which leads quickly to the Santa Monica, Pasadena and Hollywood freeways.

Just north of 4th Street, the pavement starts narrowing from four to three lanes. During the rush periods of 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., all three lanes are filled with vehicles, although during the other hours parked delivery vehicles occupy the curb lane opposite the construction activity.

The 4 p.m. start of this day’s snarl is worse than it was at the beginning of the morning rush hour.

“The reason is that people come to work downtown at different times,” Chuck Devereaux, parking enforcement manager with the city transportation department, said. “But they all seem to start leaving at about the same time in the late afternoon.”

If only one little thing goes wrong--and as per Murphy’s Law it usually does: a bus breaks down, a car gets a flat, there is a fender-bender, pedestrians jaywalk--the grinding of teeth is heard loud and clear.

Don’t blame what is happening, however, on the bureau of street maintenance. Given the choice of obstructing the morning rush hour or the one in the late afternoon, they always opt for the early one.

And Southern California Rapid Transit District spokesman Greg Davy said that one step taken before Metro Rail construction began was to schedule some work on weekends and nights, when more lanes on affected streets can be painlessly closed.

No, one of the major culprits during the rush hours, according to Devereaux, is the pedestrian.

It is 4:30 p.m. At 1st and Hill, a couple of pedestrians keep walking across Hill against the “Don’t Walk” signal. In the right lane, cars wanting to make a right turn are forced to wait, and traffic builds up eastbound on 1st Street. Similar offenses are happening on other corners, and the strands of the cobweb expand.

“The problem is that only one or two vehicles may get to make their turns when the lights should have allowed it,” Devereaux said with a sigh.

It is 5 p.m. For about 90 minutes now, traffic officer Robert Barron has been hovering above it all in a city helicopter, peering through binoculars at what has become a familiar sight.

Barron, who has been at this chore for about a year, is by now street smart and has formed many theories, one of which has to do with traffic and days of the week:

- Monday: “A slow day. A lot of people aren’t really in any particular rush to go to work.”

- Tuesday: “Busy. Delivery drivers and people like that are all trying to catch up.”

- Wednesday: “Average. Things usually slack off because everybody is more or less where he is supposed to be.”

- Thursday: “Busy. People are trying to get work out of the way so they can leave early on Friday.”

- Friday: “Often light by late rush hour. Everybody is well on their way.”

The airborne spotter

even has things refined to days of the month:

“The first and the 15th are particularly bad. That’s when a lot of people get paid. They are out cashing checks and doing shopping.”

The reason Barron is thus occupied at these crucial periods is that he is looking down for congestion that may have been unexpected and/or is particularly bad.

“When he finds it,” Devereaux said, “he relays the information to a traffic coordinator in an office. That person then can assign civilian traffic officers to that trouble intersection.”

It is 5:15 p.m. This, Devereaux believes, is crunch time, the worst time of the day.

“Most of the work days have concluded. Those who got off around 4:30 p.m. may by now be on the freeways. Many of the others are probably trying to get on.”

And now comes another major factor that will affect how well this particular rush hour will go on the streets: how well things are going on the freeways.

“The freeway flow is crucial,” Devereaux said. “Things on them may be so bad that, even though we on the streets are doing everything we can, there may be a limited number of vehicles we can get onto the on-ramps during a signal phase.”

Back on the streets, it is a worst-scenario day. Any officer will tell you that traffic always moves more slowly during the rain. On the oil-slick freeways, accidents are proliferating. On the streets, up to 60 traffic officers can be assigned to intersections when needed; on this day, all are.

At times like these, as many as 60 intersections can be affected, in this case radiating from 5th and Hill in all four directions.

Signals a Mockery

Never mind that at that intersection, the traffic signals are going through their silent litanies of 17 seconds of green, 2 seconds of amber, 17 seconds of red. The sequential signals, meant to be progressive, are merely a mockery now.

It is all a familiar sight to David Duval, a 22-year employee of the Hotel Clark, on Hill between 4th and 5th. His job as bell captain affords him a front row seat at the parade, and he can recall many similar days:

“I saw one guy get angry because the guy in front hadn’t kept up when the traffic finally started going. So the guy behind just moved ahead and began pushing the other car.

“There’s always a lot of horn honking, but it never helps any.”

Samuel Louis, acting director of Metro Rail construction management, said one thing that has helped slightly on the affected streets is the fact that some wise citizens “have wised up and are managing to avoid the areas altogether.”

‘C’mon, Move It!’

But not everyone. One motorist rolls down his window and shouts: “C’mon, move it!” Like all the others in the procession, he couldn’t give any further comment, or even his name, because once he saw the opportunity, his foot was on the accelerator.

Trying to get out of the wetness and into a dry martini.

Traffic officer Norward Toles has been at various intersections on various days, and he thinks sometimes it is the drivers who contribute to the jams: “You see them sitting there shaving, putting on makeup, combing their hair, talking on those phones, drinking coffee. It would help if they paid attention to the road.”

Because when they don’t is when Armageddon sometimes arrives.

Accidents Are Worst

“Just about the worst thing that can happen on a street during the rush hour is a serious accident,” Devereaux said. “At least one lane will be taken out of service, often because if there are injured in the cars, they can’t be moved until the paramedics arrive. The effect will be felt for many, many blocks away, in all directions.” And with most other motorists not having the faintest idea why they aren’t moving.

Only occasionally is there comic relief in any jam: “Once when I was doing traffic duty at 1st and Hill, I stepped to the curb temporarily to work on my log,” Barron remembered. “When I looked up, a wino had taken my place and was out in the intersection directing the cars.”

Meanwhile, back at this particular late afternoon rush hour, the nightmare continues. In some locations, traffic is literally going in circles, almost like airplanes in holding patterns. In this case, the runway to which admission is sought is a freeway.

“On these nights, some of the drivers are simply trying to get home as usual on surface streets,” Devereaux said. “Washington Boulevard is one example.” Their lot sometimes is easier.

Logjam Breaking Up

It is 5:45 p.m. The logjam on the freeways, whatever the causes had been, is breaking up.

“How much traffic they can keep taking determines how quickly the congestion in the central business district will dissolve,” Barron said.

It is 6 p.m. Barron puts down his binoculars, and the pilot points the copter back to the helipad at Piper Technical Center.

If it had been a Friday, this plot would have resolved itself at an earlier hour, since a lot of workers call it a week as soon as they can.

By the end of the year Barron may have fewer jams to digest, because ATSAC, the Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control, is becoming operational.

Sensors, TV Cameras

“What we are doing is putting sensors in the intersections, and also some television cameras on rooftops,” Devereaux said. “In the basement of City Hall East is a computer system that deals with the phasing of signals. In the future, say unusually heavy northbound traffic on a certain street has to be accommodated, we can arrange longer periods of green lights.

“The new system also will tell us where the heaviest volumes of traffic are.”

In recent weeks, other steps have been taken to ease peak-hour congestion. Television and radio stations, which for years have concentrated on reporting freeway conditions, now are telling of surface street tie-ups.

Traffic officers are relaying information on trouble spots to a command post, which is passing on the information to broadcasters.

Some Action Taken

Mayor Tom Bradley has pointed out that, at some point, 60% of the rush hour commuter traffic is on the city’s streets.

Also, last week the fine was raised from $28 to $53 for illegal parking during rush hours, a move particularly aimed at drivers who block the right lane of busy streets.

And the day will come when there will be subway cars downtown, which should greatly relieve surface congestion.

But that is years--or should it be gears?--in the future.