EASING THE DRIVE VARIETY OF EFFORTS TRY TO BEAT TRAFFIC WOES.Byline: - Lisa Mascaro Traffic remains a daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin problem in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , but a range of public transit and highway improvements are helping to ease the drive. The San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. welcomed its first major mass transit line in years with the 2005 opening of the Metro Orange Line - the bus-only lane that was an instant hit with nearly 17,000 daily riders. And construction is set to begin soon on a car-pool lane on the northbound San Diego Freeway The San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405, and the part of Interstate 5 south of the El Toro Y[1]) is one of the principal north-south highways in Southern California, and the major beltway of I-5 running through Southern California. between the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, promising relief in coming years. ``The Valley faces the same problems that the rest of Los Angeles County does. We have too many cars and trucks and not enough roads,'' said Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Marc Littman. ``The good news is Metro's working on a variety of fronts to ease traffic congestion The condition of a network when there is not enough bandwidth to support the current traffic load. congestion - When the offered load of a data communication path exceeds the capacity. . There's no silver bullet No Silver Bullet - essence and accidents of software engineering is a well-known paper on software engineering written by Fred Brooks in 1986. Brooks argues that there will be no more technologies or practices that will serve as "silver bullets" and create a twofold . We need to do a variety of things.'' Los Angeles commuters waste 93 hours a year stalled in freeway gridlock Gridlock A government, business or institution's inability to function at a normal level due either to complex or conflicting procedures within the administrative framework or to impending change in the business. - the worst in the nation for more than a decade. What used to be thought of as rush-hour now extends throughout the day in many areas of Los Angeles County, with freeway motorists chugging along at an average speed of 37 mph. And congestion is only expected to get worse as population soars. Experts say freeway speeds could plummet to 19 mph by 2025. Street speeds are projected to similarly decline, from 25 mph to 16 mph. Southern California will grow by nearly 6 million residents by 2030 in the six-county region that includes Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Riverside. Freeways continue to carry the load as public transit has been slow to gain popularity, despite a growing rail system that stretches 70 miles from Long Beach and Pasadena to the Valley. Fewer than 7 percent of commuters ride buses or trains. Still the MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. continues to build a mass transit network in hopes of providing an alternative to increasingly jammed freeways. Last year, officials opened the $350 million Orange Line - 14-mile route across the Valley. The busway connects to the subway station in North Hollywood where riders can transfer to downtown. An $898 million extension to the Gold Line light rail into East Los Angeles East Los Angeles, uninc. city (1990 pop. 126,379), Los Angeles co., S Calif., a residential suburb of Los Angeles, in an industrial area. It has a large Mexican-American population. There is a performing arts center and a cultural center. A junior college is there. is under construction and expected to open in 2009. And ground is expected to be broken shortly on the Exposition Line, a light-rail train from downtown to Santa Monica. Metrolink, the suburban commuter rail line, recently announced a $305 million procurement to buy new trains to expand its fleet. These developments come as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is working to secure funds for the ``subway to the sea'' - a Wilshire Boulevard underground from downtown to Santa Monica. Streets and highways, too, are seeing upgrades, with continued efforts to synchronize traffic signals across Los Angeles and improve crowded freeway interchanges. In the heart of the Valley, the intersection of the Ventura and San Diego freeways - one of the busiest in the nation handling 500,000 daily drivers - is getting widened connectors and new ramps. Plus, construction of the northbound car-pool lane on the 405 is expected to soon get under way, while work continues on the Golden State Freeway The Golden State Freeway is a north-south freeway running through Kern County and Los Angeles County, California. Originally built as U.S. Highway 99, it was re-signed as Interstate 5 in 1964. Freeway car-pool lanes all the way through the Valley. As traffic is only expected to mount, experts and even politicians are trying to coax drivers out of their cars, nudging them to try alternatives to the solo driving that's so long been a Southern California mainstay. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Los Angeles commuters, seen here on the 405, waste 93 hours a year stalled in freeway gridlock - the worst in the nation for more than a decade. Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer |
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