sol on los

LOS ?

by Herb Patterson

New York City Traffic

LOS stands for Level of Service in traffic engineering parlance and is a measurement of the average time during a specific time period it takes to get through an intersection. ADT or Average Daily Trips is a similar term used to describe the capacity of a given roadway over a period of time. Currently we are revising our General Plan's Circulation Element as mandated by the State and necessary to modernize it. Sounds pretty boring and designed just for policy wonks, NIMBYs, and those disdained activists, but the changes proposed in the Circulation element can drastically change our City and your way of life.

The old Circulation Element has policies in place to aim for LOS C {LOS is measured from A[good] to F[worst]} and put up with D or E if there is no other option. The current Circulation Element has a provision that shuts down development around an intersection if the LOS gets too bad. The current element also has a provision that any major change in the designation of a roadway must be voted on [Encinitas currently has four roadway designations plus a freeway designation]. There is a provision that the traffic conditions be periodically evaluated. The current plan has graphs, maps, and pictorial descriptions of each roadway designation, LOS and ADT figures for major roadways, and was done in 39 pages.

The proposed New Circulation Element accepts LOS D as a baseline and allows even worse [the City has been trying to make this change for quite some time], eliminates the vote on street designation changes, the halt of development at severely impacted intersections, and the requirement that periodic traffic evaluations to be done. The new element talks about more than four street designations, but contains no definitions, no LOS maps, no ADT maps, no current or future future traffic figures. The proposed new Element does have nice color pictures and lots of feel good verbiage. It takes 59 pages to present far less real information than the old Element.

The proposed Element is not even a good start, but it does manage to give City Staff total control over traffic conditions with no safeguards what so ever. The new element gives reasons why “exceptions can be made” so that any additional traffic, regardless of how impacted an intersection or street is, can be justified.

This is not conjecture on my part, because what the City Staff are attempting was actually done in at least one instance, even while the old rules were in effect. I am referencing the shoehorning of Walgreen's into the Bank of America center at El Camino Real and Encinitas Blvd. This totally redundant business contributes additional traffic to the second worst problem intersection in Encinitas and forced unwise traffic lane changes and brought about an as yet to be resolved dispute over a center median on Encinitas Blvd. The plans of the property holders on El Camino Real to develop mixed use multi story buildings exceeding the City's thirty foot height limit in the El Camino Real corridor can't be done under the current rules [ the first most impacted intersection -yes, you guessed it – El Camino Real and Leucadia]. So if you can't do what you want under the existing rules, change them !

So why are the Staff determined to worsen our existing traffic ? They need the additional tax money and development fees to keep the bloated City bureaucracy, the overly generous retirement and health packages, the over promised Hall Park, and their own jobs afloat. Let's not forget the influence of the bought and paid for members of the City Council [Stocks and Gaspar] and the election support that candidates will receive from those benefiting from these changes.

So where does that leave you ? Well, you are going to be subsidizing this whole program with travel times, increased gas bills, and additional wear and tear on the infrastructure. If you don't think this is a good idea, let your Council member know.

Just one more thought – are the rest of the parts of the update as bad as this Element ?