Metro's Westside Subway–Unsuprisingly–Will Do Little For Congestion

Metro's Draft EIS/EIR for the Westside subway extension reveals that the subway will--perhaps unsurprisingly--do little to cure congestion on arterials and freeways on the Westside, although it will add another option for traversing the Westside and will increase accessibility to employment centers.  The subway study area generally extends east from downtown LA--through some of the densest parts of LA--to Santa Monica, and includes pieces of several jurisdictions.  Furthermore, as the draft EIS/EIR notes, Westwood and Century City have higher employment than many mid-sized downtowns elsewhere.

Served by already congested road networks, both Westwood and Century City, along with other major activity centers in the corridor are projected to grow, further straining the transportation network.  The corridor already has highest number of bus boardings in Southern California and, in existing traffic congestion never mind future conditions, even the "Rapid" lines along Wilshire (the 720 and 920) prove to be misnomers.  The EIS/EIR projects that by 2035 buses may slog down the corridor at 8 to 11 mph.  As buses become increasingly unreliable and slow due to congestion, they become less and less competitive with private vehicles.  The EIS/EIR concludes that, "The improved capacity that would result from the subway extension is the best solution to improve travel times and reliability and to provide a high-capacity, environmentally-sound transit alternative."

However, although the subway extension will provide a more reliable transit connection to and from the Westside, it will do little to alleviate congestion.  Traffic volumes through the corridor are expected to increase, while roadway capacity will remain more or less static.  Thus as VMT and vehicle hours traveled (VHT) increase drastically over the next 25 years or so, even a high-capacity transit system won't be able to keep pace.  SCAG's performance indicators (above) include measures of mobility in terms of average daily speed and average daily delay per capita.  The 2035 objective, based on building the subway extension, keeps these measures closer to the 2003 base year measures, also slightly increasing accessibility and improving reliability.  So the subway will help move more people than currently live and work on the Westside today, accommodating increased activity, with less deterioration of travel times than a no-build scenario.  Still, the pertinent question of whether the subway's benefits justify its price tag remains.