COMMUTES EAT UP MORE TIME IN L.A.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

The average commute in Los Angeles - the nation's most gridlocked city - rose in the past decade, according to new 2000 Census figures to be released today.

Regional planners blamed a continuing failure of local and state agencies to anticipate and provide for the increase in population through freeway and public transit improvements and car-pool expansion.

The Census Bureau's new supplemental survey shows the average one-way commute in Los Angeles is now 28 minutes - up from 26.5 minutes in 1990.

That puts L.A. about four minutes above the national average and in 11th place for commuting time. Los Angeles has ranked No. 1 for freeway gridlock for 17 years, based on estimates that it takes 50 percent longer to travel on local freeways during rush hour.

Only San Francisco and Oakland - where the high cost of housing has forced commuters ever farther from their jobs - and Riverside had longer commuting times among the state's largest cities. San Francisco had the highest, with an average of 30 minutes per commute, or about the same as 1990.

Los Angeles' increase in commuting time concerns regional planners.

``If there's a fault, it's a collective fault,'' said Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments. ``This city, MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority), SCAG all are part and parcel of all of this. We didn't understand the magnitude of the growth and with it the number of trips, and we did not have enough strategies in place fast enough.''

Commuting time is a critical quality-of-life factor, say many residents.

``What largely determines whether Los Angeles is a great place to live or not is how close you live to your work,'' said William Fulton, president of Solimar Research Group in Ventura.

City transportation planner Philip Aker said poor land-use planning in Los Angeles forces far too many people to live far from work.

``Short of having a real land-use plan, I don't see much that can be done'' about the transportation dilemma, he said.

Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said Mayor James Hahn recognizes the crisis, and has made gridlock a top priority by working to put more buses on the streets, synchronize signals and improve the city's worst intersections.

``It's clearly a priority, and one he's already begun to address,'' Middlebrook said.

Los Angeles has made some inroads in ride-sharing and public transit, but remains far behind the Bay Area.

While ambitious car-pooling programs, many miles of new car-pool lanes, rapid bus lines, and completion of the Red Line subway into the San Fernando Valley reduced the percentage of L.A. commuters who drive alone from about 70 percent to about 67 percent, those programs did nothing to improve commuter times, according to the census figures.

In San Francisco, the percentage of solo commuters fell from 45 percent to 41 percent.

Nearly one in three commuters to San Francisco now uses public transit compared with 9 percent in Los Angeles.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown Jr. said the city's commuter strategy continues to rest heavily on mass transit even as commutes lengthen for some people to as far away as Stockton or Sacramento.

``In recent years, we've made great strides in connecting Bay Area centers of commerce by light rail, heavy rail, bus lines and even ferry routes, and we'll have to place an even greater emphasis on mass transit in the future,'' Brown said in a statement.