Auxiliary lanes won’t reduce congestion
The Sentinel Editorial
Board got part of it right in a recent Editorial on Highway 1. The hours that commuters spend stuck in traffic on Highway 1 are hours that could be spent with their families, in leisure activities, or at a community meeting. However, building new auxiliary lanes (lanes that begin at an on ramp and end at the next exit) is not the solution.
The Sentinel’s claim that the proposed Auxiliary Lanes Project will reduce congestion is not consistent with the Caltrans Environmental Impact Report (EIR) studying auxiliary lanes plus ramp metering from Santa Cruz to San Andreas Road. The EIR concluded that the project “would result in a very slight improvement in traffic congestion when compared to the No Build Alternative.” The project “would not achieve sufficient congestion relief to attract any substantial number of vehicles that had diverted to the local street system back to the freeway.”
The next step in Highway 1 expansion, auxiliary lanes from Soquel Drive to 41st Avenue, “would slightly worsen traffic operations” in the afternoon peak hour according to the Caltrans’ EIR.
It’s not hard to understand why auxiliary lanes won’t reduce congestion. Widening the highway without replacing the overpasses widens the bottle in between the bottlenecks. Merging traffic at bottlenecks worsens congestion. The cost to replace the overpasses with wider overpasses is prohibitive. The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) acknowledges that there will not likely be funding for such highway expansion “until after 2035.” Translate that as “likely never.”
Sacramento and Washington D.C. are waking up to the fact that widening highways doesn’t relieve congestion for long. As motorists make decisions in response to a reduction in congestion, the highway fills back up with more traffic. “Induced travel” is not a theory, but a proven reality, most recently exemplified by the I-405 expansion in LA.
Even though auxiliary lanes won’t reduce congestion, they will increase vehicle miles traveled. The Caltrans EIR predicted that auxiliary lanes from Santa Cruz to Watsonville would increase greenhouse gases by 25%.
Internationally known transit planner Jarrett Walker understands how induced travel reverses congestion relief. He discussed the politics behind highway projects: “Parties who will profit from further development in a corridor may be part of the political consensus in support of a road expansion, even as the same expansion is marketed to existing residents as a congestion reducing project.”
The sad truth is that the only short-term alternative for commuters who are stuck in traffic will not happen if the Measure D dollars are squandered on auxiliary lanes.
Bus-on-shoulder is a bus-only lane on the shoulder of highways in Minneapolis, Cleveland, Miami, Chicago, and Atlanta. A bus-only lane would allow express buses between Watsonville and Santa Cruz to bypass slow-moving traffic. The Highway 17 Express could be extended to Soquel, Aptos and Watsonville. This alternative would be attractive for a considerable number of commuters. Assemblyman Mark Stone carried legislation to allow buson-shoulder in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
The RTC has applied the name “bus-on-shoulder” to the Auxiliary Lanes Project. This is a misnomer, since buses would operate primarily in auxiliary lanes, where they would be stuck in traffic. How attractive is it to ride a bus that is stuck in traffic? See my 11-minute video “Real Bus-onShoulder” on YouTube.
The good news is that the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation and the Sierra Club are suing Caltrans. The EIR for Highway 1 considered no alternatives to highway expansion, in violation of state law that requires consideration of alternatives. Nor does the project follow state policy about measuring and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. We hope that our lawsuit initiates a conversation in the community over real alternatives for commuters. Let’s spend our local funds on alternatives to the frustration and futility of auto dependency.