Could we find our way to each other in this lonely city?

Sure, we were only 30 yards apart. But we were separated by Crenshaw Boulevard—and by the folly of transportation planning in 21^st century Southern California.

The object of my gaze was the driver of a Metro train on the Expo Line, which runs from Santa Monica to downtown L.A., and is also known as the E Line. The driver’s features, illuminated only by headlights and the passenger cabin behind him, gave him an air of mystery.

His train was approaching the light rail station on the west side of Crenshaw, one of central L.A.’s major thoroughfares, just south of Exposition Boulevard.

I stood on the east side of Crenshaw, across four lanes of cars from the station, with my train-loving nine-year-old son. We were weary from a long night of riding Metro rail lines around the city. But we also were excited. We had just ridden the newest Metro rail line in Los Angeles—the Crenshaw Line, or K Line—which opened earlier this fall, and which originates right at that intersection of Crenshaw and Exposition. It’ll eventually make its way to LAX.

We came up the escalator from the underground K train expecting to make what Metro calls an “easy transfer” to the Expo Line. The E Line tracks are just a few steps from the K Line exit.

Instead, we were confronted with a head-scratching situation, and a reminder that L.A. likes to make things hard.

When Metro planned and built the Expo Line—which opened back in 2012—it did not create a single stop at the corner of Crenshaw and Expo. It created two. The first, for trains that are heading west towards Santa Monica, was on the east side of Crenshaw, where my son and I were standing. The other stop, for eastbound trains, was across the street.

Splitting light rail stations in this way isn’t unheard of. Other stops on the Expo Line—at Vermont Avenue, at Western Avenue—have a similar setup, with space-saving platforms on opposite sides of a thoroughfare.

But the Expo-Crenshaw stop should have been designed differently, because Metro had been planning the line that became the Crenshaw/K for decades. The agency knew that two lines were going to have connect there, someday.

And Metro had many options for creating links. It could have built entrances/exits to the Crenshaw/K Line on both sides of Crenshaw, so that passengers who wanted to transfer to Expo heading east could exit on one side of the street, and westbound passengers could exit on the other. It could have built a pedestrian walkway over Crenshaw.

I, for one, would have liked to see a train station built over the entire intersection—a grand building, with restaurants and shops and a beautiful waiting area—to put the two intersecting lines under one roof.

Metro did none of that. Its excuses cited costs, mostly, and the difficulties of getting approval for such connections in the political cesspool of Los Angeles. But the result is now clear: Metro is forcing passengers to brave Crenshaw, and its traffic, to connect between the K and eastbound Expo Lines.

It was across this unnecessary divide that the Expo Line driver and I encountered each other.

Crenshaw was full of traffic, and the crosswalk signal was red. I stood there as his train approached the east-bound station on the west side of the street. If the light didn’t change, my son and I would miss it.

That’s when my eyes met the driver’s. A minute went by, the crosswalk light remaining red. The driver, maintaining his gaze, generously kept the train in the station, doors open. But after another minute went by, he gave me an apologetic look, and moved the train a few feet forward, up to Crenshaw.

We knew then that we would miss the train—but the moment wasn’t over. Now the driver was stuck, unable to cross Crenshaw himself.

Why? Because Los Angeles requires trains to stop for street traffic and street lights, as if the trains were cars. And the train driver had a red light. Why? Because the city prioritizes cars over transit. Technology exists to allow passing trains to change street lights, so cars that might cross tracks have to stop and give way to trains. But L.A. doesn’t use it there.

A minute more, and the lights changed. In theory, we should have been able to negotiate our crosswalk, and the train driver should have sailed through his green light. But once again, we were foiled.

Crenshaw had filled with cars during the long light, and vehicles now blocked the tracks and the crosswalk. I thought of snaking my way through them to rendezvous with the still-nearby train, but I didn’t feel safe doing so with my son.

The driver extended his arms, palms up, in the universal expression of “What Can You Do?” My son and I did the same. For five minutes, we had been stuck here, gazing longingly at each other.

As another two minutes passed, the driver inched his way through the intersection, cutting off the cars on one side. We still hadn’t dared cross the street.

The train was now less than 10 feet away. I raised my thumb, hoping our new friend might stop and let us hitchhike. He laughed, waved to us, and rang the train bell, which briefly delighted my son. And then he disappeared into the night.

After another cycle waiting for the light to change, we managed to cross. We’d wait 12 minutes for the next train.

“That was so stupid,” my son said.

“That’s Los Angeles,” I said.

The post My Missed Connection Riding the L.A. Metro appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Instead, Los Angeles is known as a world capital of traffic, a place of extreme mobility challenges and a pollution-choked smog-burger. Low-income communities bear much of the burden of our failures—in worse access to jobs and opportunities, more severe health impacts from pollution and long commutes, and higher rates of injuries and collisions in transportation-related accidents.

And despite strong recent efforts, including unprecedented amounts of investment in rail and other transit infrastructure, things are poised to get worse. Vehicle purchases are on the rise, continuing a pre-pandemic trend. Despite more telecommuting, traffic is back with a vengeance and transit ridership remains depressed.

How did we get here? Because over the course of our history we have chosen to provide the benefits of that massive public investment in transportation almost exclusively to private vehicles, and at almost zero cost to drivers. Those vehicles mostly carry only one person at a time, churn out dangerous pollutants, and are not available to a very large segment of the population who cannot drive, choose not to drive, or cannot afford to drive. We should not be surprised at the outcome.

Yes, buses, bicycles, and pedestrians can use roads—but buses must combat traffic while biking and walking are often dangerous. Every year in L.A. County, speeding cars strike and kill hundreds of people and injure thousands more.

These realities have been produced by the choices we made as a region, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Los Angeles has the infrastructure to support the greatest transportation system ever known. We are just completely misusing it.

Imagine a world where this fantastic infrastructure investment really works, for everyone. What if Angelenos—whether they choose to drive, walk, bike, take transit, or even stay home—could be free from traffic, pollution, and physical harm? It’s achievable if we change how we choose to use our road space.

To start, we can put exclusive bus lanes and protected bike lanes on our major thoroughfares. Then we can run more and faster bus service, expand our bike share programs, and perhaps even distribute bicycles to those who cannot afford them. We can ensure sidewalks on every street and curb cuts on every corner, plus bus shelters to protect waiting passengers from the sun. We can lower speed limits even more on city streets, enforce traffic laws, and create more pedestrian crosswalks that give people more time to cross.

Then we get to the hard part: We need to stop giving away roadway space for free.

Have you ever tried to get an ice cream cone at Ben and Jerry’s on free cone day? Have you noticed that there is always a line, so that even though the cone is free, you wind up paying with your time? If you don’t mind waiting in line, or if waiting in line is fun because you are with friends, it’s no big deal. But imagine you need that ice cream cone to survive, so you must wait in line for it every day.

This is what it is like to be a commuter in Los Angeles. Your roadway space is free, but because you need that space to get to work or school or wherever you have to be, you have no choice but to wait in line to use it. So, you listen to music, or books on tape, or call your mom as you sit in traffic. This is the life we have chosen for ourselves.

But what if our roads looked more like a Ben and Jerry’s the other 364 days of the year? What if we sold the product that is in high demand instead of giving it away for free? The result would be the same as with any other product—shorter lines (i.e., less traffic). The concept is known as congestion pricing and has been used for years in cities such as London, Stockholm, Milan, and Singapore. New York recently approved a similar concept.

Taken as a package, congestion pricing, in combination with improvements to our road network, would dramatically transform Los Angeles. Traffic would drop, pollution would drop, and the entire system would become far more equitable. The net cost of these changes would be zero, since congestion pricing revenues could likely pay for the improvements to biking, walking, and bus commuting—all of which cost much less than highway improvement and new rail projects.

So why do we insist on making every day free cone day?

Each of the above ideas faces serious obstacles. An exclusive bus lane or a new bike lane typically requires taking away a lane of existing traffic. The new lane could potentially move far more people far faster, and those people are likely to be predominantly low-income and minority. But drivers typically balk at giving up a lane—and take their concern directly to their elected officials.

Adding sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, and bus shelters might seem relatively non-controversial, but many neighborhoods resist these as well on the grounds that they might slow traffic or “change the character” of a neighborhood, and they are typically not a budget priority. Reducing speed limits and enforcing them is not only unpopular, but also challenging due to state laws and limited resources.

But the largest problem is cultural. In the land of the freeway, what could be more controversial than charging people to drive?

Fortunately, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), is undertaking a traffic reduction study to examine how we might package together a combination of street improvements and congestion pricing for Los Angeles County.

Fun fact: we call them freeways because they’re supposed to be free flowing. The name has nothing to do with the cost, but rather with the operational intent. An intent we collectively have the power to fulfill.

LA Metro’s study is aiming to build support for a pilot program that could test the ideas above. Some lucky area—one with terrible traffic—will be a proving ground for whether they improve the health, safety, environment, and access for everyone equitably. If it works, perhaps more parts of L.A. will demand these changes, too. If it doesn’t, well, we can always go back to our traffic-choked ways.

Moving forward with congestion pricing, exclusive bus and bike lanes, better bus service, and other improvements will take greater political courage than we have seen in recent years. These changes inherently disrupt and expose the existing inequities in our society by improving services for non-drivers, who tend to be low-income and people of color, and asking drivers to pay their fair share. But isn’t this what most of our elected officials claim to stand for?

We already have the solutions to L.A.’s longstanding traffic, pollution and mobility inequities. Now we just have to decide whether to choose them.

The post How to Imagine a Los Angeles Without Traffic appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.