Report Paints Bleak Picture of Traffic...

Think traffic congestion along the coast couldn’t get much worse? Think again.

It can and will, a new study concludes, if an anticipated building boom proceeds without new streets and programs to get drivers off the road.

The study paints an alarming picture of traffic swelling more than 80% over the next 12 years in the already-crowded coastal corridor running from Santa Monica to El Segundo.

But both the development firm that commissioned the study and city officials say that, for a number of reasons, that worst-case scenario is unlikely to happen.

The study predicts traffic increases that would come primarily from development of the massive Playa Vista project, a major expansion of Los Angeles International Airport and as many as 185 other construction projects.

The report, under review by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, was commissioned by Maguire Thomas Partners, the firm that wants to build Playa Vista. The development would be a city-within-a-city of condominiums, apartments, offices, restaurants, hotels and boat slips on 957 acres between Marina del Rey and the Westchester bluffs. It is projected one day to provide homes for up to 28,000 people and a workplace for 20,000 more.

But city transportation officials and Maguire Thomas executives say traffic is unlikely to reach the worst-case level because many of the projects the study encompasses will never be built. The others, they say, will have their traffic strictly managed.

In addition, Playa Vista will be designed with a combination of housing, workplaces and commercial establishments to encourage people to stay within the neighborhood.

“In this initial study we are being judged like all the other projects in the (Los Angeles) Basin,” said Nelson C. Rising, a senior partner with Maguire Thomas. “But we are unique. We are not like any of the others.”

Rising said Playa Vista will put fewer cars on the road by placing housing, jobs and shopping in close proximity, so that residents and employees can walk, cycle or take public transportation to their destinations.

The builder said he hopes to encourage people who work at Playa Vista to live there by giving them preference in applying for the more than 13,000 apartments and condominiums included in the project.

“Our goal is to create a community that makes a person want to walk,” Rising said. “It’s anti-intuitive to think that some of the people won’t live and work here in the same place.”

But a Westchester homeowner activist, who asked to remain anonymous, said she doubts Maguire Thomas will succeed in persuading auto-bound Angelenos to walk. “I just don’t see it happening,” the woman said.

Another local activist, Sal Grammatico, said he too is skeptical.

“My main question is, ‘Where is this traffic going to go,’ ” said Grammatico, who lives about half a mile from the Playa Vista site. “The San Diego Freeway is already operating at way over capacity. This traffic will be going mainly on residential or local streets.”

City transportation officials will use the traffic report, and revisions that are underway, to determine what street improvements the developer should make. Then the report will become part of an environmental impact study that is scheduled to be circulated for public comment by the end of the year.

Although Maguire Thomas Partners paid for the study, its consultants were required to follow parameters set by the city Department of Transportation. The report gives a litany of reasons why those guidelines overestimate traffic growth and underestimate street capacity.

City transportation officials defended the methods prescribed for the study but agreed with the developer’s contention that traffic might not be as bad as the study predicts. Tom Conner, assistant general manager of the Department of Transportation, said the extreme scenario is only a starting point for discussions on the impacts of Playa Vista’s traffic.

Conner said the study’s predictions are unlikely to materialize for several reasons: Many of the projects encompassed by the study will never be built because of unfavorable economic conditions. Others will be scaled back by city planners. And, finally, developers such as Maguire Thomas will be forced to reduce the number of cars their projects put on the road and to pay for comprehensive street improvements.

Rising said his firm is willing to go a step further and guarantee that its project will not surpass a predetermined traffic limit. He said the limit can be enforced by agreeing to scale back later phases of Playa Vista if the early stages put too many cars on the road.

UCLA agreed in 1990 to such a cap on vehicle traffic, linked to the university’s 15-year expansion plan. And Fox Studios in Century City last week agreed to halt its planned expansion if it brings in more traffic than predicted.

Playa Vista is the single largest source of potential traffic increases in the coastal corridor, according to the study.

It estimates that the project--one of the largest development proposals ever in Los Angeles--will put 208,260 vehicles on the road on an average weekday. Nearly 55,000 of those will travel between locations in the mini-city and not venture onto regional roadways, the study predicts.

The biggest traffic surge would come during the afternoon rush hour, from 4:30 to 5:30, when 26,230 cars from Playa Vista would hit the road. Nearly 6,000 of those would stay within Playa Vista’s boundaries, the study says.

But Playa Vista officials say the number of cars on the road will actually be closer to 19,000 at the peak hour.

The more than 7,000-trip disparity is due to a bit of traffic engineering arcanum. The higher study figure is based on traffic-production estimates from the 1983 manual of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. But Playa Vista executives say the updated, 1991 edition of the manual is more accurate--and gives a lower overall traffic count.

City transportation engineers said that dispute and others will be resolved in their review of the traffic study.

Playa Vista’s impact on traffic becomes even more profound when measured on top of other growth predicted for the area.

During the evening rush hour in 12 years, for example, the number of vehicles passing through the heart of the coastal corridor would increase more than 83%, according to an addendum to the study.

Some 84,480 cars, trucks and motorcycles currently cross a boundary of Manchester Avenue on the south, the San Diego Freeway on the east and Washington Boulevard on the north during the peak traffic hour of 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Playa Vista would add another 16,220 vehicles, a 19% increase. And other construction projects and a general “ambient” traffic growth of 1.5% a year would put another 54,330 vehicles, or 64% above current levels.

The additional traffic would put a substantial burden on the area’s key intersections, the study says. Currently, of 104 intersections studied, 22 operate at a level of service considered poor, or worse, during the morning rush hour. At the evening rush hour, 24 intersections are poor or worse.

After absorbing traffic from the predicted construction boom, 88 of 104 intersections would be poor or worse in the morning and 92 poor or worse in the evening.

At intersections rated “poor,” vehicles wait in long lines and often are delayed through several signal changes.

Nearly three-quarters of the intersections studied are in Los Angeles, with the remainder lying in Culver City, Santa Monica and Inglewood.

The new traffic would also increase congestion on the already jammed San Diego Freeway and absorb much of the unused capacity on the Marina Freeway, the study concludes.

The San Diego Freeway already operates beyond its planned capacity south of La Tijera Boulevard, but has a small amount of additional room for cars north of La Tijera. That space would be wiped out by the cars coming from coastal corridor developments, the study shows.

Maguire Thomas executives said the study makes congestion appear much worse because it does not account for road improvements that all developers must build under city law. It also assumes that the 185 “related” projects will go ahead, even though many have not been approved for construction. And the report includes the planned expansion of LAX, from 45 million passengers a year to 65 million, even though that proposal also has not been approved.

The city traffic model then “loads” Playa Vista onto the street system last, so that the other projects “consume much of the existing capacity of the street system and require assignment to an existing street system inadequate to carry it, even before Playa Vista is analyzed,” the study says.

“Motorists could expect overall delay to increase substantially,” even before the construction of Playa Vista, the study says. The project would have to spawn a relatively small number of cars to add significantly to crowding at the key intersections, the study says.

Of the 104 intersections studied, 91 would be made significantly worse by construction of the mini-city, the report says.

Findings of “significant impact” are perhaps the most critical aspect of the report because the city’s Coastal Transportation Corridor Specific Plan requires developers to reduce traffic congestion from their projects to “a level of insignificance.” City transportation engineers could require improvements at all intersections where the development is judged to have a “significant impact.”

The traffic study already proposes several new streets, including a four-lane thoroughfare along the base of the Westchester bluffs and another four-lane road running parallel to Lincoln Boulevard within Playa Vista.

Road Improvements

Developers for the massive Playa Vista project near Marina del Rey has proposed the construction of several new streets and the widening of others. The road projects are described in a study that also assesses the traffic that could be produced by Playa Vista, a proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport and up to 185 other construction projects. The study used letter grades to rate the level of service at intersections along the coastal corridor between Santa Monica and El Segundo, during the weekday peak hours of 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Intersections graded A are clear, while F intersections are jammed. City trasportation officials say the worst-case scenario for the coastal corridor will never materialize because many projects will not be built and others will be saddled with programs to expand streets and to get drivers off the road.