TRAFFIC AND PARKING SOLUTIONS … PART 2 OF A TWO-PART SERIES-Last week I suggested that if LA incorporated PTW (Powered two wheel vehicles: motorcycles, mopeds, motor scooters) into our transportation planning there would be a very positive impact on the environment and a reduction in overall traffic congestion.
Today, in Part 2, we'll suggest exactly how PTW's can help and what the LA City Council can do, without spending a lot of tax payer money, to encourage more of the 150,000 motorcycle owners in LA County to use their motorbikes for more than recreation. With a little thought and very little money we can start to reverse some of the damaging trends that traffic congestion has on our modern lives.
It is ‘integration’ that is the key. Working together with cars, buses, bicycles and trains PTWs can have a significant roll in providing us with a less damaging powered personalized transport choice. PTWs can be very economical, take up much less space than a car and produce less pollution than most cars actually do and, even the smallest moped can offer a much reduced travel time compared to a car for many local journeys.
In part two I'll go over how LA can take advantage of a vast untapped resource and help encourage the voluntary use of PTW's to reduce traffic.
Powered Two Wheelers issues and perceptions
Arguments against the use of PTWs as part of a integrated transport policy are often based on a lack of knowledge, poor information, or biased perceptions. These preconceived idea ignore the obvious pollution and congestion defeating benefits of PTW use. However, there are real issues that exist and should be addressed.
These arguments against PTWs as a vital part of the transportation mix are primarily:
- PTW impracticality in adverse weather conditions;
- The greater noise created by some PTWs when compared to most cars;
- The exhaust emission pollution created by some PTWs;
- Few facilities for PTWs in some areas, (eg. secure parking at railway stations and within city centers);
- The increased vulnerability of PTW riders to injury, or even death in an accident;
- Encouraging the use of PTWs means more crashes and casualties.
While some of these concerns have some degree of validity there are important counter-points which need to be appreciated by transport planners and policy makers.
- LA has ideal weather for PTW usage with clear weather nearly all year long.
- Some PTW users have fit illegal after market pipes that create unacceptable levels of noise. There are current laws on the books which are not being enforced that prohibit such actions. The existing laws need to be more vigorously enforced.
- All newer PTWs meet or exceed the strictest pollution standards, often being cleaner than cars.
- The large amounts of time cars currently spend at very low speeds in congested traffic significantly increases the amount of exhaust emissions per mile traveled and greatly reduces average fuel economy.
- Providing incentives, discussed below, for PTW parking will greatly ease concerns owners have about the security of their PTWs.
- PTWs are not inherently dangerous, however their riders are more vulnerable to injury. Just as are bicyclists and walkers.
- Doing nothing to recognize the role that PTWs can play or to provide measures to assist accessibility and reduce vulnerability will result in a continuation of safety concerns
- Safer motorcycling means motorcycling considered as a full partner in a range of alternative transport modes. In urban areas the main causes of accidents in which PTWs are involved are:
- Other road users being negligent or careless to the presence of the PTW and causing an accident – the largest single cause of urban casualties.
- The PTW rider him/herself making a wrong decision or maneuver causing an accident either with another vehicle or alone.
- The road condition or infrastructure creating a situation that is dangerous to the PTW and its rider,
- Planning and policy which ignores PTWs and sustains rider vulnerability.
In all these situations the risk to the PTW rider, and others, can be dramatically reduced through ongoing training and a real understanding on the part of all authorities that PTWs can form an important part of any future integrated transport policy. Studies in Europe show that integration measures can help reduce rider vulnerability and that rider needs should be considered and addressed during all discussions and decisions on transportation matters.
Can we put the genie back in the bottle?
Keeping the use of private passenger vehicles within reasonable limits has become a global challenge. The usual way in which a transport policy tries to do this is to increase public transport services and discourage the use of the car.
This approach underestimates people’s desire to travel on their own, free of fixed timetables, routes and fellow passengers. And it is uneconomical, since all taxpayers are burdened with the increasing costs of a growing public transportation system which very often falls short of the individual’s requirements.
This approach can be viewed as ideologically blind as public transport and its attendant conformity to regulated timetables are seen as good. Private powered motorized transport, which conforms only to the freely determined individual requirements of its user, is seen as bad. The accepted ideology of social control over transport choices runs contrary to the demands of citizens to make free choices about their transport needs and is a key reason why programs to encourage mass movements from the car to walking, cycling and public transport have often had disappointing results.
Policy makers need to appreciate that the individual mobility freedom genie, which came in the 1950’s with the mass production of affordable cars and the stripping of light rail from our inter-urban corridors, cannot be put back into the bottle. Citizens now expect transport to meet their individual needs – not the other way around.
What is needed to help promote the use of PTWs -Extensive experience in the European Union, (EU), has shown that government can take several very effective actions to help promote the use of PTWs. These include:
- Allowing PTWs to use HOV and/or bus lanes
- Allow PTWs to “filter”, commonly called lane splitting
- Provide secure parking at train and bus stations
- Provide parking incentives for PTWs in congested areas
What can the City of LA do? -As noted above EU experience has shown that 4 factors are important to encouraging the use of PTWs. In California we are fortunate in that the first two, (use of HOV lanes and filtering), are already permitted by law. The remaining steps can be easily adopted as follows:
- Set aside secure areas at Metro stops for PTW parking (already being done for bicycles). Ideally, these parking areas should be close to entrances as this will further promote the use of PTWs.
- Change the LAMC to allow for the following incentives:
- Allow 10% of required parking to be PTW only parking. As development of parking spaces is very expensive the ability to meet a portion of code parking requirements with smaller “motorcycle” parking spaces may be an idea that developers will embrace. Again this had already been implemented for bicycles to encourage their use.
- Set aside PTW parking areas in City owned or operated garages with free or significantly reduced parking rates, a 50% reduction would be reasonable. PTWs take much less space than automobiles and many times motorbike parking spaces can be developed that are in areas unusable for automobiles. In such a case no parking fee would be justified.
- Allow for on street parallel PTW only spaces every couple of blocks that may be used by more than one motorbike and without any parking fee. Time limits could be set, as for cars, where necessary to ensure that all day parking was not encouraged.
- Specify that commercial parking that took advantage of the 10% allowance for PTW parking also provide such parking free or at a significantly reduced rate, (e.g. 50% less than automobile). The City could also allow that a higher percentage of PTW only parking would be permitted but that it must be free or on a sliding scale.
- Create parking design standards that are attractive yet make much more efficient use of space.
Transportation is clearly a regional issue, however, there are a number of steps the City of LA can unilaterally and inexpensively undertake that would provide incentives to help promote the voluntary use of PTWs. In the EU studies show that 10-12% of vehicles trips are made by PTWs. Even a 5% or 6% shift from single occupancy automobiles to PTWs would have a very significant and positive effect on traffic flow, pollution and congestion in LA.
Conclusion -It must be accepted that a complete and coordinated action program should be aimed at providing citizens with increasingly user-friendly means for individual mobility and with a transport system based on the real-world needs of its users.
Public transport, walking and cycling are vital components of the complete transport system, but they are not the only ones which should be politically acceptable. Therefore, a combined management strategy based both on improvements to public transport and on the integration of PTW use would prove to be far more effective than the continued blind observance of the current transport methodology.
In many European cities 10-12% of intra-city and commute transportation is via PTWs. Los Angeles is ideally suited to take advantage of the large number of PTWs that already exist but are primarily used for weekend recreational activities because of a lack of workday use incentives.
If LA could realize one half the benefit common in Europe, (a 5-6% reduction in automobile use), by providing the incentives described above we would gain:
- A significant reduction in automobile traffic and congestion.
- Reduced commute times.
- Improvements in air quality due to the reduced amount of time a vehicle is on the road with its motor running.
- A reduction in the demand for fossil fuels, through improved realized miles per gallon, due to reduced congestion and thus greater fuel economy.
- A corresponding reduction in carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other green house cases
- More efficient use of existing roads, parking and infrastructure.
- And less road wear from lighter weight vehicles.
All these benefits could be realized with little to no cost to the City of Los Angeles, no coercive actions and no new mandates. We just need to get our elected officials and transportation planners to start thinking of PTWs as a viable part of our overall transportation plan.
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CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 82
Pub: Oct 10, 2014
