Motorists May Never Get Back Lost Time, Study Finds

Southern California commuters who are stuck in long traffic delays caused by freeway construction are now faced with this sobering thought: They may never make up for the lost time.

Challenging the notion that expanding traffic lanes or building highways may be worth the delays because it will ultimately ease traffic congestion, a new national study being released today indicates that construction can create so many delays--and attract so many new cars and trucks once its completed--and the time savings are so scant that it may take years for drivers to make up for lost time.

The results may add to the frustration of commuters in the Los Angeles region, where efforts by the California Department of Transportation to reduce construction-related delays include experiments with fast-drying pavement, nighttime freeway closures, an Internet Web site with traffic updates, and tips like: “Try to avoid the rush hours of 6 to 9 a.m.”

With Caltrans budgeting $8 billion statewide in new construction projects over the next six years, Southern California will get a large share of the money, as well as the headaches that come from the ensuing delays and detours.

Using data from Caltrans and making case studies of construction projects in Salt Lake City, Nashville, Trenton, N.J., and northern Virginia, researchers for the Los Angeles- and Washington-based Surface Transportation Policy Project found that motorists lose hundreds, even thousands, of hours because of construction.

They found that in Trenton a detour around a highway expansion project will cost the average commuter more than 80 hours a year, but save only about 25 hours annually once it is completed.

“The break-even point for motorists using this route will not come until 2012, an incredible 10 years after completion,” the study said.

Drivers in Salt Lake City are only slightly better off, not making up for lost time until 2010, eight years after that project is completed, according to the study.

Worse off are motorists who use the Springfield interchange in northern Virginia outside Washington, which serves three interstate highways. The authors of the study said motorists will never recover the time lost during the eight years of the project.

“The average motorist could waste an astonishing 1,750 hours in traffic during the eight years of construction,” the study said.

The research project, supported by a national coalition of environmental organizations, adds fuel to a growing national movement designed to get Americans to rethink transportation policies.

“People should be taking a close look at and be asking questions about whether expanding roads is really what is needed to fight congestion,” said Barbara McCann of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, speaking from her office in Washington. “These projects cost a lot of money, cause delays and disruption, and in the end you don’t really save very much time.”

Sponsors of the study, closely aligned with national movements known as “smart growth” or “the new urbanism,” have been advocating such things as building up inner cities rather than farther out into the suburbs, rebuilding “main street” shopping areas where people can walk or bike, and using grants and government money to buy up agricultural land to stop urban sprawl.

The findings of the study could also find their way into a national political debate over remedies to urban sprawl, with implications on the presidential race next year. Collaborating with President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore sponsored a livable communities initiative that has a strong traffic congestion component based on a cure to gridlock that does not involve building more highways.

Although the research was released with an obvious political spin, the organization has a national reputation and its work is taken seriously by Caltrans.

In that respect the Surface Transportation Policy Project is similar to a nonprofit coalition of highway building interests called Transportation California. Both use federal and state highway data for their studies, although the direction their research takes often is quite different.

Backlog of Road Projects

Transportation California, allied with the Washington-based Road Information Program, a coalition of business interests that includes asphalt and gravel suppliers, issued a report this month saying that Los Angeles County had an unfunded backlog of $15 billion in road, bridge and highway projects, with Orange County showing unmet needs of $3 billion.

According to that report, 77% of travel in the Los Angeles region occurs under congested conditions. Caltrans defines congestion as movement at speeds of 35 mph or less.

Caltrans officials did not dispute the findings of the new study, but said they could not fully respond until they were able to read the report, which was made available to The Times before publication over the Internet. The Caltrans mantra for years has been that freeway construction alone will not solve the transportation problem.

“If they are saying, bottom line, you cannot build your way out of traffic congestion. . . . Wow! That is news everybody has accepted for 15 years,” said Jim Drago, a spokesman for Caltrans.

Drago said Caltrans has spent years refining ways to reduce delays caused by new construction. Some of the measures include metered onramps, public education campaigns designed to alert motorists to alternatives in areas impacted by construction, and computerized up-to-the minute reports on traffic conditions.

As for highway projects reducing congestion, Drago said once a project is completed, motorists may not see a decrease in delays.

“It would make no sense if we went out and built something and nobody came,” Drago said.

Meanwhile, there will be construction. Statewide, $1.7 billion went into new highway construction during the 1998-99 budget year.