Charging a fee to enter the Westside in a car during morning and evening rush hours could reduce traffic delays by 20%, a new study by the Southern California Assn. of Governments has found.
A study released Thursday found that charging drivers $4 to enter a 4.3-square-mile area of the Westside, including part of the Wilshire corridor, could reduce traffic delays by 24% during peak periods.
Such a drop in driving would correspond with a 9% increase in transit ridership, a 7% increase in biking and a 7% increase in walking inside the zone, indicating that the region doesn’t need sky-high tolls “to really effect the kind of behavior change that we’re looking for,” said Annie Nam, the SCAG manager who oversaw the study.the concept of congestion pricing across Los Angeles County.
SCAG had initially considered studying tolling in downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Warner Center and Los Angeles International Airport, but focused on the Westside because the traffic is worst there, so congestion pricing could have the greatest effect, Chidsey said. “If you are going to pick an area of the city to do this, history suggests that people on the Westside have the means and the resources and the time to object to stuff they don’t like,” Bonin said. “Absent a very different approach to this … I think it would be a very controversial idea.”
The study assumed that residents would pay 40 cents — a 90% discount — and low-income commuters could qualify for half-price tolls. The fee for low-income commuters will likely be a friction point.I’m very, very wary of a model that gives a 90% discount to a CEO of a billion-dollar company and gives only a 50% discount to the gardener who drives to maintain that person’s estate,” Bonin said.
“I might be able to push it some days past 9 a.m.” to avoid the congestion charge, he said. “But probably about half the time, I’m still gonna be in that window, and I’d have to pay.”
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