Scott in SoCal <scottenaztlan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:delg24pj5oo4h3moolcn7sjv5l4e1ci5va@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Click on the link for the full article.
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-traffic12-2008may1
> 2,0,836023.story
>
> less-traveled?
> Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times
>
> A sampling of residents, traffic re****ters and technical data
> indicates that as gas prices climbed and the economy faltered, there
> were notable traffic decreases on some freeways.
> By Steve Hymon and Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
> May 12, 2008
>
> The Freeway Performance Measurement System, a computer database
> overseen by UC Berkeley and Caltrans, provides several examples.
>
> The morning commute from Simi Valley to Los Angeles averaged 61
> minutes in April 2007 when gas cost a little more than $3 a gallon but
> fell to 55.1 minutes last month. Also significant are numbers from the
> Inland Empire, where the morning drive from Riverside to Ontario fell
> nearly 13% -- from 41.5 minutes in April 2007 to 36.2 minutes this
> April.
>
> Also down in early May was the number of incidents re****ted to the
> California Highway Patrol in Los Angeles County -- the belly of the
> traffic beast. Accidents and breakdowns are thought to cause about 50%
> of all congestion.
>
> In most cases, the difference in commuting times is small and
> typically ranges from one to five minutes.
>
> But there is evidence of fewer cars on the road. In Orange County,
> Caltrans officials said that road sensors had shown a slight drop in
> the average number of vehicles each day on freeways such as the 91 and
> 405 and that toll road business was down about 6%.
>
> The region's ubiquitous traffic re****ters are noticing a change.
> "Things have definitely become a lot thinner out there," said Meghan
> Reyes, an airborne re****ter for KNX-AM 1070 Newsradio, who first
> noticed a ****ft in late March.
>
> On Thursday, for example, the usually busy 5 Freeway was moving
> smoothly through the Newhall Pass, and on the northbound 101, the
> afternoon traffic was backed up from the Cahuenga Pass only to Santa
> Monica Boulevard -- not all the way to downtown, she said.
>
> Caltrans in Los Angeles County could not provide data on Friday
> because, officials said, their computer had crashed.
>
> The latest numbers on gas sales, from January, show that consumption
> was down 4.5% compared with January 2007, according to the state Board
> of Equalization, and has been declining over the last two years.
>
> Meanwhile, rider****p on mass transit has continued on an upswing.
> Metrolink commuter trains are averaging about 46,000 passengers each
> weekday, up from 44,000 a year ago. "Our riders aren't the
> transit-dependent," said spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell.
>
> "They have cars. Many of them were driving alone on the freeway."
Just as i predicted. People are driving less and they're drivning slower
and that means fewer crashes and thus better flow of traffic. We can make
it even better by lowering speed limits and taking away the licenses of
speeders and drunk drivers.
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