Los Angeles Daily News

More dense thinking from politicians
Cramming mixed-use projects near mass transit won't ease congestion

By Robert Krol and Shirley Svorny

Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - To accommodate expected population growth, Mayor James Hahn and developer Steve Soboroff have joined the chorus of planners who support building dense, mixed-use projects near public transit in Los Angeles.

The premise is that being near public transit and shopping will limit commutes and reduce congestion. However, density will not reduce congestion. Wherever it exists, density produces congestion.

Hahn and Soboroff are not impartial observers in this matter. Soboroff is a developer and Hahn is a mayor seeking re-election contributions from developers. Both hope to stave off opposition by homeowners to dense developments with the argument that density will reduce traffic congestion.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. You don't have to look far to find examples that confirm that density goes hand in hand with congestion. A lot of people relish living in a dense urban environment and, where land prices are high, density is a natural outcome. But we don't want to adopt a policy of encouraging -- or worse, subsidizing -- density under the false impression that it will reduce congestion.

The projected reductions in traffic congestion that are ascribed to dense patterns of construction are based on two faulty assumptions. First, it is assumed that people who live near mass transit will use it. Second, proponents of mixed-use development, which includes residential, commercial and retail construction, argue that residents will clear the streets by shopping close to home. Neither has been shown to be true.

Jobs are becoming increasingly dispersed as businesses move out to the suburbs. You can see this in the changing patterns of freeway traffic in Southern California. Although living closer to fixed rail clearly lowers the cost of using it, you still won't use it if it doesn't take you to your best job opportunity.

It is optimistic to think that even a small minority of the residents of mixed-use developments in Los Angeles will consistently use public transit. Even if some of the residents drawn to dense, multiuse developments use mass transit, the majority will join the rest of us on the freeways every morning -- adding more cars to already congested highways.

We don't doubt that developers can fill mixed-use buildings. But, unless the price per mile rises significantly, Los Angeles will remain an automobile-driven transportation system. Cars are cheap and convenient; even with the congestion that exists at this time, you can get to the places you want to go more quickly and conveniently than by means of mass transit. As transportation experts have pointed out, Los Angeles is too spread out to support a system of mass transit that could take you everywhere you want to go.

In a world where substantial savings can be achieved by shopping at big- box stores, it is hard to imagine that a very large segment of the population will switch to smaller, higher-cost stores in mixed-use neighborhoods just because they are nearby. And big-box shopping is incompatible with public transit. Even if you could take the subway to Costco, how would you carry your 48 rolls of toilet paper and a case of Diet Coke home?

Planners have been telling us for years that Southern California must accommodate millions of new residents over the next decades. We don't have to do anything of the sort. If we don't build it, they won't come (or won't stay, if the growth is among existing families).

If developers want to build densely, it is fine if neighborhoods are accommodative of this trend. But don't do it under false pretenses. Don't promise substantial congestion relief from this type of a scheme. If we are so gullible as to let developers and the politicians that speak for them talk us into thinking that density will reduce congestion, we have no one to blame but ourselves.