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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Councilmembers Pushing Plan To Change Traffic Monitoring

Councilmembers Pushing Plan To Change Traffic Monitoring By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter With proposed transit congestion relief projects for the Valley’s highways now stalled in budget woe gridlock, two local city council representatives are pushing a plan that aims to ease traffic tie-ups elsewhere: surface streets and major corridors. On March 14, City Council Members Dennis Zine and Tom LaBonge were scheduled to introduced a motion calling for sweeping changes to the way traffic congestion on major streets across the Valley and citywide are monitored. Their “Low-Cost Traffic Mitigation Plan” includes several recommendations aimed at making it easier for commuters to use surface streets as an alternative to the major freeways, including the 101 Ventura Freeway, one of the most congested in the region. Among the list of recommendations: > A ban on street construction during peak hours of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. >Putting traffic officers, now under the direction of the city’s Department of Transportation, on a 6-2 hour schedule; for two hours of their 8-hour shift, the officers would monitor intersections and crack down on violators of traffic laws that create gridlock at major intersections. >Establishment of a 24-hour local radio broadcast offering commuters news on traffic conditions on surface streets as well as highways. >Establish a top-level post within the city’s police department to oversee traffic law enforcement. La Bonge said the plan could be implemented quickly and easily because it primarily calls for cooperation with city and governmental agencies, and a reshuffling of existing resources as opposed to hiring more city staff. “We can’t widen roads under this current budget situation like we thought was the thing to do,” said LaBonge. “And, we sure can’t build freeways, so how do you plan and operate and mitigate traffic better?” The plan calls for city partnerships with the Department of Public Works and the Department of Water and Power, for example, in which those agencies would agree to curtail construction during certain hours. Surface streets, such as Balboa Boulevard and others that run North and South across the Valley from the 118 Freeway, are being used now by commuters coming in from Santa Clarita and elsewhere, said LaBonge. As a result, they are heavily congested. Toss in roadworks projects, and things get even worse, he said. “City street traffic is affecting the quality of our lives daily and we know that if we don’t do this, we are going to lose the value of what our major streets are there for,” said LaBonge. Officials from the DWP and the Department of Public Works both declined to comment on the motion until after they had a chance to review it. The plan would be modeled on the city’s Construction Traffic Management Ordinance, passed in 1985, which established coordination of construction projects and commute times and routes for the downtown area. Deputy chief position The draft of the traffic motion, made available to the Business Journal prior to its introduction to the full council, also calls for the establishment of a deputy chief position within the Los Angeles Police department to oversee traffic law enforcement. The idea, said LaBonge, is to give a member of the LAPD more authority over traffic law enforcement. Traffic enforcement is now divided up into several divisions across the city and management by lower-ranking officers who, in many cases, also oversee other divisions. “What this would do is give someone within the LAPD a direct line to Police Chief (William) Bratton and it would make them much more accountable,” LaBonge said. If approved, the LAPD would also be required to provide the council with yearly statistics on the number of citations it issues for traffic-related offenses, including jay walking, failing to signal at an intersection and speeding. According to Deputy Chief Jim McDonnell, Bratton has completed a plan for reorganizing the LAPD’s management team, which includes allocating more resources to traffic enforcement but not the creation of a single deputy chief in charge of traffic related offenses. McDonnell declined to say whether such a position could be included in Bratton’s plan, which must still be approved by the full city council. He did say that Bratton has expressed concerns about finding low-cost ways for beefing up the city’s traffic divisions, but, with local budget cuts, he said, there are many questions as to how to do so without taking resources away from other divisions. A challenging task “All we can do is increase the emphasis on traffic so that when officers aren’t responding to other (types) of calls, we can have them focus on traffic,” said McDonnell. “With 9,000 cops to police a city this size, that’s a challenge.” McDonnell said the LAPD would gladly turn over annual reports detailing traffic offense statistics, something it has never done in the past. “If they want stats on our productivity, we can do that,” McDonnell said. ” The 6-2 hour plan for traffic officers, said LaBonge, is aimed at extending a program launched in 2002 by Mayor James Hahn, which placed white-gloved officers at busy intersections to ease traffic flow and spot violators. “They’d be assigned at many of the Valley’s busiest intersections to stop the overload and regulate traffic,” said LaBonge. “Part of their time would be working their regular beats, but during rush hours, we’d want them to take over intersections, especially those with heavy traffic in the left-hand turn lanes. Film crews have also been known to cause problems on both surface streets and highways, said LaBonge, and the plan would not rule out coordinating with departments in charge of issuing production permits to limit disruptions during peak traffic hours. “We are also going to be looking at being a little more cautious when it comes to issuing those permits,” said LaBonge.

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