Expert Article

Welcome to LA

I Hope You Enjoy Sitting in Your Car

 

Welcome to the city where dreams are fulfilled! The only problem is getting to those dreams. Yes, that is the problem here. I can assume that all of us here at USC have at least once (probably many more times) experienced the beloved thing we call traffic where we all love to make our jokes about driving three miles in a quick 45 minutes. That is the reality here in LA. If you want to travel anywhere downtown you better plan ahead expecting to double, triple, or even quadruple the amount of time it should take. 

 

 

Throughout this article, I will give you first-hand knowledge and provide you with everything you need to know about LA traffic and the possible alternatives along with the future of traffic. Here are the topics that will be discussed in this article. 

• Why did it get worse?
• Any advice?
• What about public transportation? 
• What solutions are they working on?

 

Why Did It Get Worse?

 

Traffic has always been a common theme in LA but, during the pandemic, we Angelenos got a taste of what it feels like to have no traffic while driving. Going from terrible traffic to virtually nothing was a weird thing. Because the pandemic lasted so long, we witnessed an adjustment to that feeling. In the end, this hurts us in two different ways: there has been more traveling and traffic has become inconsistent. 

 

In an article in the LA Times, the author Rachel Schnalzer explained that “We had more people for the Fourth of July this year than we did for the Fourth of July pre-pandemic” (Schnalzer). After staying inside so long, there was bound to be a desire to go back out and travel again. As LA reopened lots of people went back to the streets at the same time. Traffic went from virtually non-existent, to reappearing as if it had never left. With the emergence from the virus, people have the outlet of leaving the house, which has contributed to why the traffic is now back to “normal.” 

 

Additionally, traffic has grown inconsistent which was explained by another author stating that there is “a sharp rise in the morning that balloons into an even higher peak in the evening” (Karlamangla). What she is explaining in this article is that now more than ever the traffic has become less predictable. Instead of consistent morning and evening traffic, there is a complete shift. This has made it tremendously more difficult to schedule when you should drive because this is a new style of traffic for LA. Essentially, these are two of the main reasons that LA traffic has increasingly gotten worse which we are dealing with now.

 

Any Advice?

 

Coming from someone who has grown up their entire life in this wonderful LA traffic, I want to provide some advice that may help. As many of us know there is a typical time for traffic, especially in LA which is 6am-9am and 4pm-7pm. One recommendation I will always make regarding this is to try and never drive during those times. You will almost always find it more beneficial to wait and then go because you would arrive at just about the same time you would have had you left later. 

 

 

Another piece of advice to consider now is if you have the option to try driving in the morning compared to the evening. As explained earlier there is a “slight higher [peak] around 5pm” (Karlamangla). Since there has been a change in the traffic pattern due to the pandemic it is very difficult to drive anywhere in downtown LA in the evening. The smartest thing to do is to plan out obscure times to drive if your plans allows.  

 

What About Public Transportation?

 

Now that you have knowledge of why traffic is getting worse and the relative advice essentially saying that you are almost bound to run into traffic, the topic of public transportation should be talked about. Although LA is not known for its public transportation there are definitely options. There are four main modes of public transportation and I will explain the difficulties with using each one. These four options are Uber/Lyft, scooters, the metro, and the bus.

 

Regarding Uber and Lyft there are several reasons why they are no better than just having a car yourself. If you have taken an Uber or Lyft in LA you know that they are very expensive to use. To go five miles you might find yourself paying somewhere between $15-$22. I don't know about you but as a college student trying to save money that will just become a problem way too fast. Additionally, there is no difference when it comes to “beating traffic” because you are just getting in a car and heading right into traffic.

 

The next option is scooters. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the convenience of scooters but they are only good for small distances. If you are traveling around campus or in a very small section around LA they will work wonders. With that in mind, there are also many injuries associated with scooters because it does require good balance along with being visible to cars. Therefore, driving in a car is much safer overall. 

 

When speaking about the metro, it is nothing like the subway system in New York. In New York the subway systems have high foot traffic and many police officers make sure travel on those vehicles is safe. However, in LA there is much less foot traffic on these making them much less safe. In an LA Times article, Ray wrote that “safety concerns make the transit a hard sell” (Ray). 

 

The last form of public transportation is buses. One of the problems that arise with buses is their scheduling. There have been many situations where a bus has either been very late to an allotted time pickup or even missed the pick up completely. Their reliability is inconsistent making it a hard form of transportation to rely on.  

 

 

What solutions Are They Working On?

 

This would not be a complete article if I did not include a section explaining the possible solutions that will hopefully be integrated soon. There are three main arguments to help reduce the traffic in LA. These three are incentivizing companies to have employees work at home, congestion pricing, and express buses on HOV lanes. 

 

Now I will further explain what and why these would be helpful. Incentivizing this should be an easier task because “1 in 3 workers could do their jobs entirely from home” (Schnazler). This would heavily reduce the number of people driving on the roads helping to decrease traffic congestion. 

 

 

The next solution is congestion pricing. This model would cause drivers to pay to use freeways during high traffic times. The roads are overused for the limited space LA has to provide them. This cost could help spread out the times when people drive, along with reducing the number of cars on the freeway during peak traffic hours. 

 

The final potential solution is to make HOV lanes specifically for buses which would allow for “much faster transit service at relatively low cost” (Sorensen). This solution provides a better form of public transportation that will hopefully facilitate higher use of this transportation. 

 

Conclusion

 

Ultimately, LA traffic is an issue that has served as a very difficult problem to solve. This article has provided information on the traffic worsening due to the end of the pandemic and the unpredictability of the new form of traffic. Additionally, there is as much advice as I can give from someone who has lived here their entire life and that really is to try everything to avoid the rush hour traffic. Even though there are other forms of transportation, none of them will be any more efficient than driving yourself. Last, there are some solutions that have been proposed. Fingers crossed one of these days there is an implementation that is groundbreaking and changes the horrors of traffic. If you choose to drive during rush hour traffic I wish you luck. I would be lying if I said I did not drive in that traffic all the time. The reality is that cars are almost necessary in LA.

 

Work Cited

Karlamangla, Soumya. “Why Evening Rush Hour Feels so Much Worse Now.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/us/ca-rush-hour-traffic.html.

Ray, Justin. “Riding Public Transit in Los Angeles Can Be Scary. Here Are Some Things I've Seen.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 18 May 2022, https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-05-18/public-transit-los-angeles-la-nyt-transit-essential-california.

Schnalzer, Rachel. “Traffic Is Terrible Again. Here's How to Get It Closer to Spring 2020 Levels.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-07-22/los-angeles-traffic-congestion-commute-pandemic.

Sorensen, Paul, et al. “Reducing Traffic Congestion in Los Angeles.” RAND Corporation, 3 Sept. 2008, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9385.html.