County Moves to Unclog 1,000 Miles of Roads : Transportation: Plan coordinates road improvements, mass transit and land-use planning. Failure could mean loss of gas tax funds.

Prodded by the provisions of a voter-approved gasoline tax increase, Los Angeles County is beginning to coordinate road improvements, mass transit and land-use planning in a comprehensive attempt to relieve congestion on more than 1,000 miles of freeways, highways and surface streets.

Unlike other transportation improvement plans, this one comes with clout: Failure to unclog key roads and intersections will permit the state to withhold millions of dollars in gas taxes from offending cities, a potentially disastrous penalty for recession-atrophied budgets.

The unprecedented Congestion Management Plan, which addresses Southern California’s transit problems in the holistic approach preferred by many academics and urban planners, is scheduled to be approved Wednesday by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The LACTC has been designated as the congestion management agency for Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles County is one of 32 urban areas in California required to improve congestion on their most crowded roads and highways. The improvements were mandated by a 1990 ballot measure that will raise state gas taxes by 9 cents a gallon by 1995.

“The challenges we face here (in Los Angeles) . . . are greater than anywhere else,” said Bradford W. McAllester, LACTC’s congestion management administrator. “We’re already operating at a very low level of service. Our freeways are more crowded than any other county’s.”

In order to map out an assault on that congestion, transportation officials had to find the worst of it. To do this, 60 cities and the county measured traffic volumes on nearly 1,000 miles of essential roads. The degree of congestion was then rated from A to F--with A representing free flow and F signifying near gridlock.

“The funny thing in L.A. County is that, while Level F is supposed to be the worst rating there is, we have things that are rated worse than F,” McAllester said. “Caltrans, in fact, has four different degrees of Level F for freeways, depending on how long cars move less than 20 m.p.h.”

Cities must now work to ease congestion on every road and intersection rated F while preventing all other roads from dipping below an E rating. Failure to do so will let the state withhold a considerable portion of the state gasoline tax increase.

McAllester said that between $60 million and $80 million annually is at risk in Los Angeles County. Many cities are counting on the money to maintain and repair their roads without further straining their over-stressed budgets.

At the same time that it mandates less congestion on the road, the congestion management process requires cities to discourage residents from driving alone and encourage more of them to car-pool, van-pool and ride the county’s expanding network of buses and trains.

It also requires cities to consider transportation effects when approving developments. In addition to considering how to accommodate additional traffic, which often is done now, the cities will have to ask developers to make it easier for people to reach their projects by bus and car pool, on bicycles and on foot.

The congestion management process also gives Los Angeles a chance to measure the effects of the billions of dollars in jam-busting transportation improvements recently begun or under construction.

“All of this (congestion record-keeping) was done before Metrolink began, before the Glenn Anderson Freeway opens and before the Red Line starts,” said McAllester, referring to the new commuter rail network, interstate freeway and subway. “We will have before and after pictures of how these things will affect traffic patterns and congestion.”

Adoption of congestion management plans was a key part of Proposition 111, a voter-approved referendum that increased the state gas tax by a nickel a gallon in 1990 and is adding another penny a gallon each year through 1994. The ballot measure promised voters that if they authorized the increase, congestion relief would follow.

Easing congestion has been the goal of Caltrans and other agencies for decades. But the Legislature realized in 1989 that traditional piecemeal approaches--with rival agencies setting independent and often conflicting agendas for roads, transit and land-use planning--was not working.

To overcome this, lawmakers made coordinated planning a requirement to continue receiving a full share of the gas tax.

The result, congestion management plans, must address the task in five interrelated ways:

- By measuring the amount of congestion on the county’s most vital roads and taking steps to ease congestion on the worst roads while preventing more traffic on the best roads.

Los Angeles County has designated 1,000 miles of roads--all 500 miles of freeways, 400 miles of state arterials, such as Pacific Coast Highway, and 100 miles of local arterials, including Wilshire Boulevard--and ranked them according to the amount of congestion measured last spring.

Most freeways and nearly half of the surface street intersections were rated E or F during the morning and afternoon rush hours, meaning speeds averaged less than 35 m.p.h. and delays were either “significant” or worse, “considerable.”

Efforts to arrest or relieve this congestion will be developed during the next several months and be included in the 1993 update of the plan, McAllester said.

- By analyzing the amount and frequency of public transit on these roads, then reallocating services and targeting expanded services to the most congested areas.

Buses in the central part of Los Angeles are the most crowded in the nation, while buses in the Palos Verdes Peninsula and other affluent suburbs run nearly empty. That is partly because the Southern California Rapid Transit District is legally required to offer service throughout the region, but the practice is likely to come in for new and harsh scrutiny.

At the same time, the LACTC’s 30-year master plan for transportation improvements calls for putting thousands of additional buses on county roads in the next decade. The planning process will make sure that they help alleviate crowding on roads as well as crowding on buses.

- By encouraging more people to car-pool, ride buses or hop trains instead of driving alone to work, recreation or shopping. This process is called “transportation demand management.”

The LACTC has written a model ordinance to promote alternative transportation modes and suggests that each of the county’s 88 cities adopt a version. Among other things, it would require new buildings to have what McAllester called “transit-friendly” amenities--from something as simple as a bulletin board for car-pool notices to design features that encourage bicycle commuting.

- By incorporating congestion relief as a fundamental part of the land-use planning process and making sure that each development does not clog up roads in the host city or adjoining cities.

Asking each city to take detailed looks at traffic effects over a broad area--including, for the first time, beyond its borders--should shove the congestion issue toward the top of the debate, McAllester said.

“It provides a higher level of information to (planners and council members) to help them make the decisions that they make,” he said. “In many ways, it may provide an early warning system to let cities see what might be on the horizon.”

- By steering certain construction funds to transportation projects based on which would do the most to relieve congestion, rather than earmarking them for freeways, surface streets or rail lines.

Following a “flexible funding” trend in transportation planning, this part of the program will let local governments decide how to use more of their share of state gas taxes. Instead of requiring cities and counties to use the money to repair roads or other auto-related projects, the state will let local officials choose how to improve transportation.

Some parts of the larger congestion management process remain vague, even as the LACTC sets out to approve its first plan. McAllester said the commission and elected officials must work out what to do if a city neglects to monitor congestion or otherwise fails to comply with the plan. Also undecided is how quickly a local government must act to improve traffic flow on roads that slip below minimum standards.

Those issues should be resolved by the time the LACTC adopts the initial update of the plan next year, he said. After that, the plan will be updated every other year.

“It is an evolving process,” McAllester said. “Over the coming year we are going to work with local agencies to decide what we do if the situation degrades. . . . We want to establish this whole menu of options for cities to consider as they grow.”

These options, he said, may range from something as simple as installing left turn lanes at a crowded intersection to something as complicated as a multimillion-dollar busway to a major employment center.