How to get from here to there

Smush L.A. | More buses | Control your commute | Double-deck buses | MTA school buses | Meter tweak | Traffic X Prize | Leg it out | Pedal power | Monorail |

Smush the city together
By Matt Sellman

You know how there are two San Vicente Boulevards in L.A.? Weird, right? One San Vicente curves to form the southeastern border of Brentwood, and the other San Vicente cuts largely diagonally from Sunset and Doheny to Venice and La Brea. Here’s what I would do: Get rid of everything between the two San Vicentes. Then smush the city together, filling the gap.

Yep, the solution to all our city’s ills is a very, very, very big “Mad fold-in.”

Think of the benefits. You can now get from the good western parts of town (Santa Monica, Venice) to the good eastern parts (West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake) much more quickly. How many times have you been driving from one side of the city to the other and thought, “Am I still only in Westwood?”

Another benefit: Lose Westwood. Heck, lose all of West L.A. What would be missed? The worst part of the 405? So-called Millionaire’s Row? The talent agencies? Face it, West L.A. is an obvious cut. In a city famous for its ugly stretches of road, that chunk of Santa Monica Boulevard is one ugly stretch of road. Kiss it goodbye. Don’t worry -- there’s another Zankou Chicken in Hollywood.

What about Beverly Hills? No worries -- we sell it to Dubai. Dubai will love Beverly Hills -- their whole country looks like the jewelry counter at Bulgari. (Confidentially, I already have an offer. A big offer.) And we use that money to clean the bay, hire shock troops to enforce the leaf-blower ban , buy an NFL team (I’m thinking the Patriots) and force everyone to take driving lessons. Utopia.

Matt Selman is a writer for “The Simpsons.”

Build better bus service
By Francisca Porchas

L.A. needs a first-class bus-centered transportation system, with reliable 24/7 service and a bus every five minutes. Double the bus fleet, provide a 50-cent fare and $20 monthly bus pass and implement bus-only lanes on all major corridors in the county instead of building multibillion-dollar rail lines or converting boulevards such as Olympic and Pico into mini-highways. Reducing the number of cars, not just moving them, must become the city’s priority.

Lower fares mean more riders. From 1982 to 1985, annual bus ridership rose by 41% -- the highest in L.A. history -- when fares were dropped from 85 cents to 50 cents.

Bus-only lanes -- a means of prioritizing public transit over single-passenger automobiles -- have proved effective too. In Seoul, a city of 10 million people, adding buses on 119 miles of dedicated lanes attracted 1 million more riders.

This city needs to stop pandering to the car. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council member Wendy Greuel (chair of the Transportation Committee) should lead by fronting $27 million in city money to start the bus-only lanes on Wilshire Boulevard. Waiting for federal funds to arrive puts off completion of bus-only lanes until 2011. In 2008, we need to stop talking and start building.

Francisca Porchas is lead organizer at the Bus Riders Union.

Take control of your commute
By Denise Fondo

Change is at the root of the word “commute.” Thinking ahead and being ready to change will help us live up to our role as commuters.

If you know you have to exit the freeway, don’t stay in the left lane until the last second. This causes accidents. Lookey-loos add thousands of commuter hours to our roadways yearly. Stop gawking at accidents.

Ditch the car one day a week for Metrolink, carpools, buses, subways, bicycles or walking.

Finally, prepare for your commute as you would for an evacuation. Buy a comprehensive street guide and devise four alternate routes, using surface streets if possible. Choose streets other than major thoroughfares, because they’re the first to clog up when the freeway stops moving. You’ll feel less trapped and anxious if you have an exit plan.

Denise Fondo is the afternoon drive traffic reporter for KNX 1070 (AM).

Serve double lattes on double-deckers
By Rob Long

When I go to a new place, I almost always end up on a bus. I rode the bus through northern Turkey; I take the bus in Paris; I took a kind of bus-like thing in Myanmar; the buses in Vienna are excellent; and in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, I took a taxi that was really closer to a bus because it kept stopping and picking people up.

I don’t take the bus in Los Angeles, which is irrational, really, because I spend a lot of time -- we all do -- stuck in traffic behind buses.

When traveling, the bus has a kind of glamorous luster to it -- you feel smart and adventurous and part of the scene. Here at home, though, taking the bus means a lot of waiting around sun-baked intersections, wondering which bus will take you to the bus that will take you somewhat closer to where you actually want to be, which is probably where you parked your car.

Buses, in short, aren’t much fun.

But they could be. In a city that enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year, buses should be fun, sunny, double-decker, open-air-type deals, with the top level leased to companies such as Starbucks, Peets, Quiznos or Chipotle. Imagine heading to work on a sunny morning, sitting in the top-level breeze, reading Variety and sipping a latte. Imagine coming home at night, watching the lights of the city from your top-level perch (we’ll have heat lamps; we’ll have awnings) and having a burrito and a couple of cold beers.

Of course, you’ll have to transfer at some point. But imagine a Southland dotted by transfer hubs with Wi-Fi, Korean snacks, a Le Pain Quotidien and yoga. There will be big, long-haul buses for the Valley and the east-west boulevards, smaller electric buses for the smaller north-south jaunts. And each one will take your ATM card.It’ll be expensive, of course -- everything worth doing is -- but a lot cheaper than building a subway. And it will probably take longer to get everywhere, what with the lattes and the margaritas and the jewelry-making classes. But remember:

The truth is, we’re not really in a hurry to get where we’re going; we’re in a hurry to get off the damn road. And more people on the bus means fewer people behind the bus.

Rob Long is a contributing editor to Opinion. His weekly commentary, “Martini Shot,” airs on KCRW-FM (89.9).

Retire the big yellow ‘Twinkies’
By Erika Schickel

There are more than 24,000 school buses in California’s fleet of belching, lung-corroding “Twinkies” (as kids call those old, yellow, rounded buses), but not one of them has ever stopped for one of my kids or any of the kids I know.

We have two issues here: an aged, smog-spewing fleet of school buses, and a city that is jammed with commuters. At 3 p.m. on any weekday in L.A., a lot of those commuters are moms shuttling kids.

Let’s make city buses accommodate school kids. Maybe not elementary school students, but buses should be a reasonable option for middle-schoolers and up. Student bus fares -- now $24 for a monthly pass on Metro buses -- should be free for low-income families and reduced to 25 cents a trip for other student-ID-wielding kids. Bus lines could be routed for school pickups.

Since my daughter started riding the #7 Pico bus home from school, we have saved greatly on gas and time. Best of all, I no longer battle gridlock. But I am an anomaly. Your average Westside mom is hesitant to let her lambkin ride the big, bad city bus alone.

I get it. Crazy people also ride buses, and often the bus barrels right past my daughter’s stop, in which case she calls me on her cellphone.

Couldn’t we reassign L.A. Unified school bus drivers to school-heavy routes where their “Hey! Down in back!” people skills could be put to good use keeping kid-packed city buses safe and civilized?

Less pollution, less traffic and future generations growing up with a comfortable, working knowledge of public transportation -- let’s make city buses into school buses too, and literally leave no child behind.

Erika Schickel is the author of “You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom.”

Free up some spots along the curb
By Donald Shoup

A surprising amount of traffic isn’t caused by drivers on their way somewhere. Rather, it is caused by drivers who are searching for a parking spot. Cruising for curb parking in Westwood Village, for example, creates about 950,000 excess vehicle miles annually -- equal to 38 trips around the Earth.

Some cities have reduced cruising in business districts by setting the parking meter rates to achieve about 85% occupancy, so one or two vacant spaces are almost always available on each block. Getting those rates right can eliminate much needless driving.

There is plenty of room for price adjustments; the rates for 81% of the parking meters in Los Angeles have not changed since 1990. Most drivers would probably accept gradual upward adjustments -- especially if they can find a parking space without cruising. But first the City Council must sign on to the 85% occupancy target for curb parking.

The goal is not to get the meter rates exactly right, but Los Angeles could get them far less wrong.

Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, is the author of “The High Cost of Free Parking.”

Create some healthy competition
By Ted Balaker

It propelled SpaceShipOne into suborbital space, so maybe a low-altitude version of the X Prize could give Angelenos more space on the road. Here’s how it might work: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority carves out some of the $115 billion in transportation funding that’s headed to the region over the next couple of decades to stage a contest.

It also creates two teams. Team A tries to lure as many motorists out of their cars as possible by building rail. (Note to referee: Ex-bus riders don’t count as ex-motorists.) Team B must lure motorists to telecommuting. The team with the most ex-motorists after a set period of time wins the prize.

(Let the general public chase the bounty too. The X Prize was just a $10-million purse, yet it helped induce the birth of private spaceflight as well as a host of technological innovations. Is it really so fanciful to think that it could conquer gridlock?)

Does telecommuting really stand a chance? Absolutely. Telecommuters already outnumber rail commuters in the L.A. area, and according to U.S. census data, those who work from home outnumber total transit commuters (rail and bus) in most of the 50 most populous metro areas. A zero-minute commute alone is an enticing carrot -- imagine what an extra nudge might do.

Ted Balaker, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, the co-wrote “The Road More Traveled.”

Lace up and head out
By Charlie Hoover

I have experimented with various methods of traveling the eight miles to and from my sporting goods store in Encino. When I run to work, it only takes me about 25 minutes longer than when I drive. When I ride my recumbent bicycle, I beat my driving time by about 15 minutes.

For years, my partner made his 26-mile round trip over the Santa Monica Mountains to our shop by running on fire roads, and arriving not much later than someone making the drive on the 405. Other members of our staff bike in occasionally from as far away as Santa Clarita. Besides enjoying a pleasant commute, we also stay fit, save money and pollute less.

Not everyone can or wants to run or bike to work. But more people would be willing to try if Los Angeles’ infrastructure was more bike and pedestrian friendly. Cities such as Portland, Ore., have a well-developed system of bike paths and dedicated bike lanes, making commuting easy and safe for thousands of cyclists, runners and walkers. Let’s make that a model for L.A.

Charlie Hoover is co-owner of Phidippides Encino.

Love your local bicyclists
By Stephen Box

The most elegant solution to L.A. traffic is simply to pedal to where you need to go. If cycling is not for you, at least give some respect to those who choose to ride. Here’s why: Cyclists are the “indicator species” for a healthy community.

Cyclists favor well-maintained streets free of potholes and debris. They prefer streets with moderate vehicle volumes and speeds, an environment that is likewise safer and more hospitable for drivers and pedestrians.

Surveys in San Francisco found that local businesses benefited from “traffic calming” through their districts, which included accommodations for cyclists.

Finally, an increase in the number of cyclists in a neighborhood -- which means more eyes on the street -- has a direct relationship to a reduction in crime.

In other words, what’s good for cyclists is good for your community.

Stephen Box is a cycling advocate living in Hollywood.

Imagine an elevated future
By Mark Pisano

Imagine clean, safe, elevated, high-speed monorails traversing alongside Southern California freeways.

Some view that concept as science fiction, but the technology exists. We already own the necessary right of way. And, with some visionary thinking, we have the ability to make such a system a reality through a partnership between government and the private sector. The Southern California Assn. of Governments already has received a proposal from a private consortium to finance and implement this type of system.

There’s no single “silver bullet” solution to solving Southern California’s traffic woes. But a high-speed monorail that builds on our existing transportation network to better connect our residential, employment and trade centers could serve as the centerpiece of a reinvented transportation system.

Mark Pisano is executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Artwork credit: Susan Tibbles / for The Times