LA Receives Federal Approval for Subway Expansion
Posted by NotMike at 8:30 AM
The city of Los Angeles has a congestion problem. Every year since 1985, the city has had the longest average travel times in Texas A&Ms Texas Transportation Institutes Urban Mobility Report. L.A. has also been ranked number one in the United States on INRIXs National Traffic Scorecard as having traffic that is the stuff nightmares are made of. L.A.s position atop the scorecard is not new, having been in the number one spot the previous year as well. In fact, its had the highest National Congestion Rank since at least 2006.
Well, like many other municipalities, L.A. is looking to expand its light rail and subway capacity to help alleviate its crippling traffic problems. And the U.S. Federal Governments new budget may include funding to help offset the costs of preliminary engineering work on the Westside Subway Expansion project, as well as their Regional Connector light rail initiative. We have written previously about cities and municipalities looking to add light rail miles, and Los Angeles will be in good company.
A report prepared for the U.S. Department of Transportations (DoT) Federal Highway Administration makes some pretty clear recommendations about improving highway utilization through increased capacity in both automobile and non-automobile based travel modes, however the report focuses mainly on operations management for existing modes of travel as the most effective way of increasing travel reliability.
