As Summer Ends, Traffic Surge Begins

The last, languid days of summer are passing, youngsters are heading back to school and vacations are coming to an end. For Southern California motorists, that can mean only one thing: the return of the fall traffic crunch.

The first week in September traditionally marks the most serious surge of cars and buses on the region’s already packed streets and freeways. This year’s rush could be particularly severe, because the wave of vehicles will wash onto a freeway system already carrying nearly 70% more traffic than it did 20 years ago.

“The system is so near capacity that it takes very little additional use . . . to trigger a problem,” said Dan Beal, transportation policy manager for the Automobile Club of Southern California. “It’s fragile. It can’t take much more.”

But it will take more, starting about Monday.

On some local freeways, the September surge will put up to 12% more motorists on the freeways during peak commute times. Speeds will drop by up to 10 mph compared to summer, state and regional transportation experts said.

As a result, rush-hours are likely to stretch earlier into the morning and later into the evening. Motorists who spend an average of 25 minutes driving to work in the summer can expect to sit behind the wheel for more than 30 minutes in the fall.

Although the fall traffic crunch stands out as an unpleasant annual event for many motorists, its arrival has been somewhat muted by the commuting headaches that most drivers endure every day. Record numbers of vehicles crowd streets and highways throughout the year. Freeways inexplicably jam up at odd hours. Saturday sojourns turn into rush-hour-style ordeals.

The fall crunch has, at least, the perverse grace of predictability.

Sandra Jo Streeter, an attorney from Pasadena, doesn’t relish the days to come. In the summer, she said, she drives to her downtown Los Angeles office on the Pasadena Freeway without hitting heavy congestion until she reaches the Avenue 43 exit, near Montecito Heights. But in the fall, she said the traffic starts piling up nearly a mile farther away from downtown.

“Driving during the school months is a nightmare,” she said. “I definitely notice an increase in traffic.”

John Julis, a Bellflower resident who drives up to 40,000 miles a year selling high-performance racing products, said the year-round increase in traffic has numbed him to the even greater rush each September.

“In recent years, the increased traffic at all times of the year has reduced the significance of school starting and vacations ending,” said Julis, who drives throughout the Western states.

A number of factors, including steadily climbing population and sprawling development, have contributed to higher year-round traffic volumes. But less obvious influences, like the economy, also play a significant role.

When times are good, motorists more often drive to work, to shop, to travel, to dine out or to take in a movie. Over the last five years, rebounding commerce has put a strain on Southern California streets and freeways--an increase not yet abated by the recent softening of the economy.

Motorists in Los Angeles and Ventura counties endured nearly 30% more congestion last year than in 1995, according to the California Department of Transportation. (Congestion is measured by the number of hours motorists spend on freeways traveling less than 35 mph.)

In Orange County, the congestion rate jumped 11% during the same period. In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, congestion shot up nearly 190% over the last five years, partly because of a dramatic population increase in the Inland Empire.

As a result, the time commuters spend behind the wheel has soared.

In 1990, the average commuter’s drive to work took 30 minutes, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning organization. By 1999, that time had grown to 41 minutes.

“If something isn’t done to resolve this situation, it’s just going to get longer and longer and rush-hours are going to start earlier and end later,” said Jones, the Caltrans traffic engineer.

Traffic Snarls Appear at Unusual Hours

With traffic volumes and congestion at record levels, Southern California freeways operate near capacity more often, according to transportation experts. It takes only a few more cars to push an already overburdened freeway into gridlock.

Many motorists have noticed that such snarls now appear at the most unusual hours.

“It’s been getting crazy out there,” said Dona Abuaf, a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, who was disgusted to find a backup at the interchange of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways at midnight recently.

Brian Persson, a general contractor from Castaic who drives to job sites throughout Southern California, agrees.

“A few years ago, I could count on easy travel on Saturdays and Sundays. No more,” he said. “I see no difference between a weekday commute and a Saturday drive.”

Many Southern California motorists have made extreme adjustments to their schedules to avoid heavy traffic periods.

Peter Hidalgo, a communications manager, leaves his La Verne home at 5:45 a.m. so he can exercise at a downtown Los Angeles gym before punching in at his office on Bunker Hill. “I will generally stay later to avoid the evening rush too,” he said.

Making that chronic freeway crowding only worse is the September crush, returning to local roadways as predictably as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano each spring.

Although Southern Californians actually log more miles on the road during summer, such travel is typically spread out throughout the day and on weekends and does not exacerbate morning and evening commuter tie-ups. As a result, freeway rush-hour speeds in the summer are usually 5 to 10 mph faster than in the fall.

On surface streets, a relative summer glide of 15 to 20 mph frequently slows to a fall crawl of 10 mph, said Hasan Ikhrata, transportation planning manager for the Southland governments association.

Many factors contribute to the September onrush. Motorists return from vacation around the same time and rejoin the frazzled ranks of the morning and afternoon commuters. Fleets of school buses and family cars merge onto local streets and freeways, taking youngsters back to school. At USC and UCLA alone, about 23,400 students and staff members begin to drive to campus.

“All through the summer, USC is a ghost town, and then on the third week of August, boom,” said Zsa Zsa Gershick, a spokeswoman for the university.

Said Brian Taylor, associate director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies: “What you have is universities opening up and parents schlepping kids to school during a short time period in the morning and in the afternoon again.”

Seemingly Minor Events Can Exacerbate Problem

The timing of the additional vehicle trips is more critical than their sheer numbers, Taylor said.

“It’s that lining up of traffic at the same time that creates tie-ups,” he said.

Other seemingly minor autumn events, such as the switch to daylight saving time or the first rainfall, will also slow many drivers in the coming months, traffic experts say.

Even the rush of motorists trying to get home early to hand out candy on Halloween night can throw a monkey wrench into the normal afternoon rush-hour.

“It works like an hourglass,” said Caltrans traffic engineer Nick Jones. “You can try to cram so much sand in there, but only so much can come through.”

If any more confirmation of the fall phenomenon was needed, UC Berkeley recently provided it.

Officials with the university’s freeway performance measurement project compared rush-hour speeds on seven Los Angeles County freeways over the last 12 months. The study found that average commute speeds dropped in September on six of the seven freeways studied. The biggest drop occurred on the Long Beach Freeway, where the average August rush-hour speed of 46 mph decreased to 38 mph in September.

James Lomako, a paralegal and longtime Pasadena resident, complained that even short jaunts on local streets are prolonged by congestion. He said he doesn’t need a university study to tell him that his commute is about to get uglier.

Concludes Lomako: “The summer is a good time to drive.”