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.First, werecommend several congestion-reduction strategies that also generaterevenue, and the additional funding can help support other strategyinvestments.Second, our recommendations include complementarymeasures intended to help offset potential equity issues and politicalconcerns where they arise.Third, we develop several general guide-lines to support effective political consensus building in the context ofa complex political environment characterized by numerous agenciesand stakeholders with competing issues and agendas.Motivation for This BookAsk a cross-section of L.A.residents about their main sources of dailyfrustration and you will likely find that traffic congestion appearshigh on their lists.For better or worse, traffic congestion has becomean increasingly prevalent by-product of urban living, one that besetsalmost all major cities in the United States and abroad.While thereare other international cities, such as Bangkok, Jakarta, and Lagos,in which traffic congestion is even more severe (Taylor, 2002), LosAngeles maintains a reputation for having the worst traffic conditionsin the United States.According to the Texas Transportation Institute(TTI), which develops the most widely cited congestion statistics forlarge metropolitan areas in the country, greater Los Angeles consis-tently leads the nation in such metrics as annual hours of congestiondelay per traveler, total vehicle hours of congestion delay, and total eco-nomic costs of congestion delay.And with continued expansion in the Introduction 3population and economy, the severity of congestion in Los Angeles hasgrown worse from one year to the next in a fairly consistent manner(Schrank and Lomax, 2007).That said, in just the past six to nine months, as fuel prices havesurged and the economy has weakened, there is evidence to suggestthat congestion delays on some parts of the road network in Los Ange-les have been reduced to a modest degree.Yet it is reasonable to assumethat the economy will strengthen again at some point and that travel-ers will increasingly purchase more fuel-efficient cars should gas pricesremain high.Assuming continued growth in population and the econ-omy in the coming decades, it thus seems likely that traffic conges-tion, absent policy intervention, will sooner or later resume its upwardtrajectory.This would be unfortunate.Beyond annoyance and frustration onthe part of individual travelers, traffic congestion contributes to a rangeof pressing social problems.Time wasted in congested traffic, depend-ing on the purpose of travel, detracts from quality of life and economicvitality.Congested travel also results in wasted fuel and increasedemissions.Because crowded freeways often pass through lower-incomeneighborhoods, the additional emissions of air pollutants, such ascarbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, raise impor-tant environmental-justice concerns (Deka, 2004).At the same time,heightened awareness of the threats posed by human-induced climatechange have stimulated increasing concern over vehicular emissions ofgreenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.Finally, traffic congestionmay contribute to a higher rate of vehicle collisions.2With all these undesirable effects, one might wonder why societyhas not taken more-aggressive steps to curb congestion.For many resi-dents in the region, severe traffic has been an ongoing source of aggra-vation and furthermore imposes a range of significant economic, social,and environmental costs.Yet before deciding to pursue immediate andpossibly drastic measures to eliminate the problem at any cost, it isimportant to recognize that congestion is linked with many desirable2However, in conditions of severe congestion, when traffic speeds are low, crashes that dooccur are likely to be less severe than they are at higher speeds. 4 Moving Los Angeles: Short-Term Policy Options for Improving Transportationcharacteristics, such as a strong economy and a vibrant urban environ-ment (Downs, 2004; Taylor, 2002).This helps to explain, for instance,why dynamic and appealing cities, such as New York and Paris, aresubject to chronic traffic congestion.We also find that, during periodsof economic downturn, such as in San Francisco following the dot-com bust in the early 2000s or in Los Angeles following the downturnin defense spending in the early 1990s, the level of traffic congestiondiminishes.(We are also witnessing such a downturn at the presenttime, though high fuel prices are playing a role as well.) While it maybe desirable to reduce congestion, care should certainly be taken toensure that the strategies invoked do not simultaneously underminethe desirable urban characteristics that give rise to congestion in thefirst place.This need not be a problem.Transportation economists havedemonstrated that there are strategies for reducing congestion thatwill simultaneously improve our collective well-being.As describedpreviously, the act of driving a vehicle creates a range of environmen-tal and social costs, such as harmful emissions and additional conges-tion delays for other travelers
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