Freeway Tie-Ups Cost $1.1 Billion, Study Says

Mixing politics with some sobering estimates on what freeway bottlenecks cost local commuters, a highway lobbying group estimates that Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley and Orange County commuters waste $1.1 billion a year idling in traffic on the region’s four most congested interchanges.

Saying that Los Angeles and Orange counties had four of the 17 worst highway bottlenecks in the nation, the 68-year-old American Highway Users Alliance came up with its estimates by putting values on lost time, the price of motor vehicle fuel, added costs to employers, traffic accidents and environmental damage.

The study estimated that delays to motorists who pass through the intersection of the Garden Grove and Costa Mesa freeways in Orange County lose more than $370 million a year.

In the San Fernando Valley, the study said, congestion at the Ventura and San Diego freeways interchange costs drivers $280 million annually.

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, the junctions of the Santa Monica and San Diego freeways and of the Santa Monica and Santa Ana freeways each cost motorists $250 million a year, the study estimated.

With highway interests competing with mass transit operators for state dollars, the new study clearly is meant to get the attention of Gov. Gray Davis, who is proposing billions in new spending on various transportation projects.

The highway lobby, which once ruled the roost in California, getting the lion’s share of transportation dollars, now must compete with mass transit operators. Lobbyists like to point out that California trails other states in highway spending.

“In 1960 we were No. 1 in spending on highways; now we are dead last,” said Larry Fisher of Transportation California, which helped coordinate the report’s release.

As such, the new report can be added to a long list of studies that periodically remind commuters that California has the worst maintained highways in the nation and that the state’s population is growing much faster than spending to maintain its highways.

Cities and counties, for example, say they need at least $500 million a year to deal with ongoing street and road maintenance and a $25-billion backlog of road and bridge rehabilitation.

Still, the new study, despite throwing around stratospheric dollar estimates, offers at least some answers to anyone who has ever wondered how much all those traffic delays may be costing.

Pulling together national studies, the authors put the cost of delays on individuals at $6 an hour. They figured that commercial vehicles lose $48 each hour they are held up. They estimated the cost of fuel at $1.40 a gallon, well below current prices.

Using traffic crash data compiled by various agencies, the authors said that improving traffic flows would reduce collisions. They figured the cost of each collision attributed to traffic congestion at $95,000, using valuations of $4.8 million for fatal crashes and $150,000 for crashes with injuries. The environmental costs were based on a complicated calculation of such things as savings accrued from cleaner air.

The study pointed out that new high occupancy vehicle lanes are planned for the San Diego and Santa Monica freeways. It estimated that the project would generate $5.4 billion in economic benefits over the 20-year life of the project.

No specific improvements are planned for the Ventura/San Diego or Santa Monica/Santa Ana freeway interchanges. Work is under way to complete carpool lanes on the Costa Mesa Freeway.