http://citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/9482-why-fix-the-city-opposes-mp2035-the-immobility-plan
By Jim O'Sullivan, August 18, 2015
MOBILITY 2035 THE DISCUSSION--First
off, Fix The City (FTC) supports increasing mobility. We support
encouraging alternatives to motor vehicles. We support improved air
quality. Why then not support MP2035? It is because MP2035 is not a
mobility plan – it is a plan designed to create immobility while
enabling increased development and density. (Mobility Plan 2035)
MP2035
exposes itself as a false “mobility” plan from the start. It states
point blank that reducing traffic congestion is not its goal. For the
vast, vast, vast majority of us in this City, being stuck in traffic is
the precise opposite of mobility and that is what this plan promises to
do – stick us in more traffic.
In fact, this so-called mobility
plan states (and in fact relies on the fact) that it will increase
traffic congestion by, among other things, removing traffic lanes used
by cars for buses and bikes. Far from trying to reduce traffic
congestion, the (mostly unstated) theory is that if traffic congestion
becomes SO unbearable (even more than it already is) it will magically
force people to take other forms of transit – whether they exist or not,
are convenient or not or are economical or not.
Removing traffic
lanes for the overwhelming bulk of traffic (see US Census chart at the
bottom) decreases the capacity of the street. This not only creates
longer commutes, but also forces drivers to seek alternative routes
which, according the MP2035, will be right through residential
neighborhoods.
The LA Times quotes a Senior City Planner as
presenting this bit of twisted logic: “Slower moving traffic does not
necessarily lead to congestion. Those two are separate. Slower traffic
can actually in some ways accommodate more cars moving through an
area.”
That’s the kind of logic that tells you the best way to
save a drop of water is to approve huge development projects that
consume tens of millions of gallons of water, or that the best way to
put out a fire is to douse it with gasoline.
People need look no
further than this quote from the LA Times: “The City’s Environmental
Impact Report concluded that the plan’s projects, if completed by 2035,
would result in “unavoidable significant adverse impacts,” including
additional noise, cut-through traffic and diminished access for
emergency vehicles. The report also found that there would be a
considerable increase in the percentage of major streets that are highly
congested during evening rush hour.”
This is not Fix The City’s
opinion or analysis. This is the City’s analysis. Strange: None of
those speaking in support of MP2035 highlighted this conclusion, though
one council member dismissed any negative conclusions as “worst-case
scenarios needed to avoid legal challenges.” Given that the council
must base their decision on substantial evidence presented in the MP2035
study, such unsubstantiated conclusions may be hard to defend.
Perhaps
most troubling is the last “unavoidable significant adverse impacts“
mentioned above: That increasing traffic congestion on major streets not
only slows regular traffic down, but it slows down emergency response
vehicles. Again, this too is admitted by the MP2035 plan.
In
2012, Fix The City’s data analysis exposed (first through KNBC and then
extensively in the LA Times) that LAFD response times were falling short
– way short, of the City’s stated metric of arrival within 5 minutes
after dispatch, 90% of the time. At that time councilmembers were
outraged. They promised immediate action to improve this most basic
service: Ensuring the safety of the City’s residents.
Since that
time, response times have gotten worse and worse with the 5 minute/90%
metric falling to under 60% for the City overall. This last year the
City Council congratulated itself for “addressing the problem” by
including hiring in the current budget for the first time in years.
Unfortunately,
not only is the approved hiring not even sufficient to replace
firefighters lost to attrition, it does nothing to replace firefighters
lost in previous years or to increase the number of firefighters needed
to deal with increased population and density – and now decreased
mobility for first responders.
Instead
of doing what it takes to improve response times, the Council has
approved a plan that admits it will harm response times. To Fix The
City, this is simply unacceptable. Even more unacceptable is that
certain council members hailed the plan as improving safety when the
text of the plan and the plan’s analysis yields the opposite
conclusion. Even more callous is the public description of MP2035 has
being one that increases public safety when the City’s own admissions
show the reverse.
Below the surface, it is the hidden agenda of
the MP2035 plan that links traffic congestion, emergency response times
and consumption of other key resources such as water: The drive for
increased density – even though the City cannot handle its current
density.
Far more than being a mobility plan, MP2035 is actually a
development-enablement plan which will have a dramatic effect on
increased density in the City with all of its impacts.
To combat
troublesome neighborhoods from raising concerns about local impacts and
the livability of their neighborhoods, the State legislature passed
several laws granting expedited review or exemption from certain review
for projects near transit (oddly just like the transit proposed by
MP2035).
Chief among these is SB743 which states “This bill would
provide that aesthetic and parking impacts of a residential, mixed-use
residential, or employment center project, as defined, on an infill
site, as defined, within a transit priority area, as defined, shall not
be considered significant impacts on the environment.” Tell that to the
people that live in that environment. AB744 provides for density
bonuses within 1/2 mile of a major transit stop (which is pretty much
everywhere once MP2035 is implemented).
MP2035 studied none of
this growth-inducing impact, nor did it study the increased funding for
“transit-oriented development” that may result from non-City sources.
What
should further frustrate this City’s residents is that far from being a
representative democracy in which our council members are allowed to
represent their area’s interests, this City is increasingly run by a
very few people who were not elected by those their decisions impact.
The
recent Council vote on MP2035 had Council Members Koretz and Cedillo
asking for modifications of the plan in their areas. In theory, those
council members were elected by those voters to represent them and their
interests. It is expected that council members will have the ability
to impact policy in their own districts.
Councilman Cedillo said
it best when he said “I have to be a representative for the entirety of
my district, not simply 1%.” (He was referring to the fact that bike
lanes would remove 50% of capacity for 85% of commuters while bike
riders represent only 1% of trips.)
Instead, other council members
ignored their colleagues. Oddly, the elected class then wonders why
voting in this City has declined to such low levels. Why take the time
to vote for council members if they can’t impact policy in their own
districts?
We also wonder if the Council truly understands that AB2245 exempts
the City/LADOT from having to conduct ANY further study for bike lane
restriping once MP2035 is installed. AB2245 “exempts from CEQA the
restriping of streets and highways for bicycle lanes in an urbanized
area that is consistent with a prepared bicycle transportation plan.”
No doubt there will be battles over what “restriping” is as the City
attempts to shoehorn MP2035 projects into AB2245.
There is another
troubling and misleading conclusion presented by the City: That MP2035
will reduce pollution. It is well established in the literature, and
in common sense, that increasing congestion and therefore the time
vehicles are operating leads to increasing air pollution.
So how
do MP2035’s supporters attempt to circumvent this simple logic? They
attempt to use a metric called “Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT)” instead
of the current “Level of Service (LOS)” or more logical “Vehicle Hours
Traveled (VHT).”
Given that motor vehicles of all types represent
the bulk of trips in the City, there truly is no other conclusion other
than one that states the obvious: Increased congestion for motor
vehicles will worsen air quality.
The basic focus of “LOS” is to
determine local impacts on intersections near a development project
based on how free-flowing traffic is through that intersection. LOS A
means no traffic/free flow, LOS F means traffic jams/no mobility.
A
huge project that creates 10,000 new trips per day would clearly impact
local traffic in the area around the project. It was getting harder
and harder to justify building new mega-projects in areas with LOS F
gridlocked traffic. This analysis has annoyed pro-density forces as it
had the nasty side effect of showing huge impacts on residents,
businesses and neighborhoods near the project. This made for bad
politics.
So, what is the solution for pesky analyses that show
negative local impacts? You simply need to pull back a bit and look at
the larger(and unprovable) picture until you are so far away that local
neighborhood impacts can no longer be seen.
A
plan such as MP2035 that will have major negative local impacts would
merely try to do some fancy footwork to claim that because of
unmeasurable efficiencies, overall regional VMT will be reduced. What
goes unstated is that this approach, even if valid and provable, has at
its heart ignoring impacts on local neighborhoods in favor of some
theoretical larger regional improvement.
Forget that local
traffic will be even more soul-crushing than it is now. Forget that
local first responders won’t be able to get to neighborhoods fast
enough. Forget that local air quality will be negatively impacted.
Forget that parking and traffic lanes will be removed causing harm to
local businesses. For voters, the most troubling is that some
councilmembers have accepted this approach: Region/politics first,
neighborhoods last.
One of the most frustrating parts of the
MP2035 plan is that it is wholly inconsistent with itself and with other
City policies, plans and laws. Among these are the General Plan,
Community Plans and several up and coming plans.
Nothing
highlights the hypocrisy better than simultaneous support for MP2035
which admits it will increase congestion (which it counts on to
discourage car use) and support for the “Westside Mobility Plan” which
labels congestion as the enemy and seeks its reduction.
Three days
before the council approved MP2035, it approved a motion to extend the
$200,000+ contract for the Westside Mobility Plan. Yes, the City is
spending money in one place to solve the problems it is spending other
money to create. Our tax dollars at work.
One interesting
admission was made by the City through its planning department and
through the council: That it is no longer possible to improve traffic
congestion by widening lanes or using other measures. This will come as
a huge surprise to developers that have produced environmental impact
reports which come to the opposite conclusion. Ironically, these same
environmental impact reports that say it IS possible to reduce
congestion by making physical changes are universally given a stamp of
approval by the City including the Council. Those studies and their
traffic conclusions may now no longer be supportable.
Fix The City
supports improving public safety and improving the quality of life.
There is no more basic responsibility a City has than to the life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness of its residents. Fix The City
strongly believes that a plan that harms first responders’ ability to
get to those who need help threatens the lives of the residents of the
City. We believe that being caught in ever-increasing traffic jams
caused by over-development and now decreased road capacity keeps us
prisoners in our cars and keeps us away from our families. Not only
does this impact our quality of life and our pursuit of happiness, but
it makes pursuing happiness take far longer and far less happy.
Fix
The City will be pursuing a legal challenge to the MP2035 on multiple
grounds towards the goal of having an honest and productive policy which
improves the quality of life for all of the City’s residents in all of
the City’s neighborhoods.
