Home2028 Olympic GamesLANE ONE: The best explanation yet why traffic will be handled for the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic...

LANE ONE: The best explanation yet why traffic will be handled for the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games: “no different than Carmageddon”

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≡ LOS ANGELES 2028 ≡

The LA28 Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee doesn’t say much publicly, at least not yet. But at every news conference, the same two questions come up: the infamous Los Angeles traffic and homelessness in the area.

LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman was dependably asked about both at Thursday’s session following the visit of the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission. He has answered these questions before, but might have been his clearest, best answer yet, especially on transportation:

“The first point is, when we bid for the Games, what we bid for was, in terms of transportation, all that existed at the time we bid, in 2016. So our plan, our ability to deliver the Games is completely reliant on an existing plan we had from 2016, for the infrastructure and the public transportation that we built – not even in progress to be built – in 2016.

“Obviously, there’s been a ton of investments in public infrastructure in Los Angeles – public transportation, airports and the like – and so our responsibility is to take the best advantage of that as we can, as we finalize our Games plan, and so we’re very focused on it.

“But just remember that the Olympic Games is not like a normal, two-week period and all of a sudden, we show up with the Olympics. No different than ‘Carmageddon”’ for those of you from Los Angeles, or other times in L.A., we’re going to make people aware of when there’s events, where there are events, traffic patterns, traffic changes, obviously having dedicated lanes, and so we get to adjust traffic patterns and adjust fan flow and athlete and participant and constituent flow, to fit our city, not just show up on a Friday night with an opening ceremonies and say, ‘oh, by the way, tomorrow’s night’s opening ceremonies,’ it’s a normal Friday night of rush hour in the summer.

“That’s not how it works. We feel very confident about, frankly, living up the legacy of 1984, which was an incredible experience, when people drove around and there was no traffic.

“So, we think that’s sort of our future.”

The “Carmageddon” reference is especially important and a key to understanding why traffic can be – not necessarily will be – managed properly in 2028.

For non-Angelenos, “Carmageddon” refers to a 53-hour, Friday-evening-to-Monday-morning closure of 10 miles of the heavily-trafficked San Diego (405) Freeway from 15-18 July 2011 required as part of a freeway-widening project. With enormous publicity beforehand, the feared-for traffic crush never materialized as people simply avoided the impacted zone of that critical freeway.

A year-later review by the Rand Corporation noted how the community handled this catastrophe-in-the-making:

“So how did the roughly 300,000 travelers who traverse the affected stretch of the San Diego Freeway each day respond? There was a 61 percent decrease in traffic volume heading northbound on the 405 toward the West L.A. closure on Carmageddon Saturday, compared with a typical summer Saturday. Southbound traffic on the 405 in the San Fernando Valley dropped even more: 73 percent.

“Traffic did not simply take detours around the closure. In virtually every location we examined, traffic levels were way down along potential Carmageddon detours. On the Ventura Freeway just north of the closure, westbound traffic volumes were down by 43 percent, and eastbound by 45 percent. Likewise, traffic leaving the 101/405 interchange was down 34 percent in the west/northbound direction and 31 percent east/southbound.”

People knew what to do to avoid problems and did it. A 2014 retrospective from Access Magazine added:

“Officials delivered print, radio, online ads, and email blasts to over 6,000 organizations. They configured electronic billboards to broadcast messages alerting highway drivers to the impending closure weeks in advance of the event. Metro used traditional websites, created Facebook pages for the events, and broadcast messages on Twitter, even leveraging celebrity star power for the first event, including Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian.”

● “It is also clear that travelers absorb information quickly and respond accordingly.”

● “[D]isseminating information can also be enormously effective – even more effective than providing alternative travel modes. As real-time information becomes more available to travelers, that information can complement system capacity to reduce cost and delay.

“Finally, crying wolf presents a dilemma and should be employed judiciously. Going overboard to scare people off of the roads ensures that the promised chaos will fail to materialize, but encourages the traveling public to take future dire warnings with a grain of salt.”

There is no doubt that Los Angeles will take the Olympic period seriously, especially in the downtown area, with a large concentration of venues. But as in 1984, the traffic will be shaped by dozens of measures implemented by government, the organizing committee, businesses and both residents and visitors to be able to get around as they need to during the 17 days of the Olympic Games.

Traffic demands for the Paralympic Games will be lower, as the scale of that Games is less.

There is a lot of work to be done and the best news is that the area transportation authorities, starting with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“Metro”) is already obsessing over the 2028 Games period. That’s the necessary first step; if followed by concrete actions, traffic need not be an issue during the 2028 Games, as it was not in 1984.

On homelessness, Wasserman again gave the same answer as he has before, but perhaps more concisely expressed this time:

“I will speak to homelessness only as a person who was born and raised in Los Angeles. It’s a really sad and difficult situation that is not unique to Los Angeles. As Angelenos, we better care about because it’s about the future of our city, it’s not about 17 days in the summer of 2028, or 30 days in the summer of 2028.

“This is about what are we doing about to support the people who live and work and make Los Angeles their home and how do we make it the best possible place for them. And we should be worrying about that today, and tomorrow and every day forward , including the 30 days in the summer of 2028, but not exclusively for those 20 or 30 days.

“So, it’s a situation that L.A. needs to come together to help work on, because that’s what it requires.”

An indication of the priority being placed on this issue by Los Angeles County residents was the passage of Measure A on election day, replacing the existing Measure H quarter-cent sales tax increase enacted in 2017 that will expire in 2027, with a half-cent sales tax (doubling the tax) to raise $1.076 billion annually, with no sunset date.

The measure passed overwhelmingly, with 57.6% of the vote as of 15 November.

An estimated 75,000 people in L.A. County are considered homeless according to the latest count. Voters have put their money where their mouths are, and want the issue fixed. It’s now up to the local governments to do that.

Rich Perelman
Editor

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